Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a national security consultant at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Good news everybody! The main Sunni Arab parliamentary bloc, Tawafuq, is rejoining the Maliki government after a nine month long boycott. The bloc cited the favorable implementation of the recently-passed amnesty law and the crackdown on Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia as the main reasons for its decision to re-up with Maliki. Tawafuq’s justification is especially ironic given the fact that it partnered with Sadr’s parliamentary bloc to pass the amnesty law.

While Tawafuq’s return is a positive development in Iraqi politics, it remains to be seen whether it will have any long-term impact. After all, Tawafuq was a member of the Maliki government during the worst of the sectarian violence during 2006 and 2007. Its presence seemed to do little to move toward meaningful political progress then, and as noted key legislative initiatives were passed when it was outside government.

More important, however, is the extent to which Tawafuq actually represents Iraq’s Sunni Arabs. With the rise of the Awakening movement, Sunni politics have become more fractured. These tribal and insurgent groups are not answerable to the bloc and are seeking to enter politics on their own terms, if at all. Members of the Anbar Awakening have even threatened to fight members of the Tawafuq bloc. So Tawafuq’s return to the Maliki government does not augur full-blow Sunni-Shi’a reconciliation.

Tawafuq’s primary motivation in returning to government may be to politically outmaneuver the Awakenings, who are poised to take power in provincial elections later this year. In this respect, Tawafuq’s return may lead to heightened intra-Sunni tensions as the bloc seeks to consolidate its power at the national level and the newly-empowered Awakenings seek increased devolution of authority to local levels.

Yesterday, the Bush administration released images of a Syrian nuclear reactor, destroyed last September by Israel, that it says was built with the help of North Korea. Hours before releasing the photos to the public, the administration briefed the House Intelligence Committee. Before yesterday, only a handful of “crucial members of Congress” had received “highly classified” briefings on the subject.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) blasted the administration yesterday, saying the briefing came “eight months later than what it should have been,” and said that trust betweeen Congress and the White House “does not exist.” Today on Fox News, he repeated his criticism, calling the timed — and selective — release “a massive spin operation by the administration” of which “Bill O’Reilly would have been proud.”

Watch it:

Fox’s Bill Hemmer grew visible annoyed by Hoekstra’s questioning of the administration’s motives, calling it “quite a charge” and insisting that “there is a perfectly good reason” for the selective and tardy release of information.

As Hoekstra should know, the Bush administration’s modus operandi is to keep Congress in the dark on many of the most important issues:

– The administration insists it does not need Congressional approval for a long-term force agreement with Iraq.

– The administation refuses to testify to Congress on the U.S. attorneys it summarily fired for political reasons.

– The administration dragged its feet on briefing Congress about the warantless wiretapping program.

– The administration instructed the Attorney General to stonewall Congress on discussing torture or the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes.

Considering the White House has even refused to show Congress documents relating to former NLF star Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan, why is Hoekstra surprised it refused to brief Congress for eight months on nuclear weapons proliferation?