Sunnis Big Losers in Iraq Elections, PM al-Maliki has Largest Party
By Juan Cole | May. 20, 2014 |
(By Juan Cole)
The results of the Iraqi parliamentary elections are in .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/19/maliki-coalition-winner-iraq-elections , and everybody lost. There will be another hung parliament that gets almost nothing done. The Sunni Arabs ended up dividing their vote and doing poorly. The Shiites likewise are deeply divided. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s party did best, positioning him for a third term. That isn’t a foregone conclusion, because he needs to put together a coalition that will give him 51% of the 328-seat parliament (i.e. 165). His party gained only 92 seats. But anyway al-Maliki isn’t what Iraqi needs. He has been bad at reaching out to Sunni Arabs (though to be fair he has deployed the new Iraqi Army and security forces to establish order and cut militias down to size in the Shiite South).
The electoral system designed for Iraq by the US and the United Nations was never very good, and by now it is broken altogether. The country’s 15 provinces and one Kurdistan super-province are the equivalent of districts. But Iraq’s provinces tend to be heavily populated by a particular linguistic or religious ethnic group. Thus, Najaf Province (about a million people) is almost entirely Shiite and everyone speaks Arabic (a Semitic language related to Hebrew). Dohuk, Suleimania and Irbil, which have joined to form Kurdistan, are almost entirely Kurdish (Kurds speak an Indo-European language ultimately related to English and have their own form of Sunni Islam, though there are some religious minorities among them).
The system therefore is doomed to produce ethnic blocs in parliament– Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish. None of them really gets along with the other, guaranteeing gridlock. Indeed, even the major Shiite factions don’t get along. The Shiites can always rule if they remain united with one another. Therefore, the Sunni Arabs can count on being outvoted on every issue from here to eternity, which many now realize; they are increasingly ticked off about it.
So Nouri Al-Maliki, the prime minister, heads the Shiite Islamic Mission Party (al-Da`wa al-Islamiya), founded around 1957 — the oldest fundamentalist civil party aiming for an Islamic state in the Muslim world. (Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is older, but it was a cadre organization, not a civil party). Since 2005, Iraq has always had a prime minister from the Islamic Mission Party and in some ways ensconcing this party in power is the major political achievement of the Bush administration in Iraq.
The Islamic Mission Party is in coalition with some independents and other small groups, forming a coalition called the State of Law (as in, ‘Iraq is a state of laws and not men.’)
The State of Law received 92 seats out of the 328 or 28%. (It won 10 of the country’s 18 provinces). Al-Maliki needs to find partners to make up the other 73 he needs at a minimum. This is what the UK’s David Cameron had to do in 2010, when he allied with the Liberal Democrats because his Conservative Party had not gotten a majority.
In 2010 in Iraq, al-Maliki had a great deal of difficulty forming a government (that time he got 88 seats). His natural partners are the other Shiite parties, but they have conceived a deep dislike of him, seeing him as grasping and dictatorial.
The Citizens Party of Ammar al-Hakim received 29 seats, down somewhat from 2010. This group used to be the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and then the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. It was formed in Iran among Iraqi expatriates in 1984 and originally had Khomeinist tendencies (believing that clerics should rule). It has moved more toward a democratic point of view but is still more clerically dominated than the lay Islamic Mission Party of al-Maliki. In 2010 Iran appears to have asked al-Hakim to support al-Maliki, and he acquiesced.
The Liberty Party of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr got 28 seats, and two tiny pro-Sadr parties got another 6, for 34 for this tendency. Al-Sadr has broken with al-Maliki and denounced him as dictatorial, and supported Sunni fundamentalists opposing al-Maliki. In 2010 Iran strong-armed al-Sadr into supporting al-Maliki.
Al-Sadr and al-Hakim had been in coalition in the last election, in 2010, and had gained somewhat more seats that year. Now they have 63.
Even if al-Maliki could pull off a miracle and get both al-Sadr and al-Hakim to support him, that is only 63 of the 73 he needs. In 2010, al-Maliki was put over the top by the support of the Kurdistan Alliance, which may happen again this time. The Kurds are in competition with Sunni Arabs for control of Kirkuk and influence in Mosul and in Diyala Province. Many Iraqi Sunnis support the uprising in Syria, which has come to be dominated on the battlefield by al-Qaeda affiliates. Kurds in Syria have fought the extremist fundamentalists and are supported by Iraqi Kurds.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of Jalal Talabani (president of Iraq) got 19 seats; the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani also got 19; and the Movement for Change (Goran) got 9. So the Kurds altogether won 47 seats.
