DAMASCUS - For billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates, success is the worst
teacher in the world; he argues that it is failure that creates a real
businessman. That applies to politicians and heads of state as much as it does
to entrepreneurs like Gates.
Historians agree that leaders undergo a sharp learning curve after suffering
defeat. Gamal Abdul-Nasser of Egypt, for example, only learned how to run a
state - and lead a war - after he was harshly defeated in 1967. The same
applies to King Hussein of Jordan, who lost the West Bank to Israel during the
same Six-Day War.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, for example, learned things the
hard way after the Lockerbie air disaster case and the occupation of Iraq in
2003. Other leaders, however, do not learn lessons and tend to commit mistake
after mistake, as was the case of Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War of 1991, or
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, putting himself in his current mess with the
International Criminal Court.
That cannot be said about Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who, after
repeated defeats - political and military - seems to have learned the right way
to run a country. In January, he won the provincial elections of Iraq by
reconciling with Sunnis and Shi'ites, preaching an agenda that "sounded"
secular, saying that he would crush militias, be they Shi'ite or Sunni.
Maliki steered clear from any religious slogans, although he hails from a party
that has been preaching political Islam since the 1960s. He talked about more
jobs, better pay, finer state education, clean water and around the clock
electricity for ordinary Iraqis. This week, he made headlines in the Iraqi
press by calling for an end to the sectarian distribution of power in Iraq,
arguing that from now on, ministers and officials should be chosen for their
merit, and not for their religious or ethnic backgrounds.
Maliki was speaking to tribal leaders from the Sunni community, whom he needs,
in anticipation of an upcoming withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi towns and
cities in the summer of 2009. He said that sectarian allocations had served as
nothing but "a bridge for weakness and mismanagement".
Long-time opponents, like secular former prime minister Iyad Allawi, could not
but applaud his rhetoric, with caution. So did rebel-turned politician Muqtada
al-Sadr, who is bracing himself for a new alliance with Maliki and preparing to
enter the Iraqi government with heavyweight ministries like Commerce, Education
and Health (which he controlled in 2006-2007).
Even the Sunnis are, seemingly, willing to give him benefit of the doubt - for
the last time. Nawal al-Samarrae, the resigned minister for Woman Affairs who
represents the Iraqi Accordance Front (a Sunni coalition) had been called on by
the prime minister to withdraw her resignation. She had stepped down earlier
this year to protest the lack of real powers for her ministry, claiming failure
because she has not been able to advance the status of Iraqi women.
Maliki promised her a larger budget and more authority if she agreed to stay
on, which she did. Commenting on the prime minister's gesture, she said, “The
reason for my resignation was the lack of funds and human resources, but with
the new situation I think I can work." That was music to Maliki's ears, since
another walkout would place him in a critical position, having already lost
heavyweight Sunnis, Shi'ites from the Sadrist bloc and seculars from the Iraqi
National List of Allawi.
Some, however, still accuse Maliki of being a hypocrite, saying that he would
not have been elected prime minister had he not been a Shi'ite, allied to both
the United States and Iran. They remember only too well his systematic campaign
to bloc the professional mobility of Iraqi Sunnis in the Iraqi civil service
and government - a reality that Maliki acknowledges, yet claims is now a thing
of the past.
He even called for reconciliation with supporters of Saddam - mainly Sunnis -
arguing, “We should reconcile with those who made mistakes, who are forced and
obliged at one time to be on the side of the former regime during a time of
hardship in Iraq's history."
Last week, Saddam's former foreign minister and vice president Tarek Aziz was
declared innocent of charges brought against him of killing Muslims at prayer
in 1999, only to be convicted on Wednesday of killing 42 Iraqi merchants under
Saddam and sentenced to 15 years in jail. The tribal leaders, nodding to
Maliki's words, conditioned that for them to turn a new page with the prime
minister, they needed a general amnesty, setting thousands of Sunnis free, and
more say for them in the decision-making process. They also demanded he abolish
the 2003 de-Ba'athification laws, which collectively punished all Ba'athists,
even junior members of the party, for having served under Saddam.
Reality on the ground, however, seemed different from Maliki's promises. Last
week, Saddam's top man and half-brother Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical
Ali" was sentenced to death for the third time for crimes committed during the
previous regime. Former Iraqi vice president Izzat al-Douri, the last surviving
top official of the Saddam era, flatly rejected Maliki's reconciliation offer,
saying that there can be no peace with Maliki so long as the Americans are
still in Iraq.
Skeptics argue that the only reason Aziz was pardoned in the initial case of
the Muslim prayer, under Maliki's watchful eye, was because he was a Christian,
and the world did not want a Christian figure to be implicated in murdering
Muslims at Friday prayer, regardless if he was guilty or not.
Last Friday, six men were arrested in Baaqouba, accused of belonging to the
Ba'ath Party, which is banned under the 2005 constitution. Twenty-four hours
later, two clerics were arrested from the Sunni community, and no charges were
brought against them, while the Ministry of Interior denied knowledge of their
arrest. Sunni and Shi'ite tribal leaders were killed in Abu Ghraib near the
infamous prison, also last week, when a suicide bomber struck, killing no less
than 32 people, including security officials and journalists. Another attack
took place simultaneously outside the Baghdad Police Academy, where a suicide
bomber detonated an explosive belt, killing 28 people.
Maliki is learning what it means to serve as a prime minister for all of Iraq,
not just for his allies and the Shi'ite community. He is doing what it takes to
show Iraqis that the central government is there for all of them, but yet it
must be obeyed.
His allies are calling on the world to give him a last chance, to prove that
from now on, he will govern neither by sect nor by ethnicity - in anticipation
of a US troop withdrawal, according to the Security of Forces Agreement, in
2010. The question that remains: why did Maliki change? Was it serious
evaluation of previous policies, or is it fear of what the future might hold,
when the Americans, who have bolstered him since 2006, start leaving in the
summer of 2009?
Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.
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