Always looking on the bright side

What was the point of Mr Blair's trip to Iraq yesterday? Did he achieve anything? The Independent sets out some of the hard truths:

"Mr Blair said "we have a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries". Unfortunately that is exactly what we do not have. The five months it has taken to form a government since the election for the Iraqi parliament on 15 December shows the depth of existing divisions. This government has a Minister of Tourism but, as yet, no Minister of the Interior or Defence, the two
crucial jobs in a country torn apart by war.
In the two parliamentary elections and a referendum on the constitution in 2005, Iraqis voted along strictly sectarian or ethnic lines. The Shia and Sunni religious parties and the Kurdish coalition triumphed; secular and nationalist candidates performed dismally. The new constitution shifting power to Kurdish and Shia super-regions with control over new oil discoveries means that, in future, Iraq will be largely a geographical expression.
So divided is the new government that each ministry becomes the fief of the party that holds it. The ministries are, in practice, patronage machines employing only party loyalists. They are milked for money, jobs and contracts. Ministers cannot be dismissed for incompetence or corruption, however gross, because it would lead to the deal between the parties and communities unravelling. (The government has become a sort of bureaucratic feudalism with each ministry presided over by an independent chieftain.)

None of which takes us any further as to the best way forward. But some honesty on the part of the prime Minister would not go amiss.