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The Conspiratorial Mind of Iraq’s PM Nouri
al-Maliki
15.8.2012
By Joel Wing —
Ekurd.net |
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When Maliki found out that his State of Law list
came in 2nd in the 2010 elections he claimed fraud.
Photo: KPA/Zuma/ Rex Features.
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Read more by the
Author
August 15, 2012
Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lived in exile
for over twenty years, while Saddam Hussein was in
power. As a member of the outlawed Islamic Dawa
Party, he felt like his life was in danger, and
ended up fleeing to Syria and Iran. During his years
living abroad, he was in a world of intrigue facing
internal divisions within Dawa, having to deal with
government and intelligence officials from Tehran
and Damascus, and the other exile opposition
parties. Back in Iraq, Dawa was conducting an armed
struggle against the regime, leading to constant
round-ups and executions, meaning that Maliki was
always under threat from Baghdad’s agents. Those
long years away from home, shaped Maliki, and how he
saw politics. After the U.S. invasion in 2003,
Maliki returned to Iraq mistrustful of others, and
with a conspiratorial mind, which has played a large
role in how he has governed as premier.
An example of how Maliki’s history played a role in
his leadership style was how he reacted to the
formation of the Sons of Iraq (SOI) during the
Surge. In early 2007, tribes, insurgents, and others
began organizing in places like Diyala against Al
Qaeda in Iraq. In June, General David Petraeus
decided to support the formation of Sunni groups to
fight the insurgency, as part of the Surge’s overall
strategy of trying to separate those that were
capable of reconciling from those who were not.
While the prime minister agreed to set up a
committee to deal with the SOI, he and his officials
relentlessly attacked the program at the same time.
They said the fighters would eventually turn against
the government, because they were full of Al Qaeda
members, insurgents, and Baathists. As a result,
Baghdad refused to pay them as the U.S. continually
asked them to do, and threatened to disband the SOI
units as soon as the fighting was over. (1) Since
many of the SOI were militants it was no surprise
that the prime minister would refuse to accept them.
In 2007, Iraq was still in the middle of a very
bloody sectarian civil war, so it was understandable
that a Shiite politician would be weary of a bunch
of Sunni fighters put together by a foreign power.
Where Maliki’s past came in to play was how he
interpreted the SOI program. The Americans
continually tried to convince the prime minister
that the Sons of Iraq were a positive development
since it was draining away support from militants,
and helping to improve security. Instead, Maliki
took the SOI as a plot by the Americans to overthrow
his government. He continuously refuted the U.S.’s
explanations, and instead thought in terms of
conspiracies. To him, the only reason why the
Coalition forces could be working with people who
were formally fighting the government was to
undermine it. That’s why even though Maliki agreed
to integrate the SOI in December, he continued to
deride them, and more than four years later there
are still 30,000 fighters without public jobs as
they were promised. To this day, Maliki still
appears to be weary of the Sons of Iraq.
When Iraq held parliamentary elections in March
2010, the prime minister cried foul. As soon as the
results were made public, and his rival Iraqi
National Movement (INM) came out as the winner,
Maliki claimed that it had cheated. He said that up
to 750,000 votes were involved, which had cost his
State of Law list 11 seats in parliament, enough to
make it the winner. The premier said that the
Election Commission was responsible, and was working
for his opponents, and the United States, which was
against his re-election. He ended up calling for a
recount, but it did not change the results. Maliki
then blamed that on the United Nations and the
United States for not listening to his complaints,
and trying to impose what he considered unfair
election results upon him. It didn’t end there. The
next year, State of Law accused the Election
Commission of being pro-INM, and ran an unsuccessful
no confidence vote against it in parliament in July
2011. Again, Maliki revealed the same set of
thinking as he did with the Sons of Iraq. He was
convinced that everyone was arrayed against him from
the Iraqi National Movement to the Election
Commission to the United Nations to the United
States. He believed that all of them were working
together to deny him a second term in office by
fixing the 2010 vote, and forcing the results upon
him in a grand plot.
That wasn’t the end of the drama surrounding the
2010 election. As the Iraqi National Movement
continued to oppose Maliki and attempted to hold a
no confidence vote against him, Maliki saw another
group of players opposing him. Before and after the
voting, INM leaders like Iyad Allawi and Vice
President Tariq al-Hashemi made a number of regional
tours to countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
and others. All of those countries supported the
National Movement during the vote. State of Law took
those trips as a sign that all those powers were
working with the National Movement to depose him. To
Maliki, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the others were
trying to bring back Sunni rule in Iraq, and that’s
why he believed that they were behind the INM and
the no confidence vote.
Finally, nothing seems to be beyond Maliki’s
conspiratorial thinking. Iraq has had electricity
problems since the 1991 Gulf War when most of its
infrastructure was bombed. Maliki’s government has
consistently said that it would fix the power grid,
but supply has never met demand. There are constant
black outs as a result, and protests have broken out
in the last three years as well. Instead of blaming
poor planning or other issues, State of Law instead
pointed the finger at a regional plot. In August
2012, a State of Law politician claimed that foreign
countries were working with officials within the
Electricity Ministry to cut production, undermine
its development programs all in an attempt to bring
down the government. It would not be surprising if
Maliki saw this as a continuation of the 2010
election as his rivals have failed to get rid of him
politically, so now they are attempting to foster a
public uprising against him. It seems like Maliki
and his followers are incapable of analyzing any
event without thinking of it as some sort of covert
plan by their enemies to destroy them.
