Iraqi
Government On Brink Of Collapse
By James Cogan
11 August, 2007
WSWS.org
The political survival of Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in doubt following the withdrawal from his
cabinet of two political blocs that derive the bulk of their support
from Iraq’s Sunni Arab population. A variety of sectarian and
ethnic cliques in Baghdad are reportedly involved in discussion with
the Bush administration over ousting Maliki and forming a new government
when the Iraqi parliament resumes in September.
Five ministers from to the
Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) resigned their positions last Wednesday.
On July 25, the IAF gave Maliki seven days to announce a major purge
of Shiite militia members within the new Iraqi army and police, increased
funding for government services in Sunni areas and the release of thousands
of Sunnis detained in US and government prisons on suspicion of involvement
in the anti-occupation insurgency. In their resignation statement, the
Sunni ministers accused Maliki of “arrogance” and having
“led Iraq to a level of misery it had not seen in modern history”.
The IAF functions as the
political wing of the powerful Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS),
an organisation of several thousand clerics who bitterly resent the
loss of Sunni influence following the US overthrow of the largely Sunni-based
Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. Since 2003, Shiite fundamentalist
opponents of Baath Party rule have dominated the various US puppet governments
in Baghdad. The AMS regularly accuses the Shiite-led government of infiltrating
Shiite militias into the security forces to murder Sunni opponents.
It also alleges the government deliberately restricts services and reconstruction
work in Sunni areas.
The walkout by the Sunni
ministers had one primary aim: to end Maliki’s ability to claim
he heads a “national unity” government that represents all
Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic groups—one of the Bush administration’s
so-called benchmarks. On Monday, they were joined by four ministers
from the Iraqi National List of Iyad Allawi, who announced they will
boycott all cabinet meetings until Maliki ends his “marginalisation”
of Sunnis.
A total of 17 ministers have
now left or are boycotting his cabinet. A member of Allawi’s list
resigned earlier this year while six ministers from the Sadrist Shiite
movement walked out in April. The Sadrists, who posture as opponents
of the US occupation, resigned after Maliki rejected the demand of their
leader, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, for a timetable specifying when all
foreign troops would leave Iraq. The latest defections reduce the cabinet
to a barely functioning rump.
There is no doubt that the
Bush administration is behind the effort to bring down Maliki’s
government. Iyad Allawi is little more than a US stooge. In the lead-up
to the war, he had a hand in fabricating the lies that Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction and that the Iraqi people would welcome a US invasion.
He was rewarded in 2004, when the occupation installed him as the country’s
unelected interim prime minister. He undoubtedly harbours ambitions
to retake the position and would have sought Washington’s blessing
before announcing his List’s boycott of the cabinet.
Speaking from a luxury villa
in Jordan where he spends much of his time, Allawi summed up the US
attitude toward Maliki in the New York Times this week: “The national
unity government is a myth, not a reality. The political process is
going nowhere.”
US frustrations with Maliki
have been growing since he was named by the ruling United Iraqi Alliance
(UIA) as its candidate for prime minister in May 2006. He has been repeatedly
accused by the US military of thwarting its attempts to destroy the
powerful Sadrist militia—the Mahdi Army. While no longer in the
cabinet, the Sadrists still provide the main base of support for Maliki
within the Shiite UIA, along with his own Da’wa Party. The other
major party in the coalition, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC),
wants one of its leaders, current vice-president Adel Abdul Mahdi, to
be prime minister.
This year, Maliki has failed
to even secure the necessary support within his own coalition, let alone
other factions, for Washington’s “benchmarks”. Among
the main US demands are legislation that would open Iraq’s oil
industry to foreign investment and an end to the policy of “de-Baathification”
that prevents thousands of predominantly Sunni ex-members of Hussein’s
party from holding government or military positions. In US circles,
the marginalisation of former Baathists is held responsible for a large
part of the insurgency in Iraq.
