From Failed to Just Fragile?

"Iraq has transitioned from a “failed state” to a “fragile state,” in the felicitous phrase of Vali Nasr, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Council on Foreign Relations, who with a colleague, Stephen Biddle, recently returned from a two-week tour of Iraq. The job before the American military is now changing from counter-insurgency to peacekeeping, they say, which sounds very promising.
But this is Iraq we are talking about, and in Iraq there is usually a catch. This time is no exception. He said the major thing lacking is “a political basis for a state,” which would seem a basic problem.

Mr. Nasr outlined some of the problems: a breakdown in relations between Baghdad and the provincial governments; upcoming elections in the fall in which more than 500 splinter parties, mostly in the south, are cutting into the power of the ruling Shiite parties; confusion over whether to co-opt the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr or try to destroy him; the inability of the central government to provide a semblance of basic services. And that’s not to speak of incompetence and corruption.

“Much of what the United States is trying to accomplish depends on the Baghdad government functioning,” Mr. Nasr said, “which doesn’t seem likely for the next six months.”

Meanwhile, the search for that government’s political basis goes on."
Baghdad Bureau

Well it hasn't stopped them till now? Any excuse I guess, any excuses