The Dangers of a Parliamentary System

The Real Cranky Yankee (really cranky these days too, apparently) certainly raises a good question about whether the new Iraqi government is actually a positive thing in the long run, though it looks okay now. From the Tribune article he links to:

"It's a sectarian government, it's not a national unity government, and the Arab Sunnis have been shunned," Mishan al-Jibouri, a Sunni delegate, said after the session. "The violence will soar, and this country will go to hell if this government remains."

I wonder how long this government will last. You know, a stable parliamentary democratic government used to be pretty rare even in Europe. Italy and Greece, for example, struggled for decades to achieve a modicum of stability, and France went through a whole bunch of Republics after the Revolution and various royal and imperial restorations. Can Iraq afford the mistakes that the Europeans made? Can we?