by Wayne White
President Barack Obama’s news conference today showed some well-placed White House caution against acting in ways that would support more substantially Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian agenda in Iraq. Hopefully, Obama’s repeated implicit criticism of Maliki’s government and his expressed desire for key Iraqi players to form a new [...]]]>
by Wayne White
President Barack Obama’s news conference today showed some well-placed White House caution against acting in ways that would support more substantially Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian agenda in Iraq. Hopefully, Obama’s repeated implicit criticism of Maliki’s government and his expressed desire for key Iraqi players to form a new government will raise the chances of Maliki’s ouster. Yet the announced measures do carry risks — potentially for greater US involvement with Malki & Co, and to US personnel in Iraq, the US itself, and US diplomacy aimed at defusing Sunni Arab support for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The White House correctly views Maliki’s remarks yesterday as insufficiently reflective of a genuine desire for inclusiveness. Although Maliki briefly admitted “mistakes” and called upon Sunni Arabs to abandon the extremist ISIS, he offered no meaningful concessions with which to change their minds. Instead he railed against traitorous politicians and Iraqi officers, alleged conspiracies, as well as Saudi Arabia for generating the current crisis. In fact, the key figure in setting the stage for the stunning ISIS breakout in Iraq was Maliki.
Any hands on cooperation with Iraqi units that could collapse or be partnered with vicious Shia militias would expose US troops to possible violence and more direct association with inevitable retaliatory Shia atrocities against Sunni Arabs. However, the president’s proposal involves the very real possibility of so-called “mission creep” toward even closer military involvement at the unit level.
The deployment of up to 300 more US military advisors to Iraq with their mission unclear — but apparently not merely aimed at better securing our embassy — carries risks. According to the AP, US officials say they will be embedded in teams with Iraqi forces. Thus, there may be the distinct possibility that they will be tactically very close to the action, perhaps contradicting Obama’s claim that US troops will not be involved in combat roles. Likewise, placing military personnel in joint operations centers in Baghdad and the Kurdish north brings in the danger of the US becoming more associated with Maliki’s military effort and the atrocities that will surely result.
Both actions, part of a US effort to “increase support for Iraqi security forces,” also conflict with Obama’s statement that the US would not support “one side against another” amidst Iraq’s seething ethno-sectarian divide. Ideally, both measures would have been withheld until the behavior of political leaders in Baghdad became more consistent with Washington’s vision.
Moreover, such actions (as well as the statement about supporting government security forces) not only makes ISIS more likely to target the US or Americans, but also could undermine Secretary of State John Kerry’s diplomatic mission, presumably aimed at restoring a more “stable, inclusive society” in Iraq. Indeed, countries able to communicate with Iraq’s Sunni Arab tribes and former military officers (many of the latter supporting ISIS one way or another because of anger toward Maliki) will be unhappy with Obama’s less forward-leaning military package.
Another problem is Iran. Regardless of US advisors, Tehran will have a lot more clout with the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. Iranian military advisors are already on the scene. It is unlikely those advisors — or the Iranian leadership — will be nearly as concerned as their US counterparts with avoiding sectarianism and atrocities (and association with both). Obama himself underscored Iran’s differences with the US concerning Washington’s hope for a less inflamed sectarian environment in the region, suggesting Iran would not shift such positions when he said “Old habits die hard.”
The most refreshing aspects of Obama’s remarks today were his repeated statements implicitly calling for Maliki’s removal. His assertion that “we don’t have” an inclusive government that Sunni Arabs can trust to serve their interests and noting of doubts among other Iraqi leaders are revealing in that respect. Obama’s call for Iraq’s parliament to form a unity government at a time when the makeup of Iraq’s post-election political lineup is still pending, as well as deeming the need for change a “test” for Iraq’s leadership, also says everything short of: “Maliki needs to go.”
