"Iraq's government is teetering on the edge. "

[ProSense]

Iraq's leader can't get out of 1st gear

By Ned Parker, Times Staff Writer
June 6, 2007

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and Tariq Hashimi, the country's Sunni vice president, faced each other across the room as the latter spoke angrily of the bad blood between Sunni and Shiite officials.

A hush fell over the room as Hashimi demanded to know whether the prime minister had been accusing his political bloc of being infiltrated by terrorists.

"Are you talking about us? If you are … we would ask for proof," said Hashimi, according to his account of a recent closed-door meeting of Iraq's top political and national security officials. "I am treated as an opponent," he said, his voice rising. "If you continue treating me like this, it is better for me to quit."

Maliki sat in silence.

Iraq's government is teetering on the edge. Maliki's Cabinet is filled with officials who are deeply estranged from one another and more loyal to their parties than to the government as a whole. Some are jostling to unseat the prime minister. Few, if any, have accepted the basic premise of a government whose power is shared among each of Iraq's warring sects and ethnic groups.

Maliki is the man U.S. officials are counting on to bring Iraq's civil war under control, yet he seems unable to break the government's deadlock.

Even Maliki's top political advisor, Sadiq Rikabi, says he doubts the prime minister will be able to win passage of key legislation ardently sought by U.S. officials, including a law governing the oil industry and one that would allow more Sunni Arabs to gain government jobs.

"We hope to achieve some of them, but solving the Iraqi problems and resolving the different challenges in the three months would need a miracle," Rikabi said.

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From TPM Muckraker:

On January 10, President Bush said, "America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced." Ribaki's statement to the Los Angeles Times's Ned Parker creates pressure on Bush to explain whether there will be any penalty for not meeting the benchmarks. If there isn't, it remains to be seen what action Congress will take, particularly after it backed away last month from linking funding for the war to a timetable for withdrawal.

From Juan Cole:

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Parliament Demands Say in Extension of US Mandate
Bombing Kills over 2 Dozen in Amiriya Al-Maliki said to be Isolated, Ineffective

The Iraqi parliament passed a resolution on Tuesday demanding that parliament be consulted before the al-Maliki government asks the UN to extend the US military mandate in Iraq. That issue will arise at the end of 2007. The move was spearheaded by the Sadrist bloc of young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which has 32 seats in parliament. It was joined by the Shiite Islamic Virtue Party based in Basra (15 seats) and by the Sunni Arab parties. The 275-member parliament barely had a quorum, of 144, and the measure passed 85 to 59. Since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's allies voted against it, this resolution could actually be seen as a vote of no confidence for al-Maliki (see below), though it won't cause his government to fall unless the three blocs decide to attempt to bring him down. I have been saying for the past several months that I wonder if al-Maliki could survive a vote of no confidence, and this resolution helps answer the question. (The answer is, "no.")

<...>

The LA times does a fine piece on the internal dynamics of the top Iraqi leadership. The central figures in the piece include Nuri al-Maliki, the Shiite prime minister, who is depicted as increasingly isolated and surrounded by loyalists from his Islamic Call Party. The other protagonist is Sunni Arab vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, the highest-ranking Sunni Arab figure in Iraq despite his relative powerlessness. He is depicted as unable to get the time of day from al-Maliki and as outraged at Shiite gossip that his coalition, the Iraqi Accord Front, is mixed up with the Sunni guerrillas who are blowing things up. The sources interviewed by Ned Parker among Iraqi politicians evince the gravest doubts that al-Maliki is capable of meeting any of Bush's benchmarks or of passing the petroleum law or the adjustment of de-Baathification regulations (the current procedures disadvantage many Sunni Arabs who had any position in the Baath Party).

When it is remembered that the explicit purpose of the "surge" is to provide al-Maliki with the security and the political space to make political progress in resolving conflicts, this article makes for depressing reading. This piece provides new details and anecdotes of great importance. Kudos!

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[polichick]

1. "Iraq's government is teetering on the edge. "

So is the US government.