Iraq’s newly elected legislature failed to agree on a new parliament speaker during its second seating on Sunday, further extending a political impasse that has dashed hopes of reaching a political resolution to the worst security crisis to afflict the country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Parliamentarians met briefly on Sunday morning but adjourned almost immediately after Mehdi Hafez, the legislature’s interim speaker, announced that deputies hadn’t yet reached an agreement on a new speaker. The next session will be held on Tuesday, he said. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Baghdad on June 23. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images U.S. diplomats and other international observers have urged Iraqi politicians to reach a hasty agreement over the parliament speaker, the president and the prime minister—the so-called “presidencies” who are traditionally split between Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Shiite Arabs, respectively. But the abiding […]