Iraq Close to Civil War - Speaker

Mahmood al-Mashhadani, the speaker of Iraq’s parliament, has warned that Iraq is close to embarking on civil war. On a visit to Syria on August 1, he also said the Iraqi parliament was trying to place a time-limit on the "American occupation". Mashhadani recently called on the United States to "stop interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs " and accused it of fomenting civil war. He also said that if the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon escalated and there was any US intervention “east or west of Iraq”, this would be “foiled in Baghdad".