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By Isra' al-Rubei'i and Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi politicians named a moderate Sunni Islamist as speaker of parliament on Tuesday, a long-delayed first step towards a power-sharing government urgently needed to save the state from disintegration in the face of a Sunni uprising. Iraq's army and allied Shi'ite militia launched an assault to retake the executed former dictator Saddam Hussein's home city Tikrit from the al Qaeda offshoot known as the Islamic State and allied militants, who seized it in mid-June during a lightning assault through the north. The stunning advance by the militants over the past month has put Iraq's very survival in jeopardy even as its politicians have been deadlocked over forming a new government since an election in April.More...