NBC’s leading Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel reported before Obama’s remarks that NBC had received word of ongoing consultations regarding the government in Najaf (where influential Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani resides). Obama also mentioned questions among some Iraqi leaders in Baghdad, suggesting the US has information of possible maneuvering against Maliki. It could be that Obama’s decision to withhold airstrikes and more lower-level US military guidance might embolden Iraqi leaders yearning for greater American involvement to attempt dumping Maliki.
All told, Obama’s decision is a mixed bag, but remains relatively cautious. Hewing to such a stance in the face of intense pressure from critics on Capitol Hill and those hyping the immediate ISIS threat to the US (the latter noted in my June 14 analysis) was difficult. Let us hope that in the coming days and weeks President Obama has the will to resist pressures that could significantly increase the US military role in Iraq (and likewise the risk to US interests and American personnel inside Iraq).
This article was first published by LobeLog and was reprinted here with permission. Follow LobeLog on Twitter and like us on Facebook
by Shireen T. Hunter
The beleaguered Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, is the latest in the long list of the West’s favorite political leaders turned into pariahs. The conventional wisdom now is that Maliki’s flaws and wrong policies, especially his alienation of the Sunnis and dictatorial style of governance, are at [...]]]>
by Shireen T. Hunter
The beleaguered Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, is the latest in the long list of the West’s favorite political leaders turned into pariahs. The conventional wisdom now is that Maliki’s flaws and wrong policies, especially his alienation of the Sunnis and dictatorial style of governance, are at the root of Iraq’s problems, including its latest troubles with extremist Islamic militants.
Clearly, Maliki has not been a successful prime minister. Yet have his very real and assumed flaws been the only, or even the main, cause of Iraq’s problems today? Could a different person have done a better job? Or have the real culprits been structural problems, Iraq’s long and more recent history, and the policies of regional and international actors? A further question: are the grievances of Iraq’s Sunnis solely attributable to the Shias’ desire to monopolize power? What about the Sunnis’ inability to come to terms with any type of government in which the Shias have a real rather than ceremonial function?
These questions are by no means posed to minimize or underestimate the impact of the current leadership’s mismanagement and mistakes, or the corrosive influence of dissension within Shia ranks among the supporters of Maliki, the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and Ammar al-Hakim, the head of the Islamic Council of Iraq. But if viewed impartially, the weight of evidence shows that other factors have played more substantial roles in causing Iraq’s previous problems and the latest crisis than Maliki’s incompetence and dictatorial tendencies.
The most significant factor behind Iraq’s problems has been the inability of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and its Sunni neighbors to come to terms with a government in which the Shias, by virtue of their considerable majority in Iraq’s population, hold the leading role. This inability was displayed early on, when Iraq’s Sunnis refused to take part in Iraq’s first parliamentary elections, and resorted to insurgency almost immediately after the US invasion and fall of Saddam Hussein. All along, the goal of Iraqi Sunnis has been to prove that the Shias are not capable of governing Iraq. Indeed, Iraq’s Sunni deputy prime minister, Osama al Najafi, recently verbalized this view. The Sunnis see political leadership and governance to be their birthright and resent the Shia interlopers.
The Sunnis’ psychological difficulty in accepting a mostly Shia government is understandable. After ruling the country for centuries, both under the Ottomans and after independence, and after oppressing the Shias and viewing them as heretics and dregs of society, the Sunnis find Shia rule to sit heavily on them. It is thus difficult to imagine what any Shia prime minister could have done — or could now do — to satisfy the Sunnis. For example, during the early years after Saddam’s fall, once they had realized their mistake of abstaining from politics, the Sunnis made unreasonable demands as the price of cooperation, such as taking the defense portfolio. Yet considering what the Shias had suffered under Saddam, there was no possibility that they could agree.
Iraq’s Sunni Arabs have not been alone in undermining the authority of the country’s Shia leadership. Masood Barzani, who dreams of an independent Kurdistan, has also done what he can to undermine the authority of the government in Baghdad, by essentially running his own economic, oil, and foreign policies. A factor in Barzani’s attitude has been his anti-Iran sentiments, which go back to the troubles that his father, Mulla Mustafa Barzani, had with the Shah.
