The Iraqi prime minister is getting hammered from all sides this morning. Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister and head of the Iraqiyya coalition, accuses Maliki of staging a coup (عربي) against a "peaceful transfer of power" in Iraq.
"The government has made a decision, in collusion with suspicious forces inside and outside Iraq, to exclude important politicians from participating in the political process. The Iraqi people know this is a conspiracy to ignore the will of voters and to exclude opponents of the parties in power... it is a preemptive coup."
Then we have Motqada al-Sadr, who condemns the Maliki government (عربي) for failing to protect the Iraqi people from ongoing violence. "Shame, all shame" on Maliki, Sadr says, "and the blood of the people is on... this government."
All of this, I'm sure, makes Maliki a little nervous; elections are less than six weeks away.
You can see both of these events -- ongoing violence and the de-Ba'athification decision -- moving Iraqi politics in a very worrisome direction. The insurgents, insofar as they have a coherent strategy, want the Iraqi government to remain dominated by sectarian factions. Cross-sectarian coalitions, like Iraqiyya or Iraqi Unity, pose a threat, because they offer the promise of reconciling various Iraqi factions.
The Justice and Accountability Commission's de-Ba'athification decision partly neutralizes that threat: It eliminated dozens of candidates from those secular coalitions. And the ongoing violence undermines support for Maliki's State of Law coalition, which has also tried to position itself as cross-sectarian.
That leaves mostly sectarian coalitions: The Iraqi National Alliance, which includes the Sadrist movement and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq; Tawafuq, which is mostly Sunni; and the Kurdish parties.
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Categories: Iraq, Iraqi Elections (2010), Politics, Regional News, War and Terrorism, War in Iraq
Tags: Iraqi Unity coalition, Iraqiyya coalition, Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, Moqtada al-Sadr, Nouri al-Maliki, Sadrist movement, sectarianism
1 Comment
This is an interesting article showing some of the pressures faced by al-Maliki. A couple of comments:
The "insurgents" are not the only ones who benefit from sectarian tension. Perhaps more than the current insurgents it is certain parties of the establishment who have done the most to promote and profit from a sharpening of the divide. It may also be surmised that a certain neighboring country, which fed and educated the current establishment in exile and now enjoys a large degree of influence in the land of its former arch-enemy, may stand to lose some of that influence if alienated sects coalesce.
Ayyad's public criticism may be less serious than it seems. He is Maliki's arch-rival, so nobody is expecting him to pat Maliki on the back. Also, Ayyad has to work very hard now to avoid the appearance of complicity in the black-listing of his ally, Saleh al-Mutlaq (there has been speculation that practically, this will benefit Allawi). The de-Baath blacklist was a more than anything a public affront to the Sunni sect, so Ayyad has to say something strong simply as a matter of face.
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