This month proved to be the deadliest in Iraq since US troops pulled out of the country. Nearly 300 people have been killed in the past week, while more than 70 were slain by several car bombs last week. The killing machine claimed lives of civilians from the Shiite and Sunni communities in what seems to be an exchange of messages by militant groups. A similar polarization divides the political class whose members exchanged blame and accusations while the sounds of deadly explosions are heard in the background.

The clash is not only sectarian and personal but is also an institutional one, as exemplified by successive press conferences held by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi.  After Monday's attacks, Maliki refused Nujaifi’s calls to hold a parliamentary session to discuss the failures of the government in dealing with the security issue. Maliki said that parliament is a partner in this deterioration, urging “the members who seek to soothe the situation to avoid participation in the urgent session." He argued that such a session would be another occasion to intensify the sectarian discourse, repeatedly criticizing parliament's performance and accusing some unnamed members of using their immunity to support terrorism. Again, the prime minister threatened to uncover the names of those members and demanded to deprive them of immunity. On Tuesday, his coalition, State of Law, boycotted the session, which then became a consultative one due to the failure to reach the quorum.

After the session, Nujaifi held a press conference in which he accused Maliki of being the main reason for this deterioration and for the persistent crisis in the country. He claimed that Maliki is violating the constitution by stripping the parliament off its constitutional right to monitor the government and to hold its members accountable for their failures. He threatened to sue the prime minister because of the latter’s incitement against the parliament. “Maliki’s accusations regarding the parliament are unacceptable; it is this parliament that granted Maliki his powers to lead the country,” Nujaifi said in his press conference.

While most Iraqi politicians, including Maliki and Nujaifi, admit that the escalating security problem is related to political problems, it seems that no one has a vision about how to solve them. In fact, one should be surprised at how limited is the role played by the public institutions that were formed to peacefully manage political conflicts. While the ethno-sectarian polarization is converging with personal disputes and institutional confrontation, the political class does not seem to be equipped with the necessary state-craft to address the current crisis. The tendency to use violence is increasing especially as public institutions fail to address urgent social and political demands, and to secure broad legitimacy. Politicians are cynically willing to exploit such violence in order to obtain additional gains, even rhetorical ones.