Al-Maliki Turns His Back on Iran, Embraces Iraqi Nationalism
By: Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli*
Iraq/Iran| 544| September 2, 2009
Introduction Nouri Kamal Al-Maliki, who became prime minister of Iraq in May 2006, was a compromise candidate. He was seen at the time as the weakest of the available candidates – a virtually unknown representative of the Islamic Al-Da'wa Party, at the time a junior partner in the predominantly Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). The occupying power, the United States, favored him because of his reputation as "independent of Iran," as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalman Khalilzad put it.(1)
As the former UIA members began to negotiate the makeup and direction of their coalition for the 2010 elections, Al-Maliki presented them with conditions for his joining their coalition. The most important of these conditions are the following: First, Al-Maliki demanded 50 percent of the seats on the list, reflecting the strength of his State of Law platform in the provincial elections; second, he wanted to head the list, and thus serve another term as prime minister in the event of a victory in the elections. In the 2005 elections, the UIA won 130 out of 272 parliamentary seats, and was therefore able to form a government with the Kurdish parties. In addition, Al-Maliki presented the following conditions: * It must do away with the has-hasah system (a quota system of distributing the spoils of victory based on sectarian criteria) * It must ban the Sadrist movement, and former prime minister Ibrahim Al-Ja'fari, from responsible positions.(3)
Al-Maliki's conditions for joining were rejected, and his Al-Da'wa Party is not included in the old/new Shi'ite coalition whose formation was publicly announced on August 24, 2009.(4) This coalition, named "Al-I'tilaf Al-Watani Al-'Iraqi" (Iraqi National Coalition or INC), comprises the Supreme Islamic Council; the Badr Organization (a militia affiliated with the Supreme Council); the Sadrist Movement; the National Reform movement headed by former prime minister Ibrahim Al-Ja'fari; a splinter group from Al-Da'wa Party; the National Congress headed by Dr. Ahmad Chalabi (who did not win even a single seat in parliament in the previous elections); and an assortment of other political groups and individuals from various provinces in Iraq.(5)
On August 18, Nouri Al-Maliki made an official visit to Damascus to discuss the relations between the two countries, including economic and security issues. In the words of Iraqi columnist Daoud Al-Basri of the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, who is well-informed about Iraqi politics, Al-Maliki presented Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad with a mouthwatering package of deals and incentives in the fields of trade and oil. However, the package also included a list of 271 Ba'thist Iraqi leaders who reside in Syria and are allegedly involved in terrorist activities in Iraq, whom Al-Maliki wanted Syria to extradite. According to Al-Basri, upon hearing this request, Assad shot back that he would not surrender a single individual, not even for $100 million. He told Al-Maliki to take his papers and leave.(6) The joint Syrian-Iraqi communiqué issued after the meeting praised its outcomes and emphasized the establishment of a joint Strategic Council at the level of prime ministers which will meet twice a year to discuss the mutual collaboration between the two countries in the political, diplomatic, economic, military, energy, financial and educational spheres. The August 19, 2009 Baghdad Bombings – First Attacks on Iraqi State Institutions Less than 24 hours after the meeting between Assad and Al-Maliki, a series of massive explosions shook the Iraqi capital. Unlike previous bombings, which targeted one or another of the social/religious groups in Iraq, these targeted the Finance and Foreign Affairs ministries, known as "sovereign ministries." These were politically motivated bombings, striking at the heart of the Al-Maliki government with the aim of undermining its legitimacy. As pointed out by columnist Sabah Ali Al-Shaher in the daily Al-Zaman, these bombings, no matter who was behind them, delivered a severe blow to the credibility of the Iraqi government, which was constantly boasting that terrorism in Iraq was drawing its last gasps. To quote Al-Shaher, they "exposed the nakedness of the government and the weakness of its security apparatuses which are not only incompetent but are steeped in corruption and bribery."(7)
Immediately after the bombings, Iraq arrested one of the suspected perpetrators, who was allegedly working for Iraqi Ba'thists in Damascus. This led Iraq to demand the extradition of two Iraqi Ba'thist leaders living in Syria, Muhammad Younis Al-Ahmad and Sattam Farhan, who were suspected of planning the bombings. (8) Iraqi government spokesman 'Ali Al-Dabbagh said that Iraq had, on numerous occasions, demanded the extradition of individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism against it – but that Syria responded by evading the issue and dragging its feet. Syria, Al-Dabbagh added, needs to choose "between maintaining good relations with Iraq and protecting those who seek to harm it."
