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07 October 2010 By Juan Cole Although it make take some time
yet to form a government in Iraq, Friday may have been
a turning point. If so, it was a turning point in
which Iran won decisively and managed to rebuild a
Shiite fundamentalist coalition led by incumbent PM
Nuri al-Maliki that, in partnership with the Kurds,
could dominate Baghdad for the next four years. This development would forestall
Washington's earlier plans to try to shoehorn into
power the anti-Iranian ex-Baathist Iyad Allawi and his
largely Sunni-supported Iraqiya party. In recent
weeks, since the advent of a new US ambassador in
Baghdad and a new commanding general, there have been
rumors that the Obama administration had decided to
support incumbent Nuri al-Maliki and to give up on any
hope of installing Allawi or giving him control over
Iraq's security forces, which had been Washington's
first preference. Al-Maliki at the same time garnered
the support of Iran and of Syria, though these may
have each been independent decisions. On Thursday, September 30, the
London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat [The Middle East] had
reported that (h/t to USG Open Source Center for the
translation): ‘ Another source has stressed
that: "the Iranian pressure exerted on Muqtada al-Sadr
has reached its peak." He added: "This has caused the
[Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq] under the leadership
of Ammar al-Hakim to threaten to withdraw from the
[National Iraqi Alliance] and turn to the Al-Iraqiyah
List and the Kurdistan Alliance to form a new
alliance." He told Al-Sharq al-Awsat that [ISCI] and
Al-Iraqiyah List leaders held a meeting to discuss
this issue yesterday. He pointed out that the meeting
was held at the same time when Al-Sadr was making
telephone calls to the leader of the Al-Iraqiyah List
and Mas'ud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG). He said that, in his calls,
Al-Sadr hinted at the possibility of supporting Al-Maliki.
‘ Al-Watan says that the
Iraqiya list charged that a Da`wa envoy, Abd al-Halim
al-Zuhairi, visited Qom in Iran recently and hammered
out an agreement with Muqtada. Al-Maliki is said to
have agreed to act less high-handedly this time. The
Mahdi Army and the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haqq paramilitaries
would be rehabilitated and given places in the
government security forces. Sadrist leaders would be
released from prison. The Sadrists would get
significant cabinet seats. The Sadrists denied the
charges by the Iraqiya. The pan-Arab London daily Al-Hayat
[Life] reports today in Arabic that a party congress
of the (Shiite fundamentalist) National Iraqi Alliance
was held Friday in yet another attempt to resolve the
longest-running hung parliament in the history of
Westminster-type parliaments. A preparatory meeting
was held beforehand in which incumbent Nuri al-Maliki
of the Islamic Mission Party (Da`wa) met with Hadi al-Ameri
of the Badr Organization and Muhsin al-Hakim, brother
of Ammar al-Hakim (leader of the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq). They attempted to convince Ammar to
attend the Friday congress, but failed. So the National Iraqi Alliance
meeting was held on Friday. All 159 party delegates
did not attend, however, with those representing ISCI
boycotting. So too did those belonging to the Fadila
or Islamic Virtue Party. It is not clear if any other
parties or individuals boycotted, but most Arabic
press accounts say it was just those two. In
parliamentary terms, the NAI has 70 seats, with ISCI
holding 10 and Fadila 6. The NAI delegates in attendance
chose Nuri al-Maliki as their candidate for prime
minister in a startling about-face, since the Sadrists
had earlier been largely against al-Maliki. (PM al-Maliki
launched a military attack in spring of 2008 on the
Sadrist Mahdi Army paramilitary in Basra, Nasiriya and
East Baghdad, over which there had until recently at
least been hard feelings). Al-Maliki needs 163 MPs to form a
government. It appears to me that he picked up 40
Sadrists and 8 Badr Organization MPs, and it may also
be that he got the 5 independents. That is, he may
have gained as many as 53 seats. Al-Maliki's own State of Law
coalition, led by Da`wa, has 89 seats. He may now have
142. Were the Kurdistan Alliance, with 43 seats, to
join a State of Law/ NAI alliance, the resulting bloc
would have 184, a comfortable majority. Although the
president has to be elected by a two-thirds majority
on the first ballot, that requirement falls to a
majority on the second ballot. Al-Maliki plus the
Kurds can therefore now choose the president. The
president then will ask the bloc with the largest
number of seats to form a government. The Iraqi
supreme court has ruled that the largest bloc can be
one formed after the election, so a State of Law/ NAI
alliance would be eligible under this interpretation
of the constitution. Even if al-Maliki only picked up
