Iraqiya Ticket (Allawi) 91
State of Law (Maliki) 89
Iraqi National Alliance (Hakim) 70
Kurdistan Alliance (Barzani +Talbani) 43
Goran(Kurdish Opposition) 08
Tawafok Front (Sunni) 05
Iraqi Unity (Interior Minister Bolani) 04
Jamaa Islamiya Kurdistan 03
Itihad Islami Kurdistani 03
Christians 03
Ashur 02
Ezidis 01
Shabak 01
Sabeans 01
Read this article in The Huffington PostAlrai Washington Correspondent and Chatham House Visiting Fellow
When it comes to foreign policy, America has two choices: Either do what is in its interests or what is ethical. Only on rare occasions that these two options intersect, and when they do, the world will never see America's good deeds, but will only highlight its gains, and presumably shun its imperial practices.
But the world has always wronged America despite its ever changing foreign policy. Over the past half century, the United States has practically tried every possible scenario in the Middle East, for instance, as the region remains volatile and seemingly irreparable.
In 1953, America toppled popular Iranian Prime Minister Mohamed Mosaddeq. Three years later, it supported the popular Egyptian President Gamal Abdul-Nasser against a tripartite British-French-Israeli offensive on the Suez Canal.
The marines landed in Lebanon in 1958, and later in 1983, as peacekeeping forces. In the 1980s, America provided Saddam Hussein with satellite images of troop deployment during his war with Iran, and later ejected his army from Kuwait in 1991, stopping short of toppling him and coming late to the rescue of Iraqi Kurds, in the north, and Shiites, in the south, from Saddam's wrath.
The United States today maintains a fleet in Bahrain and bases in Qatar and Kuwait. In 2003, the marines made their way into Baghdad to topple Iraq's ruthless dictator Saddam Hussein and replace him with an elected government, giving more than 10 million Iraqis the chance to choose their leaders in 2005, and again in 2010.
Over the past half century, Washington has befriended unpopular Middle Eastern autocrats. Alternatively, it tried at times to isolate some of them like Syria's Bashar Assad and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. Washington has also tried to support democracy and bolster elected governments without military intervention, like in Lebanon.
Whether intervening on behalf of a popular tyrant, like Nasser, or against a loved ruler, like Mosaddeq; whether liberating Kuwait, failing to protect Iraqis from Saddam's wrath, or giving Iraqis their freedom from Saddam, America has been blamed.
The world is complicated. Since the dawn of civilization, empires have savagely treated other peoples, with rare exceptions, America is one.
America's ascension to world power has been unique. While history shows that empires grew around tyrants who establish a dynasty at home and later invade the world, the United States was built around the enlightened teachings of its founding fathers. America's ideals stressed liberty, freedom and the imperative of a government "for the people, by the people."
America's democracy did not spring up overnight, but rather took centuries of practice, including a civil war, and -- while the best in the world -- is still away from perfect.
The more America practiced its democracy and freedom, the more powerful it became on world stage. By the end of World War II, America had emerged as the bigger defender of the free world and its values.
Meanwhile, Americans believed, at times, that what is good for America is good for the world. By the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson had drafted a charter for world justice, only to see it scrapped by world powers. In response, America isolated itself.
Since then, the globe has become smaller and interconnected, and America's role has expanded, and so has objection from other nations -- all aspiring to play Washington's leading role, therefore criticizing an envied United States, fairly or wrongly.
World criticism forced America's dilemma to resurface again: Should America stick to its principles and leave a troubled world alone, or should it play the game according to the rules prevailing amongst nations?
World powers play by mostly unethical rules. When America disregards its principles when seeking its interests, the world cries foul. When America tries to marry its foreign involvement with its noble principles, the result would look like Iraq in flames in 2006 and 2007, when American forces seeking to apprehend terrorists were accompanied by an interpreter, and used force as sparingly as possible.
America's disciplined use of force is unheard of, in the region, when compared to images of plain cloth Iranian security agents firing shots at demonstrators, a few months ago, or Iran's Lebanese proxy militia, Hezbollah, burning down a TV and a newspaper that belonged to a rival party in 2008, in a show of crude force.
To be fair, one should mention the inhumane American practices in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. In the first, perpetrators were punished severely. In the second, America's vibrant democracy ended whatever torture and forced the government to look for more humane alternatives.
