More than eight months after national elections, Iraq finally has a new government — and it looks a lot like the old one. A parliamentary session Thursday night gave the job of speaker to Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni Arab member of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya list. That was the first step of a political deal that saw the legislature re-elect as President Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, who then tapped incumbent Nouri al-Maliki for a second term as Prime Minister. Al-Maliki has 30 days to assemble a Cabinet, a herculean task given the multiple political horse trades and ongoing tensions involved in securing his re-election.
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