Rival Accepts Deal, Clearing Path for Maliki to Rule in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Ayad Allawi, who years ago fought off ax-wielding assassins dispatched to London by Saddam Hussein’s secret police, is not a man to concede defeat easily. And he still would not — exactly — on Wednesday.Mr. Allawi did so grudgingly and with conditions, warning that an agreement brokered by the United States to form a broad power-sharing coalition government under Mr. Maliki’s leadership could still unravel.Defeat has come nevertheless, and so has acceptance, perhaps inevitably.

More than nine months after Iraq’s election propelled him to the brink of toppling his main political rival, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and a month after he vowed he would not join Mr. Maliki’s new government, Mr. Allawi indicated on Wednesday that he would join it after all. That appeared to remove the last major obstacle to Mr. Maliki’s formation of a new government, something he must do by law before Dec. 25.

Rival Accepts Deal, Clearing Path for Maliki to Rule in Iraq - NYTimes.com

Extending Bush-era Tax Cuts

Washington (CNN) -- Top senators from both parties indicated Sunday that a deal was likely soon on temporarily extending Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans, along with unemployment benefits that have expired.

However, Republican senators made clear they are unlikely to budge in their opposition to other Democratic priorities in the final weeks of the lame-duck session of Congress that ends in early January.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, told the NBC program "Face the Nation" he was "optimistic" about an agreement on the tax rates and jobless benefits, but added there likely wasn't time for the Senate to ratify a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia or complete work on a major defense bill that includes repeal of the "don't ask, don' tell" policy banning openly gay and lesbian soldiers.

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