The much publicized banning of 500+ candidates from the March elections in Iraq now has a new chapter – an appeals court in the Justice and Accountability Committee temporarily lifted the ban.

So to recap : VP Joe Biden recently went to Iraq to try and work something out with the Iraqi government to lift the ban placed on these candidates, stressing how the elections must be free and fair, and had limited success – only about 50 banned candidates were unbanned as a result of his engagement. But now, the issue has been seemingly rectified not through external influence and domination, but through the oversight mechanisms in the government of Iraq itself.

I’m sure that this decision being made by Iraq itself (not imposed upon Iraq) will do much to allay the concerns of electoral unfairness towards Sunni Arabs in Iraq. Interestingly though, Juan Cole attempts to express a theory on the Iraqi government’ s view of regional politics and power (specifically in regard to Iran) in the context of the banned candidates.