Iraqi athletes won't be participating in the Beijing Olympics this August, the International Olympic Committee has announced.

Why? Politics.

The IOC, the Games' governing body, has in its charter that a country's own Olympic committee must be free of political influences and it felt Iraq's didn't meet this requirement.

Back in May of this year, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki disbanded the Iraqi Olympic Committee and appointed an interim committee in its place. Since this violated the aforementioned charter, the IOC didn't recognize this new committee and gave a deadline for Iraq to address this issue, which they failed to meet.

Now, Iraq's athletes are locked out of the four of the five events they planned on participating: judo, archery, wrestling, and rowing.

They can still make the July 31 deadline to field a track and field team but that may be unlikely given the Iraqi government's stance.