Page 2 of
2 A hanging, and a political
bombshell By Sami Moubayed
Iraqi government (in which his men control
several important portfolios) and Parliament.
Muqtada duly did walk out.
Other members
of the UIA, including Hakim, also detest Muqtada.
Hakim's visit to Washington and his meeting with
Bush were also indicators that the anti-Muqtada
team was uniting against him.
Again,
Saddam's death has changed this. The equation is
now
"them
and us". The Shi'ites, feeling threatened by
souring anti-Shi'ism in the Arab world and Iraq,
have felt the need to unite, including with
Muqtada. He is an embarrassment, perhaps, but the
young cleric commands widespread respect among the
underprivileged of Baghdad.
Keeping him on
board the Shi'ite ship is critical at this stage
for the UIA. This might explain why a senior
member of the UIA called on Muqtada on Tuesday,
asking him to end his boycott of the government
and Parliament. Muqtada reportedly conditioned a
timetable for US withdrawal on him rejoining
Maliki.
In an interview before Saddam's
death, Maliki said he did not want to renew his
tenure as prime minister, adding, "I did not want
to take this position. I only agreed because I
thought it would serve the national interest, and
I will not accept it again."
Well, Maliki
may not be offered the post again. Sunnis would
not hear of it. Anyway, now it is likely that
Sunni ministers in the government will walk out
and bring down the Maliki administration.
Among those who might step down, not
necessarily out of love for Saddam but to remain
in tune with the Sunni constituency, are Salam
al-Zoubai, the deputy prime minister; Abd al-Qadir
al-Obeid, the minister of defense, who was a
general under Saddam; Abid Dhiya al-Ajili, the
minister of higher education (who is already
furious at Shi'ite militiamen kidnapping officials
from his ministry in 2006), and Hashem al-Shibli,
the minister of human rights.
To
compensate for such a withdrawal, Maliki needs to
unite with Muqtada and other Shi'ites. The Iraqi
daily Al-Zaman wrote that possible replacements
were being discussed for Maliki, naming former
prime minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite, and
Adel Abdul-Mehdi, the vice president of the SCIRI.
To become prime minister, Allawi or
Abdul-Mehdi would need 138 votes from the
275-member Parliament. Allawi, a former Ba'athist
who is close to the US, has a slim chance of
getting these votes, given that he is on bad terms
with the Sadrists (whom he fought in 2004), and
other members of the UIA. The Sunnis would support
him, however, and he probably would be the wisest
and strongest of the post-Saddam leaders.
He has the will and the ability to bring
law and order to Iraq, and crack down on the
militias (the Mehdi Army and the Badr Organization
of the SCIRI) that Maliki has tolerated because of
his alliance with both Muqtada and Hakim.
Abdul-Mehdi was a candidate for the
premiership last year and stands a better chance.
But he would need rapprochement with the Sadrists,
while the Sunnis would never back him because of
the SCIRI's treatment of them. In that sense, he
would be a disastrous choice.
So either
way, whether it is Allawi or Abdel-Mehdi, the end
of Maliki's tenure looms and a new, terrible
divide between Sunnis and Shi'ites has been
opened.
Sami Moubayed is a
Syrian political analyst.
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