Ghazi al-Yawar

Here's an article on the negotiations of a transitional government from April 2004 in The Christian Science Monitor... would this be considered "ironic"?

But today, Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN's Iraq envoy, is writing a transition plan for Iraq that, if he gets his way, will freeze Governing Council members out of Iraq's transitional government.

To council member Ghazi al-Yawar, the conclusion is simple. "We've failed,'' he says. With a trace of disgust, he complains that a sectarian council, more focused on survival than on serious issues, has simply added to the country's problems.

"We sit in the council while the country is burning and argue over procedure,'' says Sheikh Yawar, a Sunni tribal leader who lived abroad until last year. "We're like the Byzantines in Constantinople, debating whether angels are male or female with the barbarians at the gate."