Many Americans should stop their self-flagellation on foreign policy, and should stop thinking of their country as a world monster.
Marrying realism and idealism might be possible. It only needs a smart government and a public that understands world affairs in their context, without believing that the world is victim of the power of America and its allies.
Read this article in NOW LebanonWith 95 percent of the votes counted, Iraqis do not yet know who their next prime minister is. However, it is becoming increasingly certain that while the chances of lawmaker Ayad Allawi winning are slim, incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki or someone from his coalition, most probably Oil Minister Hussein Shahrastani, will take the position.
Since before the elections, the major Iraqi and regional players were prepared for four scenarios.
First, Maliki was hoping that he would win a parliamentary bloc big enough to allow him to dictate the formation of a coalition of junior partners and invite his opponents to take it or leave it. Maliki’s electoral performance was strong, but not sweeping, and he saw his plans scrapped as the count proceeded.
Meanwhile, Allawi was hoping that his Iraqiya ticket would come out on top, and was planning on replacing Maliki after accusing him of becoming an autocrat. But in order to isolate Maliki, Allawi needed partners to form a coalition, which in Iraq is easier said than done.
Even if the United States prevails on its Kurdish allies to iron out their differences with the Sunnis over the establishment of a federal state and the fate of Kirkuk, Allawi, the Kurds and other smaller blocs can barely obtain the 163 seats necessary to rule without one of the two other major Shia blocs, Maliki’s State of Law and the Iraqi National Alliance (INA).
Allawi realized this shortfall and tried to lure the INA to join a cabinet under his leadership, but it does not look like Iran is interested in giving away the premiership to Allawi, the Shia figurehead of a Sunni coalition.
Short of a drastic turn of events, Allawi has slim chances of becoming prime minister.
In the meantime, the INA and Iran were hoping for a landslide win with Kurdish help. At the very least, they wanted to keep Maliki – or anyone from his Shia alliance – in power in order to keep the Sunnis and Allawi at bay.
The United States, on the other hand, has been indifferent over whether Maliki or Allawi forms the cabinet, as long as INA lawmakers – such as Jamal Jaafar, who is believed to be a top advisor to General Qassem Suleimani, Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Brigade – stay out of power.
For Washington, an ideal coalition would include Maliki, Allawi and the Kurds and would enjoy a wide majority in parliament as it represents the country’s three main blocs, the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds.
But squeezing rivals Maliki and Allawi into one coalition would be almost impossible, especially given that both of them aspire to become prime minister.
So as the Maliki, Allawi and American scenarios prove to be unlikely, it is Iran that emerges as the winner.
Maliki’s State of Law bloc and the INA have already started talks to form a coalition under the banner of Shia empowerment and containment of the surge of Sunni power with Allawi’s strong electoral performance.
The Kurds are expected to join the Maliki-INA alliance, and the three blocs look like they are on their way to rule without the Sunnis.
Hurdles, however, remain in the way of an agreement between Maliki and the INA, including the INA’s demands that the incumbent PM be sidelined in favor of one of his lieutenants, most probably Shahrastani.
But if Maliki and his coalition stand their ground and insist that Maliki retain his job, the INA may yield out of fear that Allawi and the Sunnis would exploit such division between the two Shia blocs.
Should the INA allow Maliki or anyone from his coalition to become prime minister, the State of Law will be politically indebted to the INA and Iran.
Iran will thus emerge as the biggest winner from the Iraqi elections. Such a victory could have been avoided had Allawi, along with his domestic and regional Sunni backers, realized that if squeezed, Maliki’s only fallback plan would be Iran and its Iraqi allies.
Over the past two years, Maliki has tried to style himself as an independent national force. He reached out to neighboring Sunni leaders, who shut him out, accusing him of being an Iranian puppet.
Now too weak to form a cabinet on his own, and kept at arm’s length from domestic and Sunni regional powers, Maliki will be forced to reconnect with his former Shia partners and Iran.
