The BBC is reporting that leaders of Shi'ite Kurdish and Sunni factions have fashioned an agreement "on collective leadership" that, according to the White House, puts them on the road toward reconcilliation.
However, the BBC hastens to add: "But nothing suggests that the rebuilding of a broad-based government is necessarily any closer, the BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Baghdad says."
Those gathered for this show of unity are politicians that are already part of Maliki's government: President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd; Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi; Shi'ite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, and Masoud Barzani, president of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
The only substance of their accord appears to be a draft law loosening the restrictions on former Baathists from participating in the military and civil service.
That there may be less than apparent to this "breakthrough" is the fact that the Sunni representative, Hashemi, said he had taken part in the talks as vice president but did not indicate his Iraqi Islamic Party was about to join the moderate Shia-Kurdish alliance.
"The news conference seems intended more give a sense of movement than to convey the substance of significant agreement," the BBC correspondent added.
That this is going to be used by the White House as garnish for General Patraeus' main course, come September is reinforced by two things that distinguish Maliki's press conference:
1) Maliki took it as an opportunity to take a swipe at Candidate Hillary Clinton and her announced skepticism that Maliki is the man for the job, and,
2) The White House is jumping on the Green Zone politico's agreement as, "an important symbol of their commitment to work together for the benefit of all Iraqis" and is already promoting the elbow-to-elbow picture of these "leaders" as a "breakthrough."
Reuters is doing their part, pointing out that timing is everything:
"The apparent breakthrough comes two weeks before U.S. President George W. Bush's top officials in Iraq present a report that could have a major influence on future American policy in Iraq."
Time will tell, of course. But, the failure of this "breakthrough" to change things for average Iraqis will come well after the Patraeus Report to Congress, and the cowing of Congressional Dems into further delay of any decisive action to cut off money for the occupation this September.