Long story short, the Kurdish parties are unlikely to support a Sunni party, and although Barzani in particular is done out with al-Maliki, are far more likely to ally with the Shiites. Whether that means backing al-Maliki for prime minister, it is too soon to tell. Before the election Massoud Barzani met with Allawi, allegedly to strategize .. http://www.sotaliraq.com/mobile-news.php?id=149727 .. how to move al-Maliki out.
The Sunnis had largely supported the secular Iraqiya Party in 2010, which got 92 seats and was the largest in parliament. But the Iraqiya’s leader Ayad Allawi just could not put together a majority coalition. Many Iraqi Sunnis felt cheated, but they just don’t understand how parliamentary systems work. Unless you get a majority, you need coalition partners to rule. With the Kurds in tension with Sunni Arabs, and Sunni-Shiite tensions high, the Sunnis have found themselves isolated in national politics.
This time the Sunni Arabs split their votes among three major parties. Allawi’s party is now al-`Iraqiya al-Wataniya or the Iraqi Nationalism Party. It got 21 seats. The Speaker of the Parliament runs a party called the United (al-Muttahadun), which received 23 seats. And deputy pm Saleh al-Mutlaq headed al-Arabiya, the Arab Party, with 10 seats.
So the Sunni Arabs got at least 54 seats this time. But their ability and willingness to go to the polls was lessened by the crisis in Falluja and Ramadi since January, where the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has taken over many neighborhoods.
The Sunni Arabs of Iraq since early 2011 have mounted their own “Spring,” though without much success. The rallies are either crushed by the state or disrupted by Iraqis of a more extremist bent.
The gradual loss of any hope among Sunni Arab Iraqis in the new parliamentary system is heartbreaking. Now entire cities in their regions are under al-Qaeda. Al-Maliki can’t or won’t reach out to them. 3200 people have been killed in Iraq since January. That looks set to continue and accelerate.
Forces loyal to Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki deploy in Baghdad streets, sparking coup fears
Date August 11, 2014 - 10:52AM
Ahmed Rasheed
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants to hold on to power. Photo: AP
Baghdad: Special forces loyal to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were deployed in strategic areas of Baghdad on Sunday night after he delivered a tough speech indicating he would not cave in to pressure to drop a bid for a third term, police sources said.
Pro-Maliki Shiite militias stepped up patrols in the capital, police said. An eyewitness said a tank was stationed at the entrance to Baghdad's Green Zone, which houses government buildings.
In a speech on state television, Mr Maliki accused Iraq's Kurdish President Fouad Masoum of violating the constitution by missing a deadline for him to ask the biggest political bloc to nominate a prime minister and form a government.
"I will submit today an official complaint to the federal court against the president of the Republic for committing a clear constitutional violation for the sake of political calculations," said Mr Maliki.
Serving in a caretaker capacity since an inconclusive election in April, Mr Maliki has defied calls by Sunnis, Kurds, some fellow Shiites, regional power broker Iran and Iraq's top cleric for him to step aside for a less polarising figure.
The troop movements have raised speculation that they may mark the start of a coup by Mr Maliki to take full control of the government.
A western security expert based in Iraq said that Mr Maliki deployed members of the Golden Dawn militia and the elite SWAT special forces units around the International Zone prior to giving the speech.
"He was clearly anticipating a negative, possible coup-like response," said the expert, whose employer does not allow him to speak openly to the media.
Critics accuse Mr Maliki of pursuing a sectarian agenda which has sidelined Sunnis and prompted some of them to support militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, whose latest sweep through northern Iraq has alarmed the Baghdad government and its Western allies.
Washington seems to be losing patience with Mr Maliki, who has placed Shiite political loyalists in key positions in the army and military and drawn comparisons with executed former dictator Saddam Hussein, the man he plotted against from exile for years.
A senior US official said on Sunday he fully supported Mr Masoum after Mr Maliki, who the United States has blamed for stoking Iraq's security crisis, criticised him.
"Fully support President of Iraq Fouad Masoum as guarantor of the Constitution and a [prime minister] nominee who can build a national consensus," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Brett McGurk, the US State Department point man for Iraq, said on his Twitter feed.
US President Barack Obama urged Iraqi politicians on Saturday to form a more inclusive government that can counter the growing threat from ISIL, which recently changed its name to Islamic State and declared a "caliphate".
But Mr Maliki keeps digging in.
"Now we can see unprecedented deployment of army commandos and special elite forces deployed in Baghdad, especially sensitive areas close to the green zone and the entrances of the capital," one of the police sources said. "These forces are now taking full responsibility of securing these areas of the capital."
Iraq's Interior Ministry has told police to be on high alert in connection with Mr Maliki's speech, a police official said.
