As the Iraqis Stand Up ...

The not-quite-ready-for-primetime parliament:

The fragile state of the sectarian divide in Iraqi politics was exposed today when a fight broke out in parliament after a mobile phone ringtone played a Shia Muslim chant.

A procedural session of the Iraqi parliament was suspended as Shia and Sunni leaders stormed out to protest the ringtone and the subsequent scuffle, which erupted between the armed bodyguards of the Sunni speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani and the hardline Shia politician, Gufran al-Saidi.

The mobile phone belonged to Ms al-Saidi, who is a member of the Islamist movement led by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. According to Ms al-Saidi, one of her guards was holding her phone when it rang, playing a Shia prayer.

Mr al-Mashhadani sent one of his guards -- because of the risk of assassination in Baghdad, all Iraqi politicians come to parliament accompanied by armed men -- to ask her to turn it off. But the phone rang again, at which point a fight broke out in the lobby of the parliament building, with guards from both sides and a veiled Ms al-Saidi joining in.

Ms al-Saidi led a walkout on to the steps of the parliament building, where she told waiting television crews: "I demand an urgent investigation". She was joined by the independent MP, Mithal al-Alusi, a Sunni who leads the small Nation party, who said "those involved should be sued" and that bodyguards should be unarmed in parliament.

Yeah, they're ready to govern. We're just days away from a functioning Iraqi government, I'm sure.

Perhaps they could start small and all agree that in parliament phones needed to be set on 'vibrate', or the Iraqi national anthem, or something? How hard would that be?

Sigh.

Update: It's worse.

At Wednesday's session of parliament, when Saidi took the floor to complain at length, Mashhadani eventually ordered her microphone turned off, TV cameras shut down and the session recessed.

. . . After the session resumed behind closed doors, Mashhadani told lawmakers that his chief bodyguard had been intercepted Tuesday by a car full of gunmen, shot and wounded, lawmakers told news agencies. Mashhadani and his allies did not publicly link Tuesday's attack to Monday's brawl.

Apparently in Iraq, complaining about a ringtone can get you shot.