The Iraqi parliament approved a new government headed by Haider Abadi as prime minister on Monday night. No interior or defense minister was named but Abadi pledged to do so within a week. Adel Abdel Mehdi from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq was named oil minister while Ibrahim Jafaari, a former premier, was named foreign minister. His deputy prime ministers were named as Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd and Iraq’s only post-Saddam Hussein foreign minister, and Saleh Mutlaq, a secular Sunni Muslim who served in the same position in the last government. The parliament approved for the ceremonial posts of vice presidents the last prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, former premier Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi’ite, and the last parliament speaker Usama al-Nujaifi. The three have been seen as political rivals. Abadi, like Maliki from the Shi’ite Islamist Dawa party, pledged to mend Baghdad’s relations with Iraqi […]