Iraq’s Sunni neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but also Qatar, also cannot countenance a Shia government in Baghdad. In addition to the anti-Shia impact of the Wahhabi creed that is dominant in Saudi Arabia and among the Qatari leadership, this Sunni animosity has derived from the perception that a Shia government in Iraq would change the balance of regional power in Iran’s favor. Yet Maliki is the least pro-Iranian of Iraq’s Shia leaders, with the possible exception of the now-notorious Ahmad Chalabi. During Saddam’s time, Maliki belonged to the Dawa party, a rival of Iraq’s Islamic Revolutionary Council that was supported by Iran, and he spent more time in Syria than in Iran. This is one reason why the US preferred Maliki to personalities like Ibrahim Jafari.
Moreover, Maliki tried to reach out to Turkey and to other Arab states, including Saudi Arabia. But Turkey snubbed him and supported his rival, Tariq al-Hashimi. The Arab states have also shunned him. Under these circumstances, Maliki had no choice but to move closer to Iran. Yet the idea that he has thus become an Iranian pawn is a myth with no foundation in reality. Even now, Iraq has not reestablished the Algiers Agreement of 1975 that regularized Iraqi-Iranian border disputes, an agreement which, before attacking Kuwait in 1990, Saddam had accepted. Iraq has not signed a peace treaty with Iran and competes with it in courting clients for oil exports. Iraq also has more extensive trade relations with Turkey than with Iran.
In short, by exaggerating the sectarian factor, Iraq’s Sunni neighbors have exacerbated Shia fears and made it more difficult for them to pursue a more inclusive policy vis-à-vis the Sunnis. Further, most killings in Iraq have been in Shia areas, undertaken by Sunni extremists of various kinds who are funded by Sunni governments in the region. The plight of the Shias has also not been limited to Iraq. Similar mistreatment in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan has gone unnoticed by the West, while the exclusion of Iraq’s Sunnis from leadership posts in Baghdad has been blown out of proportion. Western and especially US dislike of Iran has been a major cause for the disregarding of mass killings and assassination of Shias.
America’s conflicting policy objectives in the region have also led it to pursue policies in Iraq that have contributed to current US dilemmas. The most glaring example was the US courting of Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders, both of which were thus emboldened to commit acts such as attacking the Shia shrines in Samara in 2006 and frightening the Shias that America would again betray them as it did at the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Wanting to isolate Iran and perhaps to bring about regime change there, the US has also done virtually nothing to reign in the Saudis and others, including Turkey and Qatar, to prevent them from funding Sunni insurgents. Instead, Washington has blamed Iraqi unrest solely on Iranian meddling. Even today, there is no acknowledgement by the United States that the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) cannot achieve what it has been doing without outside help.
At an even more fundamental level, America’s efforts to achieve too many contradictory and incompatible goals have been at the root of Iraq’s crisis. To date, it has proved to be difficult — indeed impossible — to eliminate Saddam but produce a stable Iraq; to isolate Iran and possibly change its regime; to get rid of Assad in Syria without exacerbating its civil war; to forge a Sunni-Israeli alliance against Shia Iran; and to convince other Shias throughout the region to continue playing second fiddle to the Sunnis.
To summarize, Nouri al-Maliki is certainly flawed and has made many mistakes. But the real culprits have been Iraq’s considerable fault lines, contradictory policies pursued by the West, and the predatory approach of Iraq’s neighbors. Thus even if Maliki is removed from office, Iraq’s situation will not improve unless these fault lines are dealt with and the policies pursued by outside states in Iraq are remedied. Rather, the situation will get much worse because the Shias are most unlikely to once again accept living under a regime that can be characterized as “Saddamism without Saddam” or, worse, what they would consider a Salafi-Takfiri government that considers them heathens deserving death.
This article was first published by LobeLog and was reprinted here with permission.
Photo: President Barack Obama greets Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the Oval Office of the White House on July 22, 2009. Credit: White House/Pete Souza
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