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2 Turks take no delight in Iraqi
visit By Sami Moubayed
angered by Turkey's independent
actions - especially after Erdogan came out
victorious last month.
Walkouts on
Maliki One reason Erdogan cannot believe
Maliki is that in June the Iraqi premier expressed
support for the Kurds in their confrontation with
Turkey. Neglecting a Turkish request this summer
to defuse the situation, Maliki went to Iraqi
Kurdistan and met with its president, Massoud
Barzani, a friend of the PKK. Maliki stressed that
he will
not
allow the peaceful district of northern Iraq to be
turned into a battleground.
From there he
said that Article 140 of the constitution, which
most likely will lead to the "Kurdification" of
oil-rich Kirkuk, is "obligatory". Maliki was
referring to the article that calls for a
plebiscite in Kirkuk to decide whether the region
should be incorporated into Iraqi Kurdistan, along
with a population census to see how many Kurds
live there.
Maliki knows he cannot work
against the PKK or his Kurdish allies in Iraq.
They are his only friends left in the government.
If the Kurds walk out, Maliki is history - even
now he is hanging on by a thread. He has already
alienated the Sunnis, who walked out with their
five ministers last week, representing the Iraqi
Accordance Front. He alienated the Sadrists, who
abandoned him with their six ministers in April,
by refusing to work for a timetable for US troop
withdrawal.
This week, another five
ministers "froze" their membership in the cabinet.
They are members of the Iraqi Nationalist List,
headed by Allawi, who is secular. This was "Step
1", they claimed, to complete withdrawal. Allawi's
team holds the ministries of Justice, Human
Rights, Sciences, Telecommunications, and State
for Tribal Affairs. Allawi also commands the
fourth-largest group in Parliament, with 24 of the
275 seats.
When the walkout becomes final,
Maliki will have lost 18 of his 37 ministers,
thereby becoming unconstitutional. The cabinet,
which should represent all parties in the
political system, would only be representing
Shi'ites of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) and
Kurds. It would have no seculars, Sunnis or
Sadrists.
Maliki and the
Sunnis Making life worse for the prime
minister was Vice President Tarek al-Hashemi, who
came out on Tuesday with a fiery set of new
accusations against Maliki, accusing him of
malpractices and violations at the Ministry of
State for National Security, which is controlled
by the UIA.
Hashemi, who is head of the
Islamic Party, which is a member of the Iraqi
Accordance Front, called on Maliki to abolish the
ministry, claiming it has become "scandalous for
Iraq". Hashemi added that Maliki had expanded the
ministry, creating branches for it in all Iraqi
provinces, whereas under the constitution it was
entitled to no more than 17 employees. Its role
should be to advise and consult with other
government agencies, whereas it has become a major
player in its own right, with more than 1,400
employees, all pledging their loyalties to Shi'ite
political Islam.
The ministry's expansion
is "unconstitutional", Hashemi said, "and it has a
budget whose source is unknown until today",
hinting that the ministry is being financed by
Iran.
Shortly after Hashemi's remarks,
eight masked terrorists assassinated one of his
top commanders in the Islamic Party at his home in
a town 10 kilometers northwest of Fallujah. Omar
Hassan al-Mulla was shot in front of his family,
and the act was blamed on al-Qaeda, which
persecutes Sunnis involved in the US-backed
political process. Hashemi's allies contest the
story, claiming it might have been the doing of
Shi'ite militias, who carried out the crime to
punish Hashemi and then blamed it on al-Qaeda.
Maliki vs Jaafari On Wednesday,
as Maliki arrived in Tehran, the Saudi-run
television station Al-Arabiyya ran a story on
serious divisions between the prime minister and
his former boss and predecessor, Ibrahim
al-Jaafari. Jaafari was no different from Maliki
when it came to tolerating Shi'ite militias during
his tenure in power. He too gave the Ministry of
Interior to Shi'ite militias, who used it to
persecute traditional enemies in the Sunni
community.
But since leaving power last
year, Jaafari has developed a new political
philosophy based on collaboration with Sunnis.
Perhaps sectarian to a degree at one juncture of
his career, Jaafari has learned from his mistakes
and is trying to project himself as an Iraqi
nationalist, not just a Shi'ite statesman. He
strongly criticizes Maliki's narrow alliance with
the Kurds and pro-Iranian Shi'ites within the UIA,
claiming this does not represent the Iraqi people.
The Saudi TV station, maximizing benefit
from the internal divide, reported that Jaafari
was about to create a new political movement, the
Union for National Reform. This would be a
political movement that includes Shi'ites, Sunnis,
Christians and seculars. Among its proposed
members are the Islamic Party of Hashemi and
Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Jaafari
will run in upcoming municipal elections
single-handed, without the UIA and without the
Da'wa Party, which he has headed for decades. The
Saudi station added that Jaafari proposes that he
become prime minister, or president if the
constitution is amended to give the presidency
more powers (these were taken away after the
downfall of Saddam Hussein).
Last week he
proposed giving the presidency as a permanent seat
to the Sunnis, as a confidence-building measure to
bring them back into the political process.
Regardless of whether he succeeds or not, his
opposition to Maliki, from within the Da'wa Party
and the Shi'ite community, is a great source of
disturbance to the premier.
Having the
Sunnis walk out on him is one thing, but having
his boss, patron and colleague and the legitimate
head of al-Da'wa (who won the party's elections in
May with an overwhelming majority) run against him
as another. It spells disaster for Maliki.
The world is divided over Maliki. Some see
him as a reformer whose hands are tied because of
the civil war and sectarian conflict that are
crippling his country, claiming that in different
times he would be a completely different leader.
They portray him as a man with vision, courage and
leadership qualities.
Others dismiss him
as a sectarian clown, a man who cannot reconcile
with the Sunnis because of his radical Shi'ite
loyalties. They see him as completely incapable of
reform. Some claim he is a puppet of the United
States. Others accuse him of being on the Iranian
payroll. Many things can be said about Maliki, but
one fact that is becoming increasingly clear, and
non-negotiable, is that he is not a man who can be
counted on to keep his promises.
He
promised the Sunnis greater power in the political
process. He pledged to give the Ministry of
Interior to an independent rather than to a member
of the Shi'ite parties that use its police
apparatus to persecute Sunnis. He then let them
down and gave the ministry to an Iran-backed
radical Shi'ite party. Now that the Sunnis have
abandoned him, he is promising greater political
reforms, such as amending the de-Ba'athification
laws, but nobody believes him in the Sunni
community.
He promised to uphold
secularism in Iraq, along with religious
liberties, but his country is looking increasingly
like an Iran-style theocracy. He promised the
Americans he would disarm the militias, but has
been unable to deliver. Now that they have started
searching for a substitute premier, he has began
cracking down on his former allies in the Mahdi
Army, to prove his sincerity to the Americans.
Instead, however, he is courting the Badr
Organization militias of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.
He promised Muqtada he would steer clear
of the US orbit, but failed. He promised the
Iraqis more security, but he has failed them as
well - over and over again - since May 2006. He
promised better relations with his Arab neighbors,
but none of that has materialized, because he
insists on maintaining strong relations with Iran.
All of the above explains why Erdogan did
not take his Iraqi guest very seriously in Ankara
this week. Probably neither will Ahmadinejad.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian
political analyst.
(Copyright 2007
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