Politically, the new Prime Minister Jawad al-Maliki
bears a close resemblance to the outgoing Ibrahim
al-Jaafari
The announcement on Saturday that all key Iraqi
factions have agreed on Jawad al-Maliki as an
acceptable Shi'ite replacement for controversial
prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari was greeted as a
sign of hope for the cause of Iraqi democracy. But
whatever their differences in personal style,
Jaafari and his designated successor are cut from
the same political cloth — and they will face the
same political obstacles that fueled Kurdish, Sunni
and U.S. objections to Jaafari.
Maliki appears remarkably similar to the man for
whom he effectively served as a spokesman for the
past year. Like Jaafari, Maliki is a Shi'ite
Islamist of the Dawa party who spent some of his
exile in Iran (the rest was in Damascus, while
Jaafari went to London); like Jaafari he owes his
position to the backing of the radical cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr. Both men have been accused of
having a sectarian outlook despite their public
embrace of national unity; both are Iraqi
nationalists who oppose the dismembering of Iraq
into semi-autonomous mini states; both would also
abide by the wishes of Iraq's leading Shi'ite
cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who helped pave
the way for this deal. |
New prime minister Jawad al-Maliki
Photo:AP |
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Where Jaafari had been branded as passive, aloof and
high-handed by his critics, Maliki — who has taken a
lead in de-Baathification efforts that have
alienated many Sunnis — is deemed to be a dogged
negotiator who doesn't easily change his position.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad praised him as a
tough-minded, independent leader who is saying all
the right things. Then again, it is easy to forget
that Washington was loquacious in its praise for
Jaafari less than a year ago, too.
The tough-mindedness for which Maliki is known will
have to be matched with a political flexibility rare
among Iraqi leaders if he is to have any chance of
improving on on Jaafari, however: He lacks a
majority in the legislature, and will need to find
allies on an issue by issue basis to pursue his
legislative agenda. Since consensus is no easy feat
in in light of the sectarian tensions of all of the
major blocs in the legislative assembly, Maliki may
simply end up commanding a weaker central
government.
And then there are the issues. The Kurdish, Sunni
and U.S. objections to Jaafari were based less on
style than substance, and it's not clear Maliki will
be very different: critics, for instance, saw
Jaafari as wedded to a sectarian outlook that
precluded offering greater power to the Sunnis in
the hope of drawing them in, as unwilling to rein in
the militias associated with his own sect, and (in
the case of the Kurds) hostile to a federalism that
would allow the creation of de facto-independent
regions. One early test will come over the next
month as Maliki cobbles together a cabinet — Jaafari
had favored putting members of the Shi'ite alliance
in charge of the defense and security portfolios
that Washington wants to see controlled by
U.S.-friendly secular leaders.
The staffing of the security ministries is closely
tied to the challenge of curbing the sectarian
militias that Khalilzad has called "the
infrastructure of civil war." Maliki's position,
like that of Jaafari, is that the militias must be
absorbed into the new security forces. That's an
option that has critics worried, because if they
keep their shape and leadership, then incorporating
them simply gives militias official license to
operate, in much the same the way that critics have
charged that the Interior Ministry commandoes double
as a Shi'ite militia.
But Maliki, whose political base includes the two
major Shi'ite militias, may be tempted to point to
the Kurdish example, where the "peshmerga" forces
loyal to the region's two main political parties
have been rebranded as units of the new security
forces. The Kurdish leaders aren't about to accept
the breakup and dispersal of the peshmerga into a
wider army on a non-sectarian basis, so Maliki may
be able to get away with his position, insisting
that what's good for the Kurds is good for everyone
else
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