Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw flew into Baghdad to deliver a message to Iraqi politicians: Agree on a candidate who can obtain the two-thirds vote required to become PM and form a national unity government capable of stamping out Iraq’s incipient civil war.

If any proof was needed of the gravity of that counsel, it was March 2 toll of Iraqi civilians: More than 50 were found dead and Iraqis are being murdered merely for being Sunni Arab or Shi’ite.

Some of Iraq’s factional leaders have complained that the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been meddling improperly in Iraqi politics. What Khalilzad and Rice should not be doing is to try to dictate to Iraqis their choice of a PM. This is what Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of an influential pro-Iranian party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Republic in Iraq, accused Khalilzad of doing.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the current PM, has been a weak leader and is now allied with the thuggish clerical demagogue Moqtada al-Sadr. Nevertheless, it is not Bush’s place to select the head of a government elected by Iraqis. Jaafari’s replacement should not owe his power to the White Ho-use. Iraqis may need American and British help for a little while longer, but ultimately Iraq’s elected leaders will have to save their own compatriots from the inferno of civil war.