Prior to the recall of the Iraqi ambassador from Damascus, Yassin Majid, editor-in-chief of the Iraqi daily Al-Bayan and public relations advisor to Al-Maliki, published an editorial titled "The Gifts of Brothers." In it, he complained that Syria had become a rear-guard base for the destruction of Iraq, "with or without the full knowledge of the Syrian officials." He emphasized, however, that it was highly unlikely that Syrian intelligence was unaware of the plans concocted by Iraqi Ba'thists residing in Syria (including perhaps the most senior survivor of the Saddam Hussein regime, former vice president 'Izzat Al-Douri). The brothers in Damascus, Majid continued, deny any knowledge of "the gifts of death" that enter Iraq across their border, and swear they know nothing about the Ba'thist plans or about the allegations against Muhammad Younis Al-Ahmad, suspected of planning the August 19 bombings. Majid also reminded his readers that, "not long ago, Syria denied [harboring] Abdullah Ojalan, head of anti-Turkish terrorist group PKK..." who was only expelled from the country after Turkey threatened Syria with military action.(12)
In light of mounting conflict between the two countries and the escalation of the mutual insults, as Al-Sharq Al-Awsat called it,(14) Turkey sent its foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, to Baghdad and Damascus to mediate between the two sides. The Iran-Syria Axis and the Violence in Iraq Ironically, the August 19 bombings in Iraq coincided with the arrival of Bashar Al-Assad in Tehran. The ostensible purpose of Assad's visit was to congratulate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his reelection to the presidency. However, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa stated, citing British sources, that the real reason for the visit was Assad's frustration over the waning of Obama's initiative for rapprochement with Syria, as evident from the U.S.'s failure to nominate an American ambassador to Syria, and by its extension of the economic sanctions on this country for another year, which took Assad by surprise. Driven by frustration, Assad, according to Al-Basri, may have decided to unleash violence in Iraq and place hurdles on the formation of a new government in Lebanon. (18)
If Syria is indeed behind the massive violence in Iraq, the intriguing question is why Iran permits this involvement, tacitly or otherwise. The answer may lie with the formation of the new Shi'ite coalition mentioned above, which Al-Maliki has so far refused to join. Iran must be annoyed with Al-Maliki's oft-repeated statements about his program to establish a new nationalist coalition as an alternative to the sectarian one headed by the Supreme Islamic Council, which is overwhelmingly Shi'ite and has the support of Iran. In fact, Syria may have instigated the bombings as a proxy for Iran that wishes to warn Al-Maliki against going too far. These bombings were, at the very least, a serious blow to Al-Maliki's prestige, since they enabled his opponents to present his government as incapable of dealing with the security challenges facing Iraq.
There is also a political risk facing Al-Maliki, namely a risk that his former partners in the United Iraqi Alliance (which has become the United National Alliance) may outmaneuver him in parliament and bring down his government, perhaps even before the elections take place.(20) While he will still be able to run in the elections (on the State of Law platform), the reality is that if he runs as a former prime minister, rather than as prime minister, some of his potential partners are likely to regard him as a less attractive candidate. Certainly, he will have less money at his disposal to dole out to existing and potential supporters. Nouri Al-Maliki is clearly a skilled politician, who has risen from obscurity to prominence thanks to his ability to work the tangled Iraqi political scene. There are a number of factors that will work in his favor should he decide to put together a national coalition to compete head-on with the new coalition of the Supreme Islamic Council:
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Special Dispatch | No. 2516 | September 2, 2009 Iran Prominent Iranian Ayatollah Yousef Sanei Criticizes Iranian Leadership over Handling of Protests | |||||
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Did Mousavi Really Intend to Topple the Regime? Ayatollah Yousef Sanei: "Look what has become of the friends of Imam [Khomeini]. They have become martyrs one after the other. Some of those people, who were among the regime's top officials, are today in prison for wanting to change the regime. Is this conceivable? "The Emir of the Believers [Ali bin Abi Talib] said that if someone is imprisoned and pressure is exerted to get him to confess, his confession is invalid if he was intimidated. Extracting a confession means keeping the person away from the outside world. I hereby declare: If somebody confesses when he has no contact with the outside world – no newspapers, no radio, no visits – according to the Emir of the Believers, about who we talk so much, and who is used by [some of] us for their own interests, this confession is not an honorable one, and it is worthless."[...]
"So many unspeakable deeds have been committed, in the name of the constitution and in the name of Islam. What are we doing to Imam [Khomeini]? Young people, what is happening now is contrary to the conduct of the Imam. "The Islamic regime has to behave well, at least toward those who labored on its behalf. Those are the basics of politics. But what can we do? God has taken away their brains. Praise the Lord for making our enemies stupid. "Woe unto a people that talks about anything but its own pain. The pain is the pain of the prisoners being held by the oppressors, of those who lost weight [in prison]. They make jokes and say: [Abtahi] has been to a sauna. The pain is the pain of those whose confessions were extracted by force. The pain is the pain of those who cannot pray over the bodies of their loved ones." "Thank God we do not share even one iota of the sins of these 'gentlemen.' Praise be to God! These are the sins of killing, of exerting pressure, of torture. Any one of these sins merits eternal hell. 'Whoever murders a believer – his punishment is eternal hell."' |