Well, Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim does not at all appear to have many supporters, even if he has a well-oiled political machine (see my separate comment on SCIRI), and those Shiites who do support al-Hakim’s “southern federalism” scheme seem to be limited precisely to his followers. In a parliamentary vote on a draft federalism law that sets up a mechanism for creating regions this past October, the draft squeaked by on the combined votes of SCIRI and their Kurdish partners (the Kurds want to get Kirkuk in exchange for their help) and a few secular Shiite defectors who favor the principle of federalism but don’t care too much about its nature or the mechanisms by which regions are to be established.

My bet: the law will never be implemented, because aside from Sunni Arabs, most Shiites (the Sadrists, Fadhila, the Da’wa splinters, Sistani followers, and many seculars) are dead-set against it. But the debate alone has inflamed sectarian tensions, and will continue to do so as long as SCIRI continues to talk about setting up a “Shia-stan”.

This is rather like expecting a freshman Republican congressman to “suppress” Grover Norquist, and instead of serving as a useful recommendation, it only mirrors the tortured contradictions at the heart of the administration’s policy in Iraq. How is Maliki to suppress his own political sponsor? We are not told, only reminded that it would be a good thing to do, even the most important thing to do.

This whole line of “analysis” reminds me of nothing so much as Graham Greene’s skewering of U.S. attempts to build up a “third way” strongman in “The Quiet American.” It has about as much hope of success.