ISIL militants have capitalised on political deadlock and sectarian tensions that have made it easier for the group to make fresh gains after arriving in the north in June from Syria.
The group, which sees Shiites as infidels who deserve to be killed, has ruthlessly moved through one town after another, using tanks and heavy weapons it seized from soldiers who fled in the thousands.
Human rights minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani accused the Sunni Muslim insurgents - who have ordered the community they regard as "devil worshippers" to convert to Islam or die - of celebrating what he called a "a vicious atrocity".
No independent confirmation was available of the killings of hundreds of Yazidis, bloodshed that could increase pressure on Western powers to do more to help tens of thousands of people, including many from religious and ethnic minorities, who have fled the militants' offensive.
still regard Wing's 'panacea' piece as written much more so he could simply (re-)assert certain of his set/canned categorical 'insights' rather than actually shine any (new) light on anything
his in the end just postulating that someone else would effectively be so similar as to be the same ignores/papers over the numerous really shitty/stupid/etc. things al-Maliki's done and failed to do, all very deliberately and as a genuine and thoroughly corrupt tyrant who gives no sign of giving a damn about anything other than his power and privilege or anyone other than himself
there is a point beyond which such from al-Maliki becomes just a bit much, which is to say at least beginning to verge into the strategic, however whatever the surrounding circumstances/personages may be -- in my opinion, with/by virtue of his having affirmatively deliberately pushed things into a situation where we have now had to go kinetic, things have by now clearly gone beyond that point -- and I think/believe/consider that that, as best I might have any clue re how such matters are evaluated, shifts the calculus, bringing into play as potential courses of action options that would not otherwise/normally be considered/evaluated as potential courses of action -- it certainly would if I were in Obama's place
let us hope Joel's latest tweets ( https://twitter.com/JoelWing2 ), indicating al-Maliki may be promptly on his way out, prove out, with al-Maliki clearly denied a third term and no, or at least not any significant and only short-lived, factional violence/battling proceeding from that
--
Iraqi Shi'ite coalition close to nominating prime minister
An Iraqi police officer stands guard during a demonstration in support of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad, August 9, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Ahmed Saad
By Michael Georgy BAGHDAD Sun Aug 10, 2014 11:29pm EDT
(Reuters) - A bloc comprising Iraq's biggest Shi'ite parties is close to nominating a prime minister, the deputy speaker of parliament said on Monday, directly challenging Nuri al-Maliki who has refused to give up his bid for a third term.
Haider al-Abadi's comments in a tweet came after police sources said special forces and Shi'ite militias loyal to Maliki had been deployed in strategic areas of Baghdad after he made a defiant speech on television suggesting he would not cave in to pressure to drop his bid for another term.
Abadi is one of the people that has been mentioned as a possible successor to Maliki. In his tweet Abadi said government forces were moving around the capital in anticipation of security breaches.
Maliki accused Iraq's Kurdish President Fouad Masoum of violating the constitution by missing a deadline for him to ask the biggest political bloc to nominate a prime minister and form a government.
"I will submit today an official complaint to the federal court against the president of the Republic for committing a clear constitutional violation for the sake of political calculations," Maliki said in the televised speech.
Serving in a caretaker capacity since an inconclusive election in April, Maliki has defied calls by Sunnis, Kurds, some fellow Shi'ites, regional power broker Iran and Iraq's top cleric to step aside for a less polarizing figure.
Critics accuse Maliki of pursuing a sectarian agenda which has sidelined Sunnis and prompted some of them to support Islamic State militants, whose latest sweep through northern Iraq has alarmed the Baghdad government and its Western allies.
MALIKI UNDER FIRE
Washington seems to be losing patience with Maliki, who has placed Shi'ite political loyalists in key positions in the army and military and drawn comparisons with executed former dictator Saddam Hussein, the man he plotted against from exile for years.
Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf reaffirmed Washington's support for a "process to select a prime minister who can represent the aspirations of the Iraqi people by building a national consensus and governing in an inclusive manner".
"We reject any effort to achieve outcomes through coercion or manipulation of the constitutional or judicial process," Harf said in a statement, adding that the United States "fully supports" Masoum in his role as the guarantor of Iraq's constitution.
U.S. President Barack Obama has urged Iraqi politicians to form a more inclusive government that can counter the growing threat from the Islamic State.
But Maliki, an unknown when he first took office in 2006 with help from the United States, is digging in.
"Now we can see unprecedented deployment of army commandos and special elite forces deployed in Baghdad, especially sensitive areas close to the green zone and the entrances of the capital," one of the police sources said.
