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BAGHDAD — Iraq’s political process was unraveling Saturday, with Sunni politicians walking out of the nation’s parliament and threatening to resign from the government even before the last U.S. troops had left the country.
The crisis was triggered by reports that security forces loyal to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, planned to arrest the country’s Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, and charge him with terrorism.
Those reports have fueled fears among Sunni politicians that Maliki intends to further consolidate his grip on power by moving against his rivals now that U.S. troops have gone. The mostly Sunni Iraqiya bloc said it had withdrawn from parliament to protest what it called Maliki’s increasingly dictatorial behavior.
