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2 Iraq needs a strongman. Allawi is
waiting By Sami Moubayed
of law and a bill of rights for the
people. That would pave the way for full-blown
democracy."
Taking action Following his words up with actions, Allawi
secured the resignation over the weekend of one of
his ministers from the Maliki cabinet, Hashem
al-Shibli, the minister of justice. This is the
first sign of rupture in the cabinet of Prime
Minister Maliki
since it assumed office last
May.
Contradictory signs are coming out of
Baghdad regarding the reasons for his resignation.
Some claim it is a preemptive move, since Shibli
knew that Maliki was planning a reshuffle and
would not include him in the new cabinet. He
stepped down before being retired from his job.
Others, however, attribute his resignation
to disagreements between Maliki and Allawi, who
heads Shibli's political party, the Iraqi List.
Still others claim that the disagreement was
personal, between Maliki and Shibli. The two men
came to blows last December during the execution
of Saddam Hussein. Shibli, who is a Sunni Arab,
had many reservations about the execution.
First, being minister of justice, he had
doubts about its legality, since it was not
approved by the president. Not only did it
embarrass him within the Sunni community, for
failing to protect their leader, but it also
strained his relationship with the Shi'ite
majority in power. Shibli, like most Sunni Arabs,
claimed that the execution was carried out in a
gangster-like manner, with masked men and chants
in favor of Muqtada al-Sadr, both of which
represented anything but officialdom.
A
better explanation to the sudden resignation would
be a combination of above. It certainly could not
have been done, however, without Allawi's
blessing.
Coinciding with Allawi's coup
were increasing signs of discontent within the
Sunni community of Iraq, which is allied to the
former prime minister. Last week, members of the
police, being militiamen under cover, went on a
homicidal rampage in the Sunni neighborhood of Tal
Afar, killing more than 70 civilians. For two
hours they roamed the streets of the city,
arresting Sunnis, handcuffing them, and shooting
them through the head. Angry Sunnis have demanded
a trial of the police officers, and the
resignation of Maliki.
The sectarian
attacks were in response to car bombs last Tuesday
that killed more than 60 Shi'ites and wounded more
than 300, also in Tal Afar. Investigations
identified 18 police officers as architects of the
massacre. After arresting them, government
authorities surprisingly had them released. That
could not have been done without the blessing of
Maliki.
The government claimed that the
police officers had been released to attend the
funeral of their relatives who had been killed in
the car bombs against the Shi'ite districts on
March 27. To calm down anger, Maliki ordered their
arrest once again. On Thursday, suicide bombers
responded to the Tal Afar bombing by attacking a
Shi'ite district in the Iraqi capital, killing 130
people. Most of the victims were women and
children, since the bombing took place in a
shopping area.
The Ministry of Health, run
by Sadrists loyal to the government, commented
saying: "It is impossible to tell the exact number
of dead because we are basically counting body
parts." While the government was "counting the
dead", three suicide bombs went off within minutes
of one another at Khalis, 80 kilometers north of
Baghdad, killing 53 and wounding more than 100.
Sad as these events may be, they fit
nicely into Allawi's campaign, which will
concentrate, in the upcoming two months, on
discrediting Maliki in every possible way.
One way is to remind the world of Allawi's
virtues, without directly comparing them with
Maliki's but letting facts speak for themselves.
While the Iraqis watch in horror what is taking
place in Tal Afar today, they are asked to
remember what happened in Fallujah and Najaf in
2004, when the Allawi cabinet cracked down on the
Mehdi Army. Allawi personally supervised the
military operations and hit them with force,
regardless of sect or objective, saying they were
disrupting peace in Iraq.
In many ways,
Allawi resembles Michel Aoun, the Lebanese
Christian leader who is striving to become
president. Both Allawi and Aoun are obsessed with
returning to power and have grand, non-sectarian
agendas for their countrymen. Allawi, wanting to
prove his credentials as an Iraqi nationalist, and
not just a Shi'ite leader, was the first to strike
the Iraqi Shi'ites in 2004. Likewise, Aoun did the
same with Lebanon's Christians in the late 1980s
during the civil war. Both men are striving to
become leaders not of their respective
communities, but rather of their respective
countries.
True, Aoun has lost support
from onetime loyal and radical Christians, and so
has Allawi among Shi'ites. But they don't want to
be remembered as a Shi'ite leader, or a Christian
leader. What is amazing is the amount of support
these two men enjoy within their constituency,
giving them great room for political maneuvering.
Aoun and Allawi do not come from
traditional political families - they have not
inherited their leadership roles. They are not
directly supported by a certain country, whether
Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia or the United States.
And yet their supporters love them and want to
help them reach their leadership roles in Baghdad
and Beirut. No alliance is taboo to achieving
that.
Aoun allied himself with
unimaginable allies, the Iran-backed Hezbollah,
while Allawi has cuddled up to numerous figures,
including the Tawafok parliamentary bloc, which
holds 44 seats, and is flirting with the Fadila
Party, which was a member of the United Iraqi
Alliance but broke away last month to oppose the
UIA's sectarianism. He has made goodwill visits to
numerous Sunni politicians and, more recently,
started to court the Kurds as well. One way was to
support their claims for Kirkuk becoming part of
Iraqi Kurdistan. That is a price Allawi is willing
to pay to strengthen his power base at home.
A short while ago, the former prime
minister visited Kurdistan and met with its
president, Masoud al-Barazani. He asked that
Barazani join the anti-Maliki team, but the latter
refused to commit himself, in fear of embarrassing
his friend and ally Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi
president, who is also a Kurd. With his bloc,
topped with Kurdish support, and al-Fadila, Allawi
hopes he can secure 140 seats in Parliament -
enough to bring down Maliki constitutionally.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political
analyst and the managing editor of Forward
magazine.
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