"These forces are now taking full responsibility of securing these areas of the capital."
Iraq's Interior Ministry has told police to be on high alert in connection with Maliki's speech, a police official told Reuters.
MORE U.S. AIR STRIKES
The Islamic State has capitalized on the political deadlock and sectarian tensions, making fresh gains after arriving in the north of the country in June from Syria.
The group, which sees Iraq's majority Shi'ites as infidels who deserve to be killed, has ruthlessly moved through one town after another, using tanks and heavy weapons it seized from soldiers who have fled in their thousands.
Islamic State militants have killed hundreds of Iraq's minority Yazidis, burying some alive and taking women as slaves, an Iraqi government minister said on Sunday, as U.S. warplanes again bombed the insurgents.
Human rights minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani accused the Sunni Muslim militants - who have ordered the community they regard as "devil worshippers" to convert to Islam or die - of celebrating what he called a "a vicious atrocity".
No independent confirmation was available of the killings of hundreds of Yazidis.
The bloodshed could increase pressure on Western powers to do more to help tens of thousands of people, including many from religious and ethnic minorities, who have fled the Islamic State's offensive.
The U.S. Central Command said drones and jet aircraft had hit Islamic State armed trucks and mortar positions near Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region which had been relatively stable throughout the past decade until insurgents swept across northwestern Iraq this summer.
That marked a third successive day of U.S. air strikes, and Central Command said that they were aimed at protecting Kurdish peshmerga forces as they face off against the militants near Arbil, the site of a U.S. consulate and a U.S.-Iraqi joint military operations center.
The Islamists' advance in the past week has forced tens of thousands to flee, threatened Arbil and provoked the first U.S. attacks since Washington withdrew troops from Iraq in late 2011, nearly nine years after invading to oust Saddam Hussein.
WOMEN HELD AS SLAVES
Consolidating a territorial grip that includes tracts of Syrian desert and stretches toward Baghdad, the Islamic State's local and foreign fighters have swept into areas where non-Sunni groups live. While they persecute non-believers in their path, that does not seem to be the main motive for their latest push.
The group wants to establish religious rule in a caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq and has tapped into widespread anger among Iraq's Sunnis at a democratic system dominated by the Shi'ite Muslim majority following the U.S. invasion of 2003.
Sudani said: "The terrorist Islamic State has also taken at least 300 Yazidi women as slaves and locked some of them inside a police station in Sinjar and transferred others to the town of Tal Afar. We are afraid they will take them outside the country.
"In some of the images we have obtained there are lines of dead Yazidis who have been shot in the head while the Islamic State fighters cheer and wave their weapons over the corpses," he added. "This is a vicious atrocity."
Iraqis have slipped back into sectarian bloodshed not seen since 2006-2007 - the peak of a civil war. Nearly every day police report kidnappings, bombings and execution-style killings.
The Sunni militants routed Kurds in their latest advance with tanks, artillery, mortars and vehicles seized from fleeing Iraqi troops.
The militants are now just 30 minutes' drive from Arbil. In their latest sweep through the north, the Sunni insurgents seized a fifth oil field, several more villages and the biggest dam in Iraq - which could give them the ability to flood cities or cut off water and power supplies - hoisting their black flags along the way.
After spending more than $2 trillion on its war in Iraq and losing thousands of soldiers, the United States must now find ways to tackle a group that is even more hardline than al-Qaeda and has threatened to march on Baghdad.
State Dept.: U.S. 'fully supports' new Iraq president
Posted: August 10, 2014 - 11:48pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States said Sunday it "fully supports" Iraq's new president, just hours after embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused him of violating the constitution.
The State Department responded after al-Maliki accused Fouad Massoum, who was named president last month, of neglecting to name a prime minister from the country's largest parliamentary faction by Sunday's deadline. He said Massoum has violated the constitution "for the sake of political goals."
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. rejects any effort to use coercion or manipulation in the process of choosing a new Iraqi leader. She said the U.S. supports the process to select a prime minister "by building a national consensus and governing in an inclusive manner."
Al-Maliki's surprise speech late Sunday plunged the government into a political crisis at a time it is battling advances by Islamic State militants. It was his first speech on Iraqi TV since U.S. forces launched airstrikes and humanitarian airdrops in Iraq last week.
Al-Maliki is seeking a third term as prime minister, but the latest crisis has prompted even his closest allies to call for his resignation. A parliament session scheduled for Monday to discuss the election and who might lead the next Iraqi government was postponed until Aug. 19.
U.S. officials said the dispute between al-Maliki and Massoum centers on the specifics of the deadline for nominees to replace the prime minister. While al-Maliki believes the deadline was Sunday, other Iraqi leaders believe the deadline is Monday afternoon.
