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Al-Maliki shakes up Iraqi politics
Comment
Jonathan Steele
WHAT’S up with Nuri Al-Maliki? As security anxieties subside in
this slowly calming city, political speculation has rarely been so
intense. First, it was Al-Maliki’s demand that all US troops leave
Iraq by the end of 2011. Then came signs that his government wants
to undermine the Sunni tribal militias, known as the Awakening
Councils, on whom the Americans have relied to defeat Al-Qaeda in
Iraq. Now there are moves to take on the powerful Kurdish peshmerga
troops and push them out of disputed areas in the strategic central
province of Diyala.
Why is the prime minister doing this? Is “the puppet breaking his
strings”, as one Arab newspaper put it? Or is the more appropriate
metaphor “dropAl-ping the mask”? Those who knew Al-Maliki in exile
in Syria during Saddam Hussein’s time now recall that he opposed the
US-led invasion. His Daawa party did not attend the eve-of-invasion
conference of US- and UK-supported exiles in London, and he opposed
the party’s decision six months later to join the handpicked
“governing council” set up by the first occupation overlord, Paul
Bremer. Al-Maliki’s new line has discomforted the Americans.
Some officials put on a brave face, saying it is a sign of Iraqi
confidence in their own sovereignty, a development that, of course,
they support as proof that the Bush administration’s strategy of
rebuilding a proud country is succeeding. Others say it reflects
overconfidence, even hubris, as Iraq is a long way from being able
to survive without US military protection.
Either way, playing the nationalist card has huge potential
consequences in Iraq. With provincial and parliamentary elections
expected next year, it will sharpen the struggle for dominance in
the Shiite community. It is designed to undercut the appeal of the
radical cleric Moqtada Sadr, a consistent opponent of the occupation
who is re-profiling his movement on the lines of Lebanon’s
Hezbollah. Its Mehdi Army militia will be slimmed into a group of
experienced resistance fighters, kept in reserve for action against
US troops rather than to fight Iraqi Sunnis, while the rest of the
movement goes into communal politics.
Posing as the nationalist who managed to get the US to accept a
timetable for withdrawal (the tense negotiations could yet founder)
allows Al-Maliki to distance himself from his main Shiite allies in
government, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), seen as keen
backers of the occupation. It also diverts attention from the
chronic power cuts and other economic troubles. Every government has
to fight on its record in office, but, by turning himself into a
patriotic Iraqi hero, Al-Maliki may sidestep this.
Some observers suggest he may even go to the elections on a “prime
minister’s list”, to redefine himself as no longer a Shiite or a
political Islamist, so as to win support from Iraq’s secular and
nonsectarian urban middle class. But there are uncomfortable echoes
here of the effort by Iyad Allawi, the prime minister appointed by
the US in 2004, to project himself in the December 2005 elections as
a strong man. His vote total fell a long way below his expectations.
But if Al-Maliki wants to present a new image as a man who stands up
to the Americans, why does he choose this moment to go after Sunnis
and Kurds? The principle of disarming all militias, and not just
those of his Shiite rivals, such as Sadr, may be laudable but the
timing is highly risky and threatens to overload the circuits. Going
after the Sunnis and Kurds may fail, dooming Al-Maliki to defeat.
Many Sunnis already believe he is a tool of the Iranians. Now they
say his sudden anti-Americanism is no proof of Iraqi patriotism, but
just shows he is a tool of Tehran.
The Iranians want the US out of Iraq, not only in order to undermine
US credibility in the region. They interpret Washington’s support
for the Awakening Councils as a tilt toward the Sunnis and an effort
to rebalance Iraqi politics from the Shiite dominance of the early
post-invasion period.
Al-Maliki’s tough stance toward the US could doom him personally.
The US toppled his predecessor, Ibrahim Jaaferi, and, even though US
power in Iraq has declined since then, it may find a way to remove
Al-Maliki too. It would not demand that the prime minister go, as it
did in 2006, but could undermine his parliamentary majority.
The US has alternative candidates, including the ambitious vice
president, Adel Abdel Mahdi, and the Sunni defense minister, Abdul
Qader Al-Obeidi, who told the New York Times in January that US
troops would be needed for another 10 years.
Whatever his motives, Al-Maliki’s move has certainly shaken up Iraqi
politics and forced the issue of a clear US departure timetable on
to the agenda. The Iraqi prime minister has put Bush and McCain on
to the back foot, and given help to Obama. Whether Al-Maliki or Bush
blinks first remains to be seen.
— The Guardian
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