THE WORLD - Key laws or no, Iraq's parliament takes a break - Legislators fail to act on measures that the U.S. sees as benchmarks of progress, including the sharing of oil revenue.

Adjourning until Sept. 4, despite complaints from some American critics, the parliament failed to pass laws concerning oil investment and revenue-sharing among regions, the re-integration of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime into government, and provincial elections.

Men in suits, Shiite clerics in white turbans and black robes, women in Western blouses and others shrouded in veils participated in the session at the 275-seat National Assembly. Some gripped their black leather briefcases in the lobby of the fortified building, which bore posters of Mohammed Awad, the lawmaker killed in an April suicide bombing at the parliament, and pictures of three slain building guards.

The lawmakers had no expectations for a dramatic reversal of the situation. Parliament had already extended its session for a month in an unsuccessful attempt to pass the legislation that the U.S. Congress has designated as benchmarks of Iraq's progress in healing its bloody sectarian divide.

Four weeks later, Iraq's politics appear as acrimonious. The 44-seat Sunni political bloc Tawafiq was boycotting the government and threatening to pull its six members from the Cabinet permanently if Prime Minister Nouri Maliki failed to meet its demands on the dissolution of militias and the release of innocent detainees. Leading Shiite lawmakers representing the majority population long oppressed under Saddam Hussein suspected that the Sunnis simply wanted to bring down the government of Maliki, a Shiite.

"The problem in Iraq is, how can we make a decision that serves all Iraqis by not just looking at one's own interests," said Aqil Abed Chali, a professor of political science at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. "Regretfully, there is a narrow-mindedness."

Such was the state of affairs when 180 lawmakers walked into parliament Monday. Some rued the lack of trust among the factions and their own standing as bit players in a drama orchestrated by power brokers outside the legislature. By the end of the three-hour session, only 130 members remained in the hall.