After boiling over in late August, Iraqi politics is simmering away again. The main camps remain in deadlock, but are for now refraining from taking to the streets after last week’s violence that saw 30 dead and around 600 injured (MEES, 2 September). In a bid to ease the tensions the country’s Parliament Speaker and influential Sunni politician, Mohammed al-Halbousi, put forward a 10-point proposal on 4 September that may provide a way out of the crisis (see table).