Cole in Salon: The War on al-Maliki
My Salon column for Wednesday is now available: "The war against Iraq's prime minister:"
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin are calling for Nouri al-Maliki's ouster as a way of attacking Bush's Iraq policy. But do they understand the consequences?"
Excerpt:
' In his remarks to the American Legion in Reno, Nev., Bush said that the Iraqi government was America's shield in the region against both of these forces of "Islamic extremism," and said of Maliki, "The prime minister of Iraq, Prime Minister Maliki, has courageously committed to pursue the forces of evil and destruction."
Bush was defending Maliki, even at the cost of implausibly depicting the leader of the fundamentalist Shiite Islamic Call (al-Da'wa) Party as an opponent of Iran and Hezbollah, because the prime minister has been under virtual siege from Washington politicians for the past week and a half. He's become the favorite whipping boy of opponents of continued U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Maliki has been unafraid to mount his own defense against his American critics. On Sunday, he slammed Sens. Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton for calling for the Iraqi parliament to oust him. He accused the senators of acting as if Iraq were "the feudal estate of this person or that," a metaphor that went over the head of most American observers. Modern Iraqi political parties such as the Islamic Call were formed in part as a reaction against the landlord class that dominated Iraq under the British-installed monarchy. Maliki was saying the senators were bringing back colonialism and disregarding the Iraqi political process. "They are Democrats," he quipped of Clinton and Levin, "so they should respect democracy and its results." '
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/28/2007 06:16:00 PM
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4 Comments:
The US naturally would like to have joint Sunni-Shiia support, to add to its solid Kurdish one.
But Sunni reconciliation is not the most critical for Iraq itself. Maliki can be pro-Iran or pro-US or pro-anythingyoulike as a tactic to further his branch of the Dawa party and, most importantly, himself.
The "Shiia government" is not pro-Shiia. Numerically, most of the people suffering under the regime are Shiite. The Sadrists, who by far have the most support, are openly anti-Maliki, so are Fadhila and a large section of Maliki's Dawa party.
Letting the ex-Baathists in will help the US, but is not remotely a demand by the Sunni masses who suffered just as much under the Ba'ath rule. It is a US demand, not Sunni.
Neither the Sunni leaders nor the Shiia leaders represent their communities: they are looters trying to get as much as possible for themselves, just like the Kurdish leaders. So, if the strife is between the communities, which I doubt, reconciliation will amount to nothing since the politicians do not have the respect of, less so the authority over, their communities. If it is between the so-called leaders, not the communities, then just dump the bastards.
Even if all the 'bench-marks' are met and the leaders became best buddies, Iraq will remain a failed state. These "leaders" are stunningly corrupt and inept and could not run a village properly. They will not have technocrats to run the place because they want their own people there. Moreover, expecting competent people with high-esteem and in-demand abilities to work for these characters, and under occupation too, is not realistic.
Puppet governments, per se, can not function properly anyway. They want to please their foreign masters to stay in power, which mostly is the opposite to what the people want. Ignoring this time-tested fact will not lead to solutions, no matter how much pressure and signals one applies.
I think you are misreading Levin's motivation and probably his understanding of the situation. He was meeting privately with the group of Presidents Council members in Baghdad who were negotiating this new agreement with Malaki. I have not read of anyone on the ground in Baghdad who believes that Malaki has the political prowess to accomplish anything.
In any case, Levin's motivation is to get the US out of Iraq. His calculus is simple. The surge was predicated on political progress. Absent political progress, there is no rationale for continued US presence in direct combat missions.
Levin's call for the Iraqi people to replace Malaki was in part designed to put pressure on Malaki, but was more intended to force the issue of Iraqi political failure to the forefront of the US debate.
His pressure obviously worked. Malaki indeed felt pressure to sign this new agreement...and agreement that had fallen apart (from Malaki's side) by the end of Levin's trip to Baghdad.
You complain about US imperialism. Of course, the best way to end US imperialism in Iraq is obvious -- for the US to get out of Iraq. To make that happen, Levin needs to move some Republican votes in the Senate. The best way to do that is to demonstrate that the Iraqi government has comprehensively failed.
Perhaps Dr. Brzezinski was right after all. Being First Lady does nothing to qualify Sen Clinton to be president. Her remarks reveal exceedingly poor judgment and an astounding ignorance of what has become of Iraq since the invasion she supported. That invasion destroyed Iraq as a viable nation-state, destroyed civil structures. No one man or woman could lead the ruins.
Maybe she should try again in 8 years. Get a little more seasoning.
As long as General David Petraeus is in command of US forces in Iraq, we likely don't have to worry about Senators criticism of al-Maliki. Ambassador Crocker also seems to be a very effective team player in Iraq. However al-Maliki doesn't seem to quite understand that he, Petraeus and even the Iraqi people are mere pawns to the most militant Democrats. That's I believe what Juan was trying to get at.
Mostly however we should worry that the US, and especially Bush, can mis-read signals from unstable countries in the Middle East - like Iran and Syria. Bush after all clearly mis-read signals from Saddam Hussein before the US invaded Iraq. Even Saddam's blunder in invading Kuwait was apparently based on US diplomats failing to understand what he was signaling.
However al-Maliki for all his faults does seem to excel in foreign diplomacy - he even pointed out the French supported Saddam after the French foreign minister called for him to be replaced. The French foreign minister even choked-down a public apology, after al-Maliki demanded it.
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