Iran has managed yet again to defeat the United States and its regional Arab partners, this time not through militia power and bullying like in Lebanon, but by using skillful politics and following a long-term vision, the two things that anti-Iran powers in the region and around the world have so far seemed unable to master.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a visiting fellow at Chatham House and a correspondent for Al-Rai newspaper
Read this letter in The EconomistSIR – Why assume there would be a “promised land” for Iraqis after the recent election (“No promised land at the end of all this”, March 6th). Democracies continuously evolve, as we can tell from the experience of countries in the West. True, Iraq is nowhere close to where the engineers of change thought it would have been post-Saddam Hussein, but it has certainly come a long way. You should keep in mind that, prior to 2003, Iraqis had not seen a mobile phone or an ATM machine.
In 2002 Iraqis went to the ballot boxes where there was just one candidate, who received 100% of the vote (officially). In this year’s election Iraqis had a choice between close to 6,000 candidates. As you mentioned, the election will show that no single block will be able to rule alone, forcing politicians to form coalitions. But this will teach Iraqi leaders to compromise.
Even if we consider that Iraq has moved from autocracy to oligarchy, or that “Saddam has been replaced by many Saddams”, as Iraqis like to put it, plurality, even with corruption, is always better than one venal and brutal tyrant.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Washington, DC
"On March 6, the evening news on (Congress-funded Arabic TV) Alhurra labeled me as a Zionist agent," wrote Iraqi lawmaker Mithal Alusi, in an email to his close friends.
Alusi, running for reelection, has been the only Iraqi official to visit Israel, publicly, and endorse a peace treaty, arguing that the two countries share no borders, that Iraq does not host any Palestinian refugees, and that the Palestinian Authority had signed peace accords with Israel.
For his pro-peace stance, Alusi often faces slander. But coming from Alhurra, which was designed as a tool of America's public diplomacy, raises an eyebrow.
Over the past decade, America's public diplomacy, has clearly been counterproductive, as illustrated by the Alusi episode.
On public diplomacy, the administration and Congress have teetered between patting themselves on the back for imagined success, and scratching their heads trying to sketch an effective plan.
For 2010, Washington allocated $520 million "for public diplomacy to engage foreign audiences and win support for US foreign policy goals," according to the State Department. And while the nation tightened its belt for 2011, Congress increased "public diplomacy" budget to $568 million.
The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing last week to help "incorporate past successes into its future planning," according to the opening statement by Senator Ted Kaufman (D-DE), who had invited Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Judith McHale, and three of her predecessors Evelyn Lieberman, Karen Hughes and James Glassman, to testify.
The guests talked about their pet projects. For Hughes, it was teaching English around the world. For Glassman, it was numbers of Congress-funded Arabic TV Alhurra, and its sister Radio Sawa, that together reach weekly to 35 million Arabs throughout the Middle East.
McHale said State Department has created more public diplomacy positions, and intends to build "American Cultural Centers" around the world.
"Do you recommend that our officers go on hostile channels like (Qatari satellite channel) Al-Jazeera?" Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) asked. Hughes said: "Certainly, if a US government official gets 10 minutes on the air, it would mean minutes taken away from anti-American guests."
To the same question, McHale agreed, saying that Al-Jazeera had a weekly reach of 250 million viewers, a number which both Hughes and Glassman did not dare bring up in their testimonies, because it would have dwarfed the presumed success of America's Arabic TV and radio.
"Do we have enough US officers fluent in conversational Arabic to go on Al-Jazeera?" Wicker added. Hughes and later McHale stuttered, arguing that State Department has fluent Arabic speakers, but that their number was not enough.
However, Arabs who watch Al-Jazeera know that Arabic-speaking US officials are rare. Occasionally, Al-Jazeera hosts American diplomats, who are often boringly inarticulate and recite talking points, unlike Arab autocrats and their bankrolled pundits, who know how to instigate, and win, the average Arab Joe.
Many argue that Arab autocrats divert popular anger, resulting from oppression and inadequate governance, in the direction of the United States, the Jews, Israel, Free Masons, or all of them combined.
The son of the world's longest sitting dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who has been ruling Libya since 1969, was charged of inflicting physical injuries on his staff, while in Switzerland. The Swiss promptly imprisoned the son, Hanibal, and later released him on bail. The father called for Jihad against Switzerland, presumably for its ban on building Muslim minarets, much to the cheer of angry Libyans.
When asked, State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley belittled the call to Jihad. Gadhafi publically demanded a US apology for Crowley's statement. The Libyan dictator, who had spent colossal amounts of lobbying money to reconnect with Washington, fell short of threatening to sever diplomatic ties with America.
