Holiday in Baghdad

The leaders of Iraq's main sectarian factions will meet this week to try to resolve the political impasse that has stalled key legislation. 

Parliament has gone into recess until September 4, largely because there is no agreed draft on key issues such as an oil sharing and de-Baathification for MPs to consider.  This does not play well in the United States, whose troops are not taking a summer recess from fighting.  It will nourish growing opposition to the war among US lawmakers, who could refuse to fund it. There will be plenty weighing on President George Bush's mind as he retreats to Texas to clear brush: he knows he faces intense questioning in September on the progress of the security surge, which is designed to provide space for Iraqi politicians to make precisely the kind of progress that has so far eluded them.

The politicians' endeavours have not been made any easier by the recent withdrawal of the Iraq Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition, following in the footsteps of the Sadr bloc. Maliki's opponents are not strong enough to unseat him and his allies are too divided to reach agreement on an alternative. The Iraq quagmire deepens.