Iraq's newly elected parliament is finding out something Americans have known for a long time: democracy is not always clean and neat. Today, Iraq's parliament failed to elect a speaker in a loud, chaotic session that showed the deep divisions between ethnic groups and saw both the interim prime minister and the president angrily leaving the session.

The parliament session was cut short. First, the live television feed was ended. Then, the parliament ended up adjourning until the weekend.

Hussein al-Sadr, a Shiite aligned with interim Prime Minister Allawi told reporters, 'We saw that things were confused today, so we gave them a last chance. We expect the Sunni Arab brothers to nominate their candidate. Otherwise, we will vote on a candidate on Sunday.'

It has been two months since the historic Iraqi elections were held on January 30 but a new prime minister has yet to be named as the various coalitions have failed to agree on any one candidate. There are also disagreements over cabinet posts and how to have each ethnic group involved in power sharing.

The government must still deal with the insurgency and its lack of capable security forces.

So Iraqis have discovered that democracy is not always easy. What a wonderful thing that is to learn.