Gadhafi's behavior illustrates duplicity in the behavior of autocrats. In the media, they raise hell on America. In private, they beg for Washington's friendship. This applies to Venezuelan Hugo Chaves, who sells America 16 percent of its oil needs, but swears animosity in public. Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad has endorsed a similar double-faced policy.
Meanwhile, a toothless American public diplomacy has rendered America defenseless in face of autocrat-instigated world popular anger against it.
Alhurra was set up to counter Al-Jazeera's anti-US propaganda. Alhurra failed because of its incompetent leadership and desperate politicians, like Hughes and Glassman, describing the channel's failure a success.
Overhauling Alhurra is imperative to countering deceptive anti-American propaganda.
In the case of Gadhafi, Alhurra should have produced and aired documentaries about the Libyan leader's tyranny, including his terrible record on human rights and corruption of his sons, who often hold extravagant parties in Europe.
Alhurra producers should have taken off to Switzerland to capture, on film, how could a nation protecting human rights, against Gadhafi's son's practices, was later forced to succumb to Libyan blackmail.
Public diplomacy success will never come through boring State Department talking points, or with misinformed Under Secretaries of State for Public diplomacy beating a dead horse on the Hill, in front of less informed and partisan lawmakers.
While the policy of engaging Syria was originally designed to lure Damascus away from its alliance with Tehran, Senator John Kerry (D-MA)believes that America “should be realistic about what engagement can accomplish… a Syrian realignment won’t come quickly or easily.”
Kerry’s comments came Tuesday during a nomination hearing, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of Robert Ford, to become ambassador to Syria.
However, Kerry said, US engagement with Syria “will never come at the expense of Lebanon’s sovereignty.”
Kerry spelled out the list of American demands on Syria, which included an end to “the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq” and the interruption of the flow of “large numbers of deadly weapons [that] continue to transit across Syria’s still un-demarcated borders with Lebanon.”
Kerry added: “Last month, the IAEA determined that the Syrians have not been cooperative with their investigation into the suspected nuclear site at al-Kibar.” He also hinted that Syria might want to stop arresting “journalists, students, and human rights activists.”
The US Senator described Syria’s “recent public rebuke of Secretary Clinton and embrace of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah, and the leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP-GC” as “a very negative signal about the current mood in Damascus.”
In return for Syria’s cooperation with America’s demands, “Syria has its own list of requests,” Kerry said, “topped by the removal of US sanctions, and the return of the Golan Heights.”
For his part, Ford said that a “sustained and principled dialogue with the Syrian government at the ambassadorial level does not promise fast results.”
He reiterated Kerry’s demands that Syria stop flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, answer to IAEA concerns, and respect Lebanon’s sovereignty.
The American diplomat noted that in 2007, 100 foreign fighters on average used to cross the Syrian borders into Iraq. The number declined to 10 per month in 2010, thanks to the efforts of the US military guarding the Iraqi border. Ford said Damascus could bring this flow to a complete halt and disrupt terrorist networks.
Ford highlighted Syria’s hosting of anti-American Iraqi exiles, such as Meshaan Jbouri, who runs a form Damascus-based satellite that airs pictures of US Humvees being blown up.
Ford said: “It is time for Syria to understand that Iraqi government is not going anywhere.”
This review was first posted on Amazon.comMemoirs are about reminiscing, which Rove does in this book to an extent. His Chairmanship of College Republicans between 1973until 1977, his early days of activism, how George H. W. Bush asked for his help in his bid for president in 1976, and Rove’s political career thereafter, are all entertaining tidbits that many readers – whether Republican or Democrat – might find interesting.
Rove also defends, rather than narrates, decisions of the George W Bush administration. That is understandable coming from an insider like Rove who served as Bush’s right hand man until 2007.
However, Rove’s book turns into a Republican platform and Rove turns into a pundit.
“[H]is first year in office, [President Barack Obama’s] job approval in the Gallup poll fell to 50 percent faster than all but two presidents since FDR,” Rove writes. “There are many reasons for his sharp decline in popularity, starting with the fact that President Obama has governed in a manner far different than he advertised in his campaign,” Rove argues.