the Sadrists and the Badr Organization, he would have
180 if the Kurdistan Alliance went with him. And it
should be noted that there are a few other small
parties in parliament (including reformist Kurds and
Muslim fundamentalist Kurds) that might support al-Maliki,
strengthening his bloc. Would the Kurdistan Alliance go
with al-Maliki? Absolutely. They are seeking a formal
agreement about the future division of powers between
the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan
confederacy with its capital in Irbil. They also want
a referendum held in Kirkuk Province about whether it
will join the Kurdistan Regional Government (which
absorbed and erased the lines between the three former
provinces of Dohuk, Sulaymaniya and Irbil. The Kurdistan government recently
sent a delegation to all three of the more prominent
candidates for prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, Iyad
Allawi and Adil Abdul Mahdi. In an interview with journalist
Raghidah Dergham in al-Hayat on Sept. 29 (h/t USG Open
Source Center for the translation), outgoing Iraqi
president Jalal Talibani (also a Kurdish leader) said: ‘ (Dargham) Is it impossible
to sidestep Al-Maliki? (Talabani) Sidestepping Al-Maliki
is not easy at this moment. First, Al-Maliki has a
large bloc of 89 seats, and his position is closer to
the Kurdistan card than any other. This is in
accordance with the report brought by the Kurdistan
delegation to the Kurdistan parliament. Moreover,
there is a strong rumor that the Sadrists will support
Al-Maliki. If they support Al-Maliki, this means that
he cannot be ignored. But nothing is certain to date.'
So Talibani was putting his money
pretty explicitly on al-Maliki already before the NAI
vote, and was signalling that al-Maliki was perfectly
acceptable to the Kurds. Other KA officials have also
spoken of their preference for al-Maliki. (Iyad Allawi
of the Iraqiya is backed by the Sunni Arabs of Mosul
and Kirkuk, who have a feud with the Kurds). A Shiite-Kurdish alliance would
replicate the outcomes of the January, 2005 and
December, 2005 parliamentary elections that set the
stage for a Sunni-Shiite civil war in 2006-2007. Iyad
Allawi of the Iraqiya list, for which some 80 percent
of Sunni Arabs voted, has vocally pledged not to join
any government headed by al-Maliki. If the Sunni Arabs
of Iraq feel that the Shiites and Kurds have cut them
out of the deal yet again, those grievances could fuel
terrorism. My impression from field work is that the
Iraqi Sunnis are disheartened and don't have the
stomach for another civil war. But small cells are
already engaging in significant terrorism, and that
could increase unless Sunnis are brought into the
government. Ironies abound in Friday's
developments. Ammar al-Hakim and his Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq had earlier been the closest political
grouping to Iran, but it is now the one bucking
Tehran's plans for Iraq (though I imagine it will fold
if al-Maliki's ascendancy seems assured). ISCI had put
forward its own candidate for prime minister, Adil
Abdul Mahdi, whom the Sadrists had some weeks ago said
they would support, but whom they have now abandoned. The Sadrist movement of Muqtada
al-Sadr in contrast had tended to be Iraqi nativist
and somewhat anti-Iranian, but its leader is now
studying in the Iranian seminary city of Qom and has
acquiesced in Iranian pressure to support al-Maliki.
It was Gen. David Petraeus who put so much pressure on
Sadr in 2007 that he fled to Iran, so the US
inadvertently delivered Muqtada into Iranian hands and
heavy influence. The one element in the story that
makes perfect sense is the way the Badr Organization
peeled away from its parent, the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq. The latter is a political
organization. The former began as its paramilitary,
and from the late 1980s it carried out guerrilla
operations against Baath targets, crossing from Iran
where it was based. Badr began running for seats in
parliament in 2005. During its years in exile in Iran
it was more or less a wing of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps, and it is rumored that
some Badr officers are still on the Iranian payroll.
So as a sort of extension of the IRGC (though of
course it has become more Iraq-centric since 2003),
Badr was the most likely Shiite Iraqi grouping to take
orders from Tehran (presumably via IRGC Quds Brigade
commander Qasim Sulaimani). A further irony is that
the US considers the IRGC a deadly enemy but is quite
cozy with the Badr Organization. All in all, Friday's developments
seem highly likely to pave the way for a second term
as prime minister for Nuri al-Maliki. He and his
coalition partners will be more beholden to Iran than
ever, and if I were the US Department of the Treasury
I wouldn't expect much Iraqi help with those sanctions
on Iranian banks. Game, set, match to Iran.
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