In Iraq, the Day After

His once perilous neighborhood was now quiet. There was neither the staccato crack of gunfire nor the dull thud of helicopters. His gate was unlocked. So was his front door.

His son, Jamal, nodded in agreement, but then offered a caveat.

"The embers are still glowing," he cautioned his father.

Mercury might best describe Iraq's politics these days, skipping, rolling and congealing, pushed and pulled by forces that always feel surreptitious and furtive.

The overarching Shiite alliance, once blessed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has crumbled. The figure of one of its leaders, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, stricken by cancer and ravaged by its treatment, seems a metaphor for its fortunes. The bloc that claimed to speak on behalf of reticent Sunnis has splintered, unable to agree on a candidate to replace the speaker of parliament, himself partial to the kundura. It faces competition from the Sons of Iraq movement, which is made up of many who have surrendered the insurgency for a seat at the table. The Shiite prime minister is rallying Sunnis against Kurds. Some of his allies are those same former insurgents.

Shiite Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurd were always facile descriptions of Iraq. Now they make hardly any sense before the constellation of combustible alliances jockeying to answer the questions at the heart of Iraqi politics today: How strong will the central government in Baghdad be, and what coalition of interests will secure power?

"The flames have disappeared. It's true," said Abboudi, the street vendor in crowded Karrada, as he sat at his well-stocked store of men's clothes. "But the war continues among the politicians. Until this moment, there is a great struggle going on among them."

In that, 2009 feels much like that April day in 2003. Then, as now, one war's end was the preamble for another, far greater struggle. Much was ambiguous and indistinct. Consequences were unintended.

Like today, it was all ghamidh.