The officials said the U.S. believes there is flexibility for the deadline to extend into Monday.
Al-Maliki's speech sparked rumors in Iraq that tanks were surrounding the presidential palace in Baghdad and that political rivals were in danger. The U.S. officials said the Obama administration had no confirmation of such developments, but said there was an increased security presence in Baghdad.
Officials said Iraq's Shiite leaders did appear to be coalescing around a nominee to replace al-Maliki and may be able to take that step Monday. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation in Iraq by name.
President Barack Obama last week approved limited airstrikes against Islamic State fighters, whose rapid rise in June plunged Iraq into its worst crisis since the end of 2011, when U.S. troops withdrew from the country at the end of an unpopular eight-year war. Obama said the current military campaign would be a "long-term project" to protect civilians from the deadly and brutal insurgents.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday the militants threaten not just Iraqis but also Americans. He said Obama's strikes were insufficient to turn back the militants and were designed "to avoid a bad news story on his watch."
"I think of an American city in flames because of the terrorists' ability to operate in Syria and in Iraq," said Graham, a reliable advocate for using U.S. military force overseas.
The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, also said the militants pose a threat "in our backyard" and were recruiting Westerners.
"Inaction is no longer an option," she said in a statement as airstrikes were underway.
The rhetoric tracked closely to that used in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, lawmakers from both parties voted to give President George W. Bush the authority to take military action against Iraq in the hopes of combating terrorism.
At the time, many said the United States faced a choice of fighting terrorism on American soil or on foreign soil.
A close White House ally, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, said Islamic State fighters are a "growing and troublesome" threat. But he added, "We must not send the troops."
"The big question is: What can the United States do to stop it?" Durbin asked.
American airstrikes have included attacks by fighter pilots and drones near Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, as recently as Sunday. The strikes are aimed at limiting Islamic State fighters' advances and helping Iraqi forces regain control.
U.S. and Iraqi aircraft also have dropped humanitarian aid for the minority Yazidis, thousands of whom have been stranded on a mountaintop since the Islamic militants seized Sinjar, near the Syrian border, last week. U.S. Central Command reported that the U.S. military conducted a fourth airdrop of food and water Sunday.
The State Department said Sunday it had relocated a limited number of staff members from the U.S. consulate general in Irbil. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the move was made "out of an abundance of caution rather than any one specific threat." Staffing at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad "remains the same," she said.
Talks between Washington and al-Maliki that would have allowed U.S. troops to remain in Iraq collapsed in 2008, and Obama withdrew troops in 2011. Al-Maliki now is under mounting pressure to step aside, including requests from U.S. lawmakers.
"The collapse of Mosul was not a result of lack of equipment or lack of personnel. It was a leadership collapse," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. "And so in order to put the situation right, we have to begin at the fundamental core, which is leadership in Baghdad, Iraqi leadership."
Graham spoke to "Fox News Sunday." Durbin appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press." Reed was interviewed on CBS' "Face the Nation."
U.S.: Baghdad situation tense, no tanks at president's compound
By Jeff Mason EDGARTOWN Mass Sun Aug 10, 2014 11:29pm EDT
(Reuters) - The United States views defiant comments from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as troubling but has seen no evidence of Iraqi forces mobilizing in an unusual way despite a tense climate in Baghdad, a U.S. official said on Sunday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he had spoken to Iraq's Kurdish President Fouad Masoum and his aides, who said reports of tanks surrounding the presidential compound were not true.
Special forces loyal to Maliki were deployed in strategic areas of Baghdad on Sunday night after he delivered a tough speech indicating he would not cave in to pressure to drop a bid for a third term, police sources said.
The official said Maliki's comments were troubling and made clear the United States would not support implicit or explicit threats that circumvented the Iraqi constitution.
He said the situation in Baghdad was tense but calm. Having tanks stationed at the entrance to Baghdad's Green Zone, which houses government buildings, was common, he said, and projections of political violence erupting on Monday were overwrought.
The current standoff underscores the tenuousness of Maliki’s political position, as factions of his own party withdraw support and other elements of the country’s Shi’ite establishment, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, suggest he must step down.
Washington believes there is still time for an alternative to Maliki to be nominated.
Earlier Maliki accused Masoum of violating the constitution by missing a deadline for him to ask the biggest political bloc to nominate a prime minister and form a government.
Maliki also said he would submit a complaint against Masoum to a top Iraqi court. The official said it appeared Masoum would submit a counter-complaint to that court.
(Additional reporting by Missy Ryan in Washington; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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