Rove also writes: “[Obama] has governed from the left rather than from the center, unleashing a massive flood of spending, offering budget blueprint that doubles the national debt in five years and nearly triples it in ten.”
This quote about President Obama governing from the left is intriguing coming from a politician, like Rove, who chose the following title for his book: “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Flight.”
Why it is allowed for Rove to be a conservative while forbidden for Obama to govern “from the left” remains mind-boggling.
The former top Bush advisor also unfairly blames President Obama for the skyrocketing national debt, as if Bush had handed Obama an American treasury with surplus.
While the book is partially valuable for some memoirs that Rove offers, especially from old times since the more recent ones were designed to participate in an ongoing controversy over the Iraq war, the book later turns into a Republican political manifesto targeting the administration of President Barack Obama.
Mr. Rove should have put aside his role as commentator on FOX News and focused on his memoirs.
I call myself leftist because I support higher taxes and bigger governments that should take care of the underprivileged, those who cannot afford healthcare or education.
I call myself leftist because I advocate civil and human rights and endorse equality regardless of gender or sexual preference. Every person, regardless of sex, color, ethnicity or social status should enjoy freedom of expression and assembly and the right to choose representatives and elect government.
I call myself leftist because my views on equality are not chauvinistic but rather universal. While I pledge allegiance to the great American nation that welcomed me and made me one of its own, I also care about the fate of the peoples of my homelands of Iraq and Lebanon.
I call myself leftist because I supported the toppling of Iraq's tyrant during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and I defended US policy in support of Lebanon's Independence Uprising of 2005.
In 2009, I took sides with Iran's Green Revolution against a fanatic, radical and tyrant regime of religious clerics.
I call myself leftist because I am not a blind partisan. Until 2008, I supported most of the foreign policies of rightwing President, George Bush, only because he propagated the values of freedom and equality around the world, regardless of whether he did so for a hidden agenda or not.
I call myself leftist because I disagreed with Bush's authorization of torture at Guantanamo Bay Prison. Torture undermines America's principle of equality, under the law, for all, whether US citizens or not. Without such principles, America is just another backward country.
I call myself leftist because I criticize left wingers, the Democrats, who took over power in Congress and the White House, for their foreign policy, which I deem in contradiction with the values of equality that they claim they stand for.
When the Iranians demonstrated in the streets of Tehran holding signs of "where's my vote," President Barack Obama was busy entertaining the brutal Iranian regime and sending it message of goodwill. By abandoning the protestors, America's Left simply let down freedom fighters in Iran.
In the geo-strategically less important Lebanon, Senator John Kerry, in my opinion, has single handedly sabotaged the Lebanese fight against tyranny of neighboring Syria and the Iranian-funded militia of Hezbollah.
Kerry perhaps reasoned that Syrian President Bashar Assad was more important to American interests than Lebanon. Such a view is the opposite of Leftism.
I call myself leftist because I believe there is no country that it more important than the other, just like how all individuals are equal.
But how come America's Right propagates ideals of freedom, equality and war against tyranny around the world, while the Left calls for taking shortcuts in foreign policy and entertaining this autocrat or that despot?
So far I have no answers to why a Left that claims to be fighting for justice inside America insists on "engaging" injustice champions outside of it.
My first guess about the Democrats' failing and perceivably unethical foreign policy is their incompetence and narcissism. Those who are involved in politics inside the beltway might know that Kerry and Obama are two politicians, so full of themselves, that they rarely take advice.
Consider Kerry's comments while presiding over a hearing by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, on March 4, when he said: "I was particularly pleased to hear Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem praise [Palestinian] President [Mahmoud] Abbas' decision to enter proximity talks."
In fact, Moallem, at an Arab League meeting, had opposed American-sponsored indirect "proximity" peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Two days after the Kerry hearing, Syria announced that it had cancelled a scheduled visit for Abbas to Damascus, showing that all Kerry's praise for Syrian peace efforts was misplaced.
As for Obama, the best description of his lack of foreign policy skills comes from The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl who wrote, on March 8, that the president has failed in cultivating good relations with world leaders.
Obama has publicly expressed "displeasure with US allies. He sparred all last year with Israel's Benyamin Netanyahu; he expressed impatience when Japan's Yukio Hatoyama balked at implementing a military base agreement. He has repeatedly criticized Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai, and he gave up the videoconferences Bush used to have with Iraq's Nouri al-Maliki."