Fueling US antagonism toward
not only Maliki but all the Shiite factions in Iraq are their political
and religious relations with Iran. Under conditions of rising tensions
between Washington and Tehran, many Shiite politicians still consider
Iran the natural ally of a Shiite-dominated Iraqi state. Maliki again
caused outrage in Washington by meeting on Wednesday with Iranian leaders
and declaring Iran was playing a “constructive role” in
stabilising Iraq. A major element of US propaganda against Tehran is
the accusation that Iranian special forces are supplying rogue Sadrist
militiamen with explosives to attack US troops.
Throughout this year, the
US military has been shifting away from a Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
It has sought to develop an alternative base of support for the US occupation
in Sunni areas. Millions of dollars have been handed out to secure alliances
with Sunni tribal leaders and insurgent groups across Baghdad and western
and central Iraq. In the main, these new Sunni allies are utterly hostile
to Maliki’s government, which they denounce as a puppet of Iran
rather than Washington.
The 25,000 Sunni militiamen
who have been recruited are viewed by Maliki as a threat to Shiite power.
His objections, however, have been ignored by the US commander in Iraq,
General David Petraeus, and dismissed by the Bush administration.
The abandonment of Maliki’s
government by the Sunni IAF and Allawi’s List is bringing these
simmering tensions to a head. With just 21 ministers still loyal to
the prime minister out of the original 38, there is tremendous pressure
even within the Shiite UIA to propose an alternative leader rather than
risk being excluded from power altogether.
Intense manoeuvring is underway.
Saleh al-Mutlaq, the leader of the small Sunni Iraqi National Dialogue
Front, told the New York Times this week that he was seeking talks with
the IAF, Allawi’s group and the anti-UIA Shiite Fadhila Party
over forming a rival coalition. If such a grouping were able to get
the support of the 55-strong Kurdistan Alliance (KA) in the parliament,
it would have an outright majority and could govern without any of the
Shiite fundamentalist parties. Allawi would be the most likely candidate
for prime minister.
According to the Egypt-based
Al-Ahram, the Bush administration is working on another option. Bush
has reportedly held phone conversations over the past two weeks with
SIIC’s leading candidate for prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi,
as well as the party’s leader, cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. He
has also spoken with Kurdish president Jalal Talabani and Sunni vice-president
Tariq Hashemi.
The US is apparently backing
the creation of a new coalition consisting of SIIC, factions of Da’wa
prepared to abandon Maliki, Allawi’s List, Hashemi’s faction
of the Iraqi Accordance Front and the Kurdish parties. Allawi or Mahdi
would head such a government. It would exclude Maliki and the Sadrists,
as well as Fadhila and Sunni groupings such as Mutlaq’s which
are antagonistic toward US demands for the sell-off of Iraq’s
oil.
The price being demanded
by the Kurdish parties is clear. They would want Kurdish control over
the northern city of Kirkuk and the oilfields that surround it. Hinting
at their willingness to be bought, Talabani pointedly declared last
week that the Sunni criticisms of Maliki were “mostly fair”.
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish legislator, told the Al-Ahram Weekly that
the Kurdish parties wanted to enhance “reconciliation by including
Allawi in the political process”.
SIIC’s collaboration
in a move against Maliki has a similar price. It has been pushing for
the creation of an autonomous region in its southern Iraqi stronghold
that would control the country’s southern oilfields. SIIC’s
regionalism is bitterly opposed and would be resisted by the Baghdad-centred
Sadrist movement. If SIIC and the Kurdish parties have their way, Iraq
will be effectively partitioned along ethnic and sectarian lines—a
move that can only accelerate large-scale ethnic cleansing, sectarian
violence and instability, not only in Iraq but throughout the region.
The Bush administration’s
barely disguised efforts to oust Maliki once again make a mockery of
its claims to have created a sovereign, democratic government in Baghdad.
Whatever the final outcome of its political manipulations, the White
House is seeking a new regime that will more effectively implement US
demands, particularly for the opening up of Iraqi oilfields to US corporations,
and ruthlessly suppress ongoing opposition to the occupation. Moreover,
by eliminating or at least diluting Shiite influence in the Baghdad
government, the US is clearing the decks for a sharp escalation of its
confrontation with Iran, including the use of military force.
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.