The Bush administration, the secretaries-general of the United Nations and Arab League and gun-toting Arab tribesmen all welcomed the appointment yesterday of a new president of Iraq, Mr Ghazi Yawar.
His appointment, together with the naming of a cabinet under the new prime minister, Mr Iyad Allawi, came with the immediate - and unexpected - dissolution of the US-appointed Governing Council, which had been due to remain in existence until June 30th, when sovereignty is to be handed over to the interim government.
But a day of fast-moving political developments in Baghdad was marred by the bombing of the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Last night it was reported that three were killed and 20 wounded.
North of the city, a suicide bomber killed 11 Iraqis and wounded 20 in an attack on a US base.
President Bush expressed satisfaction at Mr Yawar's appointment, which the US administrator in Iraq, Mr Paul Bremer, and the UN envoy, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, opposed initially in favour of Mr Adnan Pachachi. Mr Pachachi, who was not supported by the Governing Council, broke the deadlock by declining the presidency.
Mr Bush said he looked forward to "a close relationship" with Mr Allawi, who is a secular Shia. His National Security Adviser, Ms Condoleezza Rice, was jubilant.
"Surprise, surprise - politics has broken out in Iraq," she said, praising the new cabinet. "I can tell you firmly and without any contradiction, this is a terrific list, a really good government, and we are very pleased with the names that have emerged. These are not America's puppets."
The UN secretary-general, Mr Kofi Annan, also backed the new government, which is due to hand over power to an elected government some time next year. "I think this is a new beginning. It is not an end," said Mr Annan.
The Arab League secretary-general, Mr Amr Moussa, described Mr Yawar as "an outstanding and well-known man, one of the Iraqi political personalities with a positive history".
In Mr Yawar's ancestral home in the village of Alghana, northwest Iraq, fellow tribesmen began the day glued to the television as politicians wrangled over the presidency. When they learned that Mr Pachachi had turned down the job, they erupted into noisy celebrations, singing traditional songs, dancing and firing AK-47 rifles into the air.
Mr Yawar, who is 46 and a Sunni Muslim, spent most of the past two decades living in Saudi Arabia, where he was senior executive of a technology company.