What is happening in Iraq reveals that the “blocking third” approach is an “Iranian strategy” that has been successfully tried in Lebanon, and now it is being applied in Iraq. They are talking about “the birth of the blocking third imported from the “Lebanese model,” and they added: “Because of the obstructing third, the country is entering a constitutional vacuum, due to the inability of any party to collect two-thirds of the votes.”

The theory of the “blocking third” being promoted these days by the Shiite “coordinating framework” forces, is based on the idea that the parliament session cannot be held to vote on the position of the President of the Republic, if the two-thirds quorum is not reached, which means 220 out of 329 deputies. This means that the losing political minority can monopolize the parliamentary decision, and disrupt its work and constitutional deadlines, including the election of the president first, and secondly the choice of the Prime Minister, who is nominated by the majority.

The ‘blocking third’ model, used these days in Iraq, was previously used in Lebanon on more than one station:

The ‘blocking third’ brought down the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri in 2011, when he was meeting with US President Barack Obama. He entered the government and left it because the “blocking third” brought down his government by ten ministers announcing their resignation from General Michel Aoun’s house in Rabieh. Adnan al-Sayyid Hussein, who was supposed to be the “minister king,” left the “throne” and joined the blocking third as well. Since that date, all the governments has been formed in Lebanon with a blocking third, which Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem calls the “guarantor third” (which ensures that no decision is taken if the ‘blocking third’, which is Hezbollah, does not agree on it).

There is a narrative that says that the ‘blocking third’ was “agreed upon” at the Doha Conference following Hezbollah’s “invasion” of Beirut in May 2008, which led to the so-called “Doha Agreement” and the election of General Michel Suleiman as President of the Republic. But there are no facts to prove this “claim,” because talking about an “agreement” in Doha on the blocking third means a clear violation of the Taif Agreement, which has become a constitution. What is happening in Iraq proves that the ‘blocking third’ is a Shiite innovation, originating from Iran, provided that the intimidation of the blocking third in Iraq today did not result from an agreement in Doha.

This is how Iran is trying to seize the Iraqi decision through the ‘blocking third’, just as it has done in Lebanon since 2008 and is still doing. Either the entire government, as is the case today, or the blocking third, as is the case of successive governments since the post-Doha agreement government.