In conclusion, I call myself leftist because I advocate democracy, freedom and equality for all, inside the United States and around the world. I don't care whether America's Right or Left carries such an agenda, but will support any party that does so, and will appose any group that does not.
I call myself leftist not only because I endorse principles of change, but because I think America deserves smarter politicians running its foreign policy than the ones in charge of it now.
Read this article at IslamOnline.netBy Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Iran's Ayatollahs will win Iraqi elections, even if their Iraqi allies are defeated in the 2010 parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7, 2010. Thereafter, Iran will further expand its influence throughout the Middle East.
The creators of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in 1979, did not shy away from spelling out their priorities. Amongst them was the exportation of their version of the Islamic rule throughout the region and the world. History tells us that such an ambition did not fall well with Iran's neighbor, Iraq, as the two nations became locked in a brutal eight-year war that ended in 1988.
The American-sponsored downfall of the Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, preceded by a similar American-forced collapse of Iran's enemy to the west, the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2002, played straight into Tehran's hands.
With its two rivals out of the picture, Iran could finally expand its regional influence.
In 2003, Iran feared the bullying of the George Bush administration. As such, together with its allies in the region — first and foremost amongst them Syria — they sketched a plan aimed at puncturing US efforts in Iraq, through the usage of violent groups
Iran deployed to Iraq its most loyalist cronies, the Hakim family and its Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), along with their Badr Brigade militia.
Both Iran and Syria also helped recruit, train, arm, and fund militias that waged endless wars against the nascent Iraqi government and US troops. Meanwhile, Tehran was also determined to find for itself more allies in Iraq. Moqtada Sadr, the son of a prominent family of religious scholars/activists, joined Iran as another one of their Iraqi proxies and formed the Mahdi Army militia.
Iran's Dirty Game in Iraq
Despite the ensuing violence, controlling Iraq — from Tehran — proved to be easier said than done.
It is true that, like in Iran, the majority of the population of Iraq is Shiite. However, it turned out that being Shiite in Iraq is not tantamount to being loyal to Iran, especially given that most of these Iraqi Shiites had been part of the bitter war with Iran.
Tehran, therefore, was set to undermine the Iraqi Shiite opposition to its role.
First, it instructed its allies, like Ahmed Chalabi and the late Abdul-Aziz Hakim, to convince the former American governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, to implement "de-Baathification". This included the disbanding the Iraqi army and scrapping other state institutions that could have obstructed Iranian influence inside Iraq.
Second, Iran assigned two of the SCIRI and Badar leaders; former interior minister Bayan Jabr and Badr heavyweight, now lawmaker, Jamal Jaafar –— better known for his nom de guerre Abu-Mahdi Al-Mohanddess — to establish death squads and secret prisons in Iraq.
Former commanders of the Iraqi army — both Sunni and Shiite — along with other anti-Iran politicians were all murdered or tortured to death.
Third, Iran managed to assemble an all-Shiite ticket for the 2005 parliamentary elections. This ticket won the biggest number of seats, and was given the power to name a prime minister.
However, this was a mistake that Iran would recently regret.
Instead of giving the premiership to a confident person from the SCIRI, such as Hakim or his deputy Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Iran instructed its allies to give the job to an unknown politician.
Iran reasoned that a weak federal government gives way for Iraq's Shiites to create their autonomous state in the oil-rich South.
As such, the prime minister position was first given to the Islamic Daawa Party's Ibrahim Jaafari, and later to his assistant Nouri Maliki. However, Maliki surprised Iran and proved to be a hard nut to crack.
Once in power, Iraq's prime minister ordered military operations in the southern city of Basra, during which he broke the backbone of Sadr's Mahdi Army.
The SCIRI later disbanded its Badr militia and presumably transformed it into a group for "development and reconstruction".
The political clash between a growing Maliki, independent of Iran, and Tehran's allies, such as Hakim and Sadr, came to the forefront in January 2009 during local elections held in 14 out of Iraq's 18 governorates.
Maliki's Serious Tactics
Maliki's ticket, the State of Law, came on top in more
than half of Iraq's 10 governorates with predominantly Shiite populations, including Baghdad.
