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Iraq's new prime minister and Iran
David Ignatius' e-mail address is
davidignatius@washpost.com. - Ed.
(Washington Post Writers Group)
2006.04.29
WASHINGTON - So what
should the world make of Iraq's new prime minister, Jawad al-Maliki? What
chance will his new government have of containing the sectarian violence
in Iraq and averting a full-blown civil war?
The first reaction of many outsiders is likely to be, "Jawad who?" Maliki
is not well known outside the country, and his election after a four-month
impasse may seem anticlimactic. Indeed, since he is a member of the same
Islamic faction, the Dawa Party, as the incumbent Ibrahim al-Jafari,
people may imagine that little has changed. But that would be a mistake.
The most important fact about Maliki's election is that it's a modest
declaration of independence from Iran. The Iranians waged a tough
behind-the-scenes campaign to keep Jafari in office. Tehran issued veiled
threats to Iraqi political leaders, in written letters and through
emissaries, that if they didn't back Jafari, they would pay a price. In
resisting this pressure, the political leaders were standing up for a
unified Iraq. To succeed, Maliki must now mobilize that desire for unity
to break the power of the militias and insurgent groups.
"His reputation is as someone who is independent of Iran," explained
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, in a telephone interview
Monday. He explained that although Maliki initially went into exile in
Iran, "He felt he was threatened by them" because of his political
independence, and later moved to Syria. "He sees himself as an Arab" and
an Iraqi nationalist, Khalilzad said.
Iraqi political leaders offered similar endorsements of Maliki. Kurdish
leader Barham Salih told me, "This is the opportunity for genuine
reconciliation between the communities in Iraq." Haitham al-Husseini, a
senior official in the largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, predicted in a telephone interview that "we
will witness a great improvement in the security situation." He said
Maliki's effort to form a unity government "will be supported by all the
other big blocs in parliament," including the major Sunni parties.
The Iranians "pressured everyone for Jafari to stay," Khalilzad said. One
senior Iraqi official said the gist of Iran's letters was "stick with him,
or else." The phrasing was more subtle, including warnings that
replacement of Jafari could "create instability" and damage the political
prospects of those who opposed Iran's diktat. The decisive blow came from
Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who let it be known in the final days
that Jafari had to go.
Maliki's selection is something of a victory for Khalilzad who has been a
match for the Iraqis in his wily political wrangling. The American
ambassador viewed Jafari as too weak and sectarian. When Jafari was
renominated by the Shiite alliance in February, Khalilzad warned,
initially in an interview in this column, that the United States wouldn't
support a government that didn't put unity first. Khalilzad helped
organize a rival coalition of Kurdish and Sunni politicians that
represented 143 seats in parliament, more than the 130 seats of the Shiite
alliance that had nominated Jafari. Meanwhile, he began holding marathon
meetings with all the Iraqi factions to hammer out the political platform
for a unity government.
Khalilzad explained that the logjam on Jafari was broken by two political
forces. First, the Shiite alliance realized that the non-Shiites, with
their 143 seats, were serious about creating an alternative government.
The second was pressure from Sistani to resolve the dispute. The rejection
of Jafari "showed great courage on the part of key Shia leaders,"
Khalilzad said. "It showed that Sistani doesn't take Iranian direction. It
showed that (SCIRI leader) Abdul Aziz Hakim doesn't succumb to Iranian
pressure. He stood up to Iran. It showed the same thing about the Kurdish
leaders."
Nobody should confuse Jawad al-Maliki with George Washington. He's said to
be a follower of the Lebanese Shiite leader, Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah,
the original spiritual adviser of Hezbollah who later left the group in
part because he viewed it as too close to Iran. Maliki is a tough Arab
nationalist who will work with the United States in the short run, but
will want America to withdraw its forces from Iraq. His authentic Iraqi
credentials could help pull the country together.
The challenge for Maliki now is to restore order to a place that has
become a synonym for death and destruction. His advisers say he may start
by focusing on Baghdad - working to bring the militias and death squads
under the control of the Iraqi security forces. The car bombs are still
exploding every day, but the Iraqis I talked with this week sense a change
in the political wind.
Source: Korea Herald
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