When Congress leaves the Capitol for a month, as it will next week, it’s very clear that the event is not supposed to be called a vacation.

It’s a District Work Period, because the people’s business is always on Congress’ mind.

When the Iraqi parliament leaves its building for a month, as it did this week, it’s less clear what the experience is called.

Survival?

Whatever it says on the Baghdad legislative calendar, the Iraqi parliament’s role as a beacon of representative democracy to the entire Middle East – or at least as a place to read newspapers protected by the American military – is on hold for a month. Originally, of course, the parliamentarians’ plan was to leave for two months, but strong objections from the government’s key constituents – the ones in the White House – cut the vacation down to a month.

The parliament will be back Sept. 4, right after Iraq’s traditional Labor Day picnics.

Just as members of Congress are eager to get out of Washington in August, you can see why Iraqi parliamentarians want to leave Baghdad, where the climate is even worse and the electricity is on for only one hour a day – although the U.S. government recently stopped announcing the electricity hours for Baghdad, on the grounds that the number was, well, a downer.

Still, looking at how members of Congress spend their Augusts, it’s unclear just what the Iraqi lawmakers will be doing. Members of Congress try to make as many public appearances as possible; Iraqi lawmakers prefer to keep their presence pretty quiet.

After all, public events in Iraq tend to be rather explosive.

Iraqi legislators probably don’t attend many interfaith prayer breakfasts. These days, they don’t spend much time dedicating tourism projects.

They probably don’t go to many political fundraising events, since Iraqi lawmakers don’t really represent parties as much as religious or ethnic blocs.

Maybe they go to bloc parties.

They certainly don’t go for what’s become a regular feature of congressional recesses: the eight-hour inspection tour of Baghdad, followed by multiple television appearances to share insights on the war.

Perhaps the Iraqis will be pondering the legislative achievements of their previous session. There was no passage, or even introduction, of constitutional changes that were promised to get all groups to join the political process, or a law to share oil revenues among the different parts of the country.

The parliament did debate, and endorse, international agreements on olive oil and tobacco and last week extensively debated whether women playing sports should have to wear veils.

(Actually, last year’s Republican House of Representatives may have had the same debate.)

“We do not have anything to discuss in the parliament, no laws or constitutional amendments, nothing from the government,” Kurdish member Mahmoud Othman told Reuters. “Differences between the political factions have delayed the laws.”

And that’s when parliament isn’t on vacation.

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker keeps telling the Iraqis “the Washington clock is running a lot faster than the Baghdad clock is” – maybe because the Baghdad clock seems to be stopped.

Iraqi legislators could spend the time considering what awaits them on their return.

Five Shiite Cabinet ministers left the government in April and have never been replaced. Now, six Sunni ministers are threatening to leave if the government doesn’t respond to demands for better security and a voice in government decisions.

“We gave the government a good chance by continuing to sit in July. We can still return for an emergency session if that’s required, but I don’t think that this is necessary because the draft legislation is not complete,” said Sunni spokesman Salem Abdullah.

On Tuesday, the leader of the Kurdish autonomous region warned that if the government doesn’t clear up control of the city of Kirkuk, the result would be “a real civil war.”

This is the government that U.S. troops are fighting in the streets to uphold.

Aside from issues of scheduling and activities, there seems to be one more major question about the Iraqi parliament going on vacation:

How can you tell?

David Sarasohn is an associate editor at The Oregonian of Portland, Ore.