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More than four months
after it was elected on 15 December 2005, the Iraqi
Council of Representatives (Parliament) was finally
able to nominate a new prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki,
along with a State President, Jalal al-Talabani (the
incumbent), and a new Speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.
The long delay was ostensibly due to the crisis
surrounding Ibrahim al-Ja’fari, the interim Prime
Minister, who was initially nominated by the Shi’ite
coalition (in February 2006) as its candidate for
the post but was unable to put together a governing
coalition. However, the crisis surrounding Ja’fari’s
candidacy was really only the tip of a deep,
structural problem afflicting Iraqi polity and
society since the formation of the modern state.
Ja’fari was stripped of his nomination as a result
of heavy pressure by the United States, a
Sunni-Kurdish alliance, and even the Shi’ite
coalition that had originally chosen him. The
pretext for his ouster was his inability during his
term as interim prime minister to suppress the
terrorism and violence washing over the country,
which culminated in February in the demolition of
the Shi’ite mosque in Samara and the subsequent
attacks by Shi’ites on Sunni mosques and religious
leaders.
In fact, his ouster reflected changes both in the
domestic political map and in the position of the
United States. Ja’fari was originally nominated
following a rift within the Shi’ite coalition
between the Da’wa Party (headed by Ja’fari) and the
Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)
headed by Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim. In February, Ja’fari
had prevailed by only one vote when Muqtada al-Sadr’s
faction decided to support him. Armed with this
mandate, Ja’fari refused thereafter to cede the
nomination until the very last minute, when pressure
by Ayatollah Ali Sistani forced him to submit.
Nevertheless, his successor, al-Maliki, also owes
his nomination to al-Sadr and is also a member of
Da’wa, not SCIRI. These events demonstrate Sistani’s
decisive political influence but also the
convergence of interests between Da’wa and the
extremist al-Sadr faction, which may continue to
determine events for the entire Shi’ite camp.
Of course, Ja’fari’s failure was also due to
unrelenting pressure from a Kurdish-Sunni alliance
that had opposed him from the outset. The Kurds
rejected him because he had infringed on the powers
of President Talabani (a Kurd) and because of his
uncompromising resistance to Kurdish demands to
include Kirkuk in the Kurdish federal region. The
Sunnis rejected him because of his
“de-Ba’thification” policies and because he made no
effort to stop the retaliatory attacks on Sunnis by
the Shi’ite Badr militias.
This temporary convergence of interests dramatizes
the brittleness of the Shi’ite-Kurdish alliance that
has operated since the American invasion, the
Kurdish role as the “swing vote” between Sunnis and
Shi’ites, and the fluidity of political loyalties,
which can quickly transform today’s compromise into
tomorrow’s deadlock.
Finally, the American role was critical. At the
height of the government crisis, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw came to Baghdad to try to break the
stalemate by backing the Sunni-Kurdish demand for
al-Ja’fari to step down. That reflects a conceptual
shift in American policy. For much of the time since
2003, the US virtually ignored the Sunnis and even
countenanced efforts to isolate them.
But the Americans increasingly came to appreciate
that it is impossible to stabilize Iraq without
Sunni cooperation and also to suspect that the
Shi’ites were growing progressively more intimate
with Iran – the most serious rival of the West in
the Middle East -- and that it was therefore
necessary to support some counterweight.
However, the decision to do so by acting to get rid
of al-Ja’fari highlights the dilemma raised when the
promotion of democracy leads to policies that
adversely affect other interests. Ja’fari’s
supporters, protesting his ouster, gave symbolic
expression to their denunciation of western choices
by demonstrating with coffins marked “Death of
Democracy.”
If the institution of democratic rule in Iraq is
problematic in the current circumstances, the even
less ambitious goal of a stable, functioning state
may also be out of reach. Ending the present
stalemate and forming a regular government could
presumably indicate that such a goal is attainable.
But though a new government may eventually be
formed, many other challenges will remain. Maliki,
after all, is little more than a compromise
candidate put forward in place of his more divisive
predecessor. He spent most of his days in exile in
Syria, which may have influenced his political
outlook, and he never developed ties with the United
States. In contrast to other Shi’ite exiles and
activists, he has had little exposure to the West
and his reputation on social issues, such as
improving the status of women, is also illiberal.
To make matters worse, American support for his
nomination may well taint him as a collaborator in
the eyes of the Sunnis and of some Shi’ited, as
well. And even if that does not happen, Maliki’s
efforts to unify the ranks and stabilize the
political map might run into many other obstacles.
The most complicated issue on the agenda is the
Sunni demand to revew the debate on the
constitution, in keeping with the promise made to
them on the eve of the October 2005 referendum as an
incentive for them to vote. Needless to say,
reviving that debate would reopen the fundamental
questions of political order, including the question
of federalism in Iraq, the nature of relations
between different groups and sects, the distribution
of power and resources, and the state’s very
identity and orientation.
Overshadowing this entire debate is the fabric of
social relations, which was essentially shredded
after the elimination of the previous regime. Even
if the current situation is not a full-blown civil
war, recent grisly events (such as the discovery in
April of 2000 corpses in Baghdad), certainly
indicate growing religious and ethnic polarization,
declining confidence in a weak central government,
and a loss of any sense of direction.
Bent on preventing any stability that might entrench
the changes since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,
especially those that have made the Sunnis into a
second-rank force, the terrorists and other
opposition forces are now not only preserving “the
republic of fear.” They are also turning Iraq into a
failed state.
Tel Aviv Notes is published by
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY
The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies
www.tau.ac.il/jcss/
& The Moshe Dayan Center
for Middle Eastern and African Studies
http://www.dayan.org/
through the generosity of Sari and Israel Roizman,
Philadelphia
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