The defeat of pro-Iran groups in these elections told about an Iraqi popular mood that had gone sour on Iran and federalism, because it expressed support to Iraqi nationalism and a strong central government, both seen to be embodies in Maliki.
Iran is now forced to deal with Maliki. It tried first to lure him back to join the pro-Iran Shiite ticket for the coming 2010 parliamentary elections.
Maliki responded that he would join only if he leads, meaning securing, his comeback to his job after elections.
Naturally, Iran and its Iraqi allies turned down Maliki's offer, and moved on toward a confrontation, both politically and at the security level, as they formed their own Iraqi National Alliance (INA) ticket.
Security was undermined through intermittent, yet massive bombings often-targeting state buildings and crowded areas. Iran also instructed one of its factions, the Leagues of the Righteous under Qais Al-Khazaaly, a defect from Sadr's Mahdi Army, to kidnap Westerners, some of which are still in captivity today.
The idea behind undermining Iraqi security was to jeopardize Maliki's platform of stabilizing the country. However, if shaking security is not enough, Iran tried twice to embarrass the incumbent prime minister politically.
Iran first occupied the Iraqi oil field of Al-Fakkah, on the common borders, in December 2009.
Iran reasoned that Maliki would either beg Iran for withdrawal, thus either risking the image he was trying to create as being independent from Iran or speaking against Iran and risking the Iraqi Shiite support.
To Maliki's good fortune, Iran's occupation backfired, as a majority of Iraqis — both Shiite and Sunni — spoke out against it, forcing Iran to withdraw its troops in January so as not to further weaken its allies.
Iran then came up with another plan to embarrass Maliki. This time it instructed its ally Ahmed Chalabi to ban, as part of the "de-Baathification" effort, more than 500 candidates, many of them Sunni heavyweights, such as lawmaker Saleh Mutlaq.
The United States intervened to reverse this decision and keep elections as inclusive as they should, for the sake of domestic credibility, but a weak Barak Obama administration could do little, leaving the Commander of US Troops in Iraq General Ray Odierno and US Ambassador Christopher Hill waging their own battle against Chalabi and Iran.
Both US officials accused Chalabi of holding meetings with Qassem Suleimani, an Iranian Commander of the Quds Force, which is a unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Al-Muhanddess, the militant, operative-turned lawmaker, had introduced Chalabi to Suleimani, according to Odierno and Hill.
Expected Elections' Scenarios
For the coming 2010 elections, four main tickets are competing and according to the only available, yet unreliable polls, they will win seats in the following expected order:
Maliki's State of Law will come first, the pre-dominantly Sunni under the Shiite lawmaker Ayad Allawi's Iraqiyah ticket will rank second, Iran's INA will win the third biggest bloc, while the Kurdish ticket will come fourth.
The three first tickets of Al-Maliki, Allawi, and Iran's Al-Hakim will battle for the premiership. The Kurdish ticket will play "king maker."
Iran's best bet is for the INA to win the biggest number of seats and name the premier. For this purpose, Iran has been funding INA's electoral campaigns. Should INA come first, which is unlikely, it will try to form a ruling coalition with the Kurds. Both tickets agree on dividing Iraq along federal lines. However, the Kurds' main ally — Washington — will certainly torpedo such a coalition.
INA will then try to lure Allawi, whose campaign is funded by Iran's rival Saudi Arabia. Yet an understanding between INA and Allawi seems unlikely, given regional complications.
The INA will be left with the Maliki's bloc, and will try to invite him for partnership. Al-Maliki is expected again to ask for the leading role.
The outcome of such negotiations cannot be predicted at this point.
However, if Maliki wins the biggest number of seats as expected, his first choice — with Washington's blessings — will certainly be the Kurds.
Such a coalition might fall short of winning more than half of parliament's seats, and might still need to strike deals with the smaller blocs.
Should Maliki win and form government, Iran would most probably consider the situation as an extension to the present status quo, and will accordingly maintain its efforts to undermine his power, whether through sabotaging security or through embarrassing Maliki politically.
Telling from the post-Lebanese parliamentary elections experience, when Iran's allies lost but still got the upper hand in forming a government and ruling Lebanon, Iran will rely on its militias to force Malikis to give power to Iran's allies.
Concerning Iran and democracy, including the presidential elections inside Iran, the mullahs and their brutal militias have been winning, even if they lose in the ballot boxes.
