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Welcome to the war that’s going well. Or at least, that’s what they say:
A major U.S. diplomatic push aimed at promoting a coalition government between the two top vote winners in Iraq’s long-stalemated national elections suffered a setback Monday when former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi broke off negotiations with his nearest rival, current Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.
Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc, which narrowly came in first in the March voting, announced it was suspending talks with al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc until Maliki apologized for a comment in a TV interview aired Monday in which he described Iraqiya as a “Sunni” bloc.
Allawi is a secular Shiite whose bloc attracted the support of most members of Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority, but also a fair number of Shiites, and it is the only parliamentary bloc that can claim a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites among its ranks.
Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoon Damluji said Maliki’s comment mischaracterized Iraqiya. “We are a nationalist, non-sectarian bloc. We don’t think in terms of Iraq as being Sunni, Shiite and Kurd,” she said. “We refuse to negotiate with anyone who sees us as other than we are.”
I see the adults have taken over in Iraq. Remember, of course, that the Shiites and Sunnis have no history of sectarian strife because “Iraq’s always been very secular,” according to Bill Kristol.
Let me posit that this probably gets us closer to an actual government. The Shiites were simply not interested in a national unity coalition with Allawi’s bloc, even if he won the most seats in Parliament. With Allawi out of the way, a Shiite coalition can emerge if they decide on a Prime Minister candidate. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise if Allawi was just looking for an excuse to pull out of the stalemated talks. While the Iraqi National Alliance, the more hard-liner, religious Shiite bloc, has refused to negotiate with Maliki as well, you can see them reaching some accommodation now that Iraqiya is out of the way. That probably doesn’t end with Maliki as the Prime Minister, since the INA demanded he step down as a condition of their joining the coalition.
I don’t know if this outcome is positive for the people of Iraq at all. But Allawi was no picnic, either. At least some faction of the US wanted Maliki and Allawi to basically govern together, but it seems that both of them have been rejected. This creates uncertainty about who will emerge, and the resulting power vacuum of five months-plus without a government has already taken its toll on Iraq. Just this morning, a suicide bomber killed 41 people outside a Army recruitment center as they queued up to join the security forces.
Compared to Afghanistan, this looks like a glorious victory, which is more a commentary on Afghanistan than Iraq.
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Sticks and stones
The surge worked!
Oh wait. Wasn’t the point of the surge to get a stable Iraq govt formed? But I quibble by bringing up past rhetoric to hold anyone accountable. We must look forward not backward.
Rinse. Repeat.
OMG! Stop the transports home! We have to spend another __________ years there!
More of the Sunni-Shiite schoolyard spats. Christians would never do that. Northern Ireland is a prime example of how sects of Christianity take only 400 years or so to work out their differences.
“We refuse to negotiate with anyone who sees us as other than we are.”
Ah, Allawi learned well: “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”
The Sunni-Shia split took place in the mid-600s by western calendar, making it over 14 centuries in duration.
I’ve just read the chapter of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine about Iraq after the fall of the government and the beginning of Bremer’s reign. Bremer never missed an opportunity to nix any signs of homegrown democracy, fearing somebody that the US administration might not like who the Iraqis chose for themselves. Bremer preferred to appoint people, councils, etc. that were acceptable to the US. And, the same anti-democratic arrogance continues under Obama. Sad.
I think it’s a little early to call that one settled and that’s just one venue of the ongoing Catholic/Protestant split which has been going on since 1517.
Of course. The same can be said for Gaza. Look what happened when they voted for people the US and Israel hated.
I’m afraid your analysis is rather pollyanaish. Without Iraqiya, what you will get is a Shiite Arab-Kurdish government, excluding secular nationalists and Sunni Arabs. We’ve already seen how Maliki has governed in a purely sectarian manner. This is a recipe for renewed civil war, and it’s already starting.
Really? I thought I made quite clear that sectarian violence is sure to result from this pre-ordained outcome. I also don’t think that the presence or absence of US forces makes a bit of difference on that front.
61 people.
And, the more troops we pull out, the more the factions will gin up the payback machines.
It won’t be pretty, but at this point, it’s what’s for dinner, no matter how much bushCo happytalk Barack Obama prattles.
“Rinse, repeat…” Yes. Eternally, it seems.
I believe that Obama would dance just as naked as George Bush would have, to find some way to shoehorn in the former CIA employee, Allawi. But if that could happen, his propensity for violent repression would rear it’s head, and a good deal of that would be directed at the Shiites, who generally despise him. He’s a prescription for a bloody civil war…which is probably going to happen anyway, if Obama really does get our troops there down to the 50K level.
And I don’t know anything else that will work.
Partition has it’s own downside, but it may be the least-worst outcome to “liberating” the place.
“This is a recipe for renewed civil war…”
Invading Iraq was a recipe for civil war. There is no deal that can be cut to make those people sing Kumbayah.
Now, every troop that Obama withdraws is going to raise Iran’s stock, and trying to prevent that from happening is worse than having it happen.
Time to get out and let the chips fall.
Nothing. Else. Will. Work.
Oh, I think that if we sustained 80 thousand troops there, along with the contractor/mercs, it might keep the violence at something not much worse than what we’re seeing now.
But the nonsense about our not being involved in “combat operations” would be a black-humor joke.
We’d also need to sustain the various bribe systems. Without our money, what little economic stability there is, would disappear.
Interesting – while the 12 million votes that gave Allawi 91 seats to Maliki’s 89 in a 325-seat parliament get sorted out, the Chinese are pumping oil from the wells given them near Kuwait – and we do not hear of oil pipeline attacks do we? The government has about one million of police and soldiers, while al-Qa’ida is down to a few hundred – hard to see a major problem the home forces can not handle given their 7 years of training by the US despite the poor equipment we are leaving them with. And the surge worked since on an average day in Iraq only about a dozen people are killed for political reasons, rather than hundreds, as was the case in 2007. And Iraq’s third-largest proven oil reserves that make it the the 11th-largest producer at 2.5 million barrels a day may well produce 12 million barrels per day in six years. I would call this a success By our CIA/Oil Company overlords.
Moqtadr al-Sadr’s Sadrist movement has 39 seats in parliament, but he is hiding in Iran to avoid a murder charge. With 325 seats meaning 163 are needed for control, it is hard to see him as in total control, but things would be easier if Moqtadr al-Sadr was on board the final solution.
Good article at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/invasion-forces-leave-iraq-to-uncertain-future/story-e6frg6so-1225906060099 on the current situation (from which much of the above is taken). Seems “Yesterday, senior Iraqi politicians involved in forming a new government said they were now weighing up the creation of a new federal position that could break the logjam. Politicians from some of the biggest factions had warmed to the idea of creating an executive post they hope would better balance out power between the two sides, said people taking part in negotiations. They said the idea was floated during negotiations months ago, but that it went nowhere until US officials put forth a concrete proposal during Vice-President Joseph Biden’s visit to Baghdad last month.”