The years spent abroad gave Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
a distorted view of politics. Joost Hiltermann of
the International Crisis Group has postulated that
Maliki’s apprehensions and fears served him well as
an exile since he survived those turbulent times,
but that those are exactly the wrong characteristics
to be a leader of a country. The prime minister is
not just playing hardball tactics or trying to grab
power for power’s sake. Instead, his time in exile
has made him paranoid that his enemies are
constantly working against him. At one time or
another he has seen the Sons of Iraq, the United
States, the United Nations, the Election Commission,
the Iraqi National Movement, Turkey, Saudi Arabia,
and Qatar as all plotting against him. This is the
reason why he has concentrated more and more
authority in his hands. To him, and too many others
of Iraq’s ruling elite, politics are a zero sum
game. If Maliki didn’t assume control of the
security forces for instance, his rivals would, and
they would use it against him. He therefore believes
he must take those types of actions to survive in
post-Saddam Iraq. The fact that this has increased
opposition to him only makes Maliki more paranoid
that various forces are ganging up against him
rather than attempting to compromise and defuse the
situation. The prime minister’s mindset simply does
not allow him to change, meaning that there will be
future crises and continued deadlock, which Maliki
will all see as plots and conspiracies against him.
FOOTNOTES
1. Hadid, Diaa, “Iraq pledges to disband Sunni
volunteer militias,” Associated Press, 12/23/07
SOURCES
Agence France Presse, “Former Iraq PM Allawi defends
tour of Arab states,” 2/23/10
AIN, “Hal MP: “Hall Bloc rejects toppling Maliki,””
6/8/12
AK News, “Egypt and Qatar within regional tour of
Al-Iraqiya,” 4/1/10
- “No fraud in more than 2000 Baghdad polling
stations,” 5/6/10
Associated Press, “Baghdad recount could change Iraq
election results,” 4/19/10
Aswat al-Iraq, “Al-Hashemi meets Saudi king,”
4/15/10
- “Maliki’s coalition urges vote recount in 5
provinces,” 4/11/10
Burns, John and Rubin, Alissa, “U.S. Arming Sunnis
in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies,” New York Times,
6/11/07
Chulov, Martin, “Iraqi elections hit with claims of
fraud by opposing parties,” Guardian, 3/16/10
Dreazen, Yochi and Shishking, Philip and Jaffe,
Greg, “U.S. Shifts Iraq Focus As Local Tactics
Gain,” Wall Street Journal, 9/4/07
Gordon, Michael, “The
Former-Insurgent-Counterinsurgency,” New York Times,
9/2/07
Hadid, Diaa, “Iraq pledges to disband Sunni
volunteer militias,” Associated Press, 12/23/07
Hassoun, Nasir, “$28 Billion Allegedly Squandered on
Electricity Projects in Iraq,” Al-Hayat, 8/2/12
Hopkins, Nick, “Inside Iraq: ‘we had to deal with
people who had blood on their hands,’” Guardian,
7/16/12
Hussein, Adnan, “Will Barzani “Checkmate” Maliki?”
Rudaw, 4/29/12
International Crisis Group, “Déjà vu All Over Again?
Iraq’s Escalating Political Crisis,” 7/30/12
- “Iraq’s Secular Opposition: The Rise And Decline
Of Al-Iraqiya,” 7/31/12
Al Jazeera, “Iraq demands extradition of ‘fugitive’
VP,” 4/2/12
Kami, Aseel, “Fugitive Iraq VP leaves Kurdish zone
for Qatar,” Reuters, 4/1/12
Kilcullen, Dave, “Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt,” Small
Wars Journal: SWJ Blog, 8/29/07
Matthews, Dylan and Klein, Ezra, “How Important Was
the Surge?” American Prospects, 7/28/08
MEMRI Blog, “Iraq Votes – Part XI,” 3/29/10
Mohammed, Bryar, “Demo in support of PM Maliki in
Khalis,” AK News, 6/4/12
Myers, Steven Lee, “In Recount, Iraqi Commission
Finds Little Fraud,” New York Times, 5/14/10
Ottaway, Marina, Kaysi, Danial, “The Election
Campaign,” Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 3/5/10
- “Testing Iraq’s Democratic Will,” Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 3/26/10
Peterson, Scott, “Amid Iraq violence, journalists
struggle about government control,” Christian
Science Monitor, 6/13/12
Ridolfo, Kathleen, “Iraq: Awakening Councils Face
Political, Terrorist Pressure,” Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 1/9/08
Roggio, Bill, “The Diyala Salvation Front,” Long War
Journal, 5/10/07
Rubin, Alissa and Cave, Damien, “In a Force for
Iraqi Calm, Seeds of Conflict,” New York Times,
12/23/07
Al-Saheil, Turki, “Allawi’s Visit to Saudi Arabia
Aims to Return Iraq to Arab System-Sources,” Asharq
Alawsat, 2/22/10
Sowell, Kirk, “Inside Iraqi Politics No. 39,”
5/29/12
- “Inside Iraqi Politics No. 40,” 6/20/12
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction,
“Quarterly Report and Semiannual Report to the
United States Congress,” 7/30/12
Yates, Dean, “Iraq government wants to pay
neighborhood police units: U.S.,” Reuters, 11/26/07
Joel Wing, with an MA in International Relations,
Joel Wing has been researching and writing about
Iraq since 2002. His acclaimed blog, Musings on
Iraq, is currently listed by the New York Times and
the World Politics Review. In addition, Mr. Wing’s
work has been cited by the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, the Guardian and the
Washington Independent. You may visit his Blog
Musings On Iraq at musingsoniraq.blogspot.com
Copyright © 2012 Ekurd.net
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