Update on al-Jaafari

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the thorn in the side of a functioning Iraqi government, has agreed to allow the Shiite political bloc, which nominated him as prime minister, to reconsider that nomination. As I've mentioned here before, al-Jaafari was unacceptable to Iraqi Kurds and, most importantly, Sunnis, who must be part of the political process if this democratic experiment is to succeed. While this does not, of course, mean that the political process will succeed or that the insurgency will abate any time soon, it is most definitely a critical step in the right direction (assuming of course that the Shiites decide to replace al-Jaafari. If not, all bets are off).