Political Review - realoutlook.com

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s stand against Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army is essential to establishing the political authority of the popularly elected Iraqi government. Anything less would result in the Lebanization of the country mirroring the chaos of competing militias that has plagued the Lebanese and Palestinians for decades. It also sends notice that the Maliki government will take the initiative against Shiite militants just as the Coalition Forces have against Sunni militants.

While much of the early media reports emphasized that more than a thousand Iraqi Security Forces [ISF] abandoned their posts the effort has forced Sadr to call off militants in the Mahdi Army, demonstrating that the bulk of the ISF is capable of confronting militants in this first engagement of such scale initiated by the Iraqi Government.

What seems to be lost amongst the various Maliki detractors is the incredible political balancing act the Iraqi Prime Minister has been able to navigate. He has been repeatedly castigated by Democrats in Congress and other Western leaders, the media in the United States and Europe, along with others as being an ineffectual leader unable to organize a coalition capable of sustaining a presence that would ever be able to exist in the absence of U.S. Forces. Both Sunni and Shiite insurgents condemn him and his cabinet as puppets of that American occupiers. His Arab neighbors have not only failed to give him the diplomatic recognition he has coveted they have done little to thwart the traffic of insurgents and munitions that originate from their countries. Meanwhile, they have embassies in Iran who, with the exception of Syria, they condemn for sponsoring insurgencies across the Middle East and for their relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons. All this in addition to the physical threats he and his government has faced from insurgents since taking over from the transitional government in 2006.

Malaki’s rise to power came after it became apparent that the United Iraqi Alliance selection, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, was ineffective and unable to garner any support from Kurdish or Sunni factions. On April 22, 2006, he would be named prime minister-designate by President Jalal Talabani, who is also General Secretary of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Maliki has long been a member of the Islamic Dawa Party and is now it’s secretary-general. He was sentenced to death by Saddam Hussein for participation in the party’s stated goals of overthrowing Saddam’s regime in favor of a Islamic State. Ironically, the Islamic Dawa Party was founded by none other than the revered Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, father-in-law of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Maliki, like legions of political activists opposed to Saddam’s regime, lived in exile in both Shiite dominated Iraq and Sunni dominated Syria where he became chairman of the Joint Action Committee that would lead to the formation of the Iraqi National Congress [INC]. The INC was a coalition of anti-Saddam groups assisted by the CIA since the early 1990’s that brought together Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis representing a wide variety of political agendas. After the fall of Saddam and the formation of the Iraqi Government became a reality, competing factions received support from outside interest rather than the Iraqi Government itself. As such the allegations that Iran supports and trains radical Shiite groups is just as true as the allegations that the Saudis supported radical Sunni Groups leaving Coalition forces and the government as targets for both.

The U.S. State Department expected that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States would forgive the massive dept Iraq accumulated during the 8 year war that began with Saddam’s invasion of Iraq in 1980. They would be sorely disappointed. Worse yet, in April of 2007 King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia declined to meet Prime Minister Maliki before a regional summit the purpose of which was to discuss the future of Iraq. Prior to the conference, the Saudis had agreed to forgive 80% of the debt. As it became clear it would be a Shiite dominated coalition government that was replacing the Sunni Baathist regime their inclination to forgive withered. During this period conflict between Sunni insurgents and Coalition Forces would produce the highest level of casualties seen since the fall of the Baathist regime.

The Sunnis were alienated by their fall from grace with the overthrow of Saddam. Subsequent attacks against Sunni militants left them with the prospect of being a permanent underclass in a Shiite dominated government. Rightly or wrongly, they would choose to boycott the January 2005 parliamentary elections. Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda in Iraq declared participation to be un-Islamic and would earn participants the penalty of death. Eventually, other Sunnis would cooperate with Coalition Forces to rid their communities of these radicals many of which were foreign insurgents. Still they have withheld their trust of the Shiite controlled government of Maliki.

Maliki’s willingness to confront anti-government militants regardless of origin may be convincing Iraqs competing elements that his goal is a unified secular government. While Sadr issued a warning that continuing attacks against his militiaman could bring about “all-out-war” his efforts to quash the Madhi Army’s influence can be summed up in a statement issued by Secratary Rice who stated yesterday that

“You have seen a coalescing of a center in Iraqi politics in which the Sunni leadership, the Kurdish leadership, and elements of the Shiite leadership that are not associated with these special groups have been working together better than at anytime before.”

The term “Special Groups” is used by the U.S. that refers to militants trained and funded by Iran.

Now it is two years today since Maliki has been named prime minister designate. He has managed to comply with the majority of the mandates outlined in the Iraq report, avoid further alienating Sunnis while American forces followed General David Petraeus’ brilliant counter insurgency strategy during the “Surge,” engage militant Shiites, engage in diplomatic missions in the region including Iran while showing his independence from the Bush Administration, a key element in gaining acceptance among Arabs from any branch of Islam.

Today Maliki renewed his call for his Arab neighbors to open embassies and proceed with the debt relief promised as he continues his efforts to cleanse Shiite militia strongholds. He will be in Kuwait Tuesday meeting these neighbors to discuss these issues. It could be a very important day for the United States in it’s 5 year old effort to build a stable Iraq and establish a secular representative government in this crucial middle east oil state and no less important to Nouri al-Maliki and his 30 year effort for a liberated Iraq.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 10:35 pm and is filed under Iraq, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.