[Richard]

Strong Man
Nat'lJrnl, 13 Oct 2011
Part 2 of 3

MOLTING

Not long ago, the knock on Maliki wasn’t that he seemed too powerful; it was that he seemed too weak. Senior Bush administration officials privately complained that Maliki—who took power in May 2006 after parliament pushed out his unpopular predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari—was unable, or unwilling, to assert himself and to bring his fractious country under control. In a 2006 memo, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told President Bush that Maliki “impressed me as a leader who wanted to be strong but was having difficulty figuring out how to do so,” a view shared throughout the administration, according to interviews at the time with White House and Pentagon officials. In Washington and Baghdad, they said, top aides considered ways to oust Maliki and replace him with another Shiite leader like Adel Abdel Mehdi or Hussein al-Shahristani, both of whom seemed like stronger managers ready to set aside sectarian interests for the good of the country. (Maliki’s close ties to Iran also alarmed Washington and many of Iraq’s Sunni Arab neighbors.)

Maliki’s standing improved in early 2008 when he ordered a high-stakes military campaign to wrest control of Basra from radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. The assault was one of the first planned and executed almost entirely by Iraqi forces, and it initially looked as if it would end in catastrophe for Maliki, who had flown south to personally oversee the offensive. Sadr’s militia beat back the Iraqi army’s first attempt to enter the city and posed for pictures with burning jeeps and armored vehicles.

Instead of backing down, Maliki asked the United States for help. American aircraft pounded insurgent positions, clearing the way for Iraq’s ground forces to break through Sadr’s lines and oust his militia from the city. In Washington, the administration’s tone began to change. “Maliki’s bold decision—and it was a bold decision—to go after the illegal groups in Basra shows his leadership and his commitment to enforce the law in an evenhanded manner,” Bush said that March. By summer of 2008, Basra was under full government control. Iraq’s minority Sunni population, in particular, praised Maliki for battling a militia controlled by a fellow Shiite.

The first signs that Maliki might not be a Jeffersonian democrat came in early 2010, during the parliamentary elections set for later that year. Initial polls showed that Maliki’s State of Law coalition slate would score a decisive victory, winning more than 100 of parliament’s 325 seats. But voters were increasingly annoyed by charges that Maliki favored Shiites over other sectarian groups and by the country’s failure to provide such basic services as electricity and clean water. His public approval began to sink as support for Allawi’s Iraqiya Party—a secular lineup that included Shiites and Sunnis—grew. So Maliki launched what American officials described at the time as a systematic attack on his rival, using the powers of the state.

Diyala province, a Sunni region, was an Allawi stronghold. In February, just before the elections, state security forces abruptly arrested one of its most popular politicians, Iraqiya member Najim al-Harbi, accusing him of supporting Sunni insurgents and taking part in a homicide. A local judge ordered his release, but counterterrorism forces under Maliki’s direct control ignored the verdict and moved Harbi to a prison in Baghdad. More than 18 months after the vote, he still has not been charged or released.

When early results showed that Allawi’s party had won many seats in Diyala—and a parliamentary plurality—three of the victorious politicians got word that troops were seeking to arrest them before they could take their oath of office and thus gain immunity from prosecution. One of the candidates, a lawyer named Raad al-Dahlaki, says that soldiers showed up at his office and at his father’s home with a warrant stating that he could be taken in for questioning about ties to terrorists. Dahlaki says the warrant, which misspelled his name, appeared to be a forgery. All three hunted victors fled Diyala and hid until they could be sworn in a few weeks later.

Sitting in his tidy office in Baghdad’s heavily guarded parliamentary building in late September, Dahlaki says that the attempt to arrest him was part of an effort to hobble Allawi’s party before the elections. “It was Maliki and his party trying to take all the power in Diyala. If they had arrested me, they could have destroyed the Iraqiya Party in Diyala,” he said. “Iraq is already ruled by one party. When the U.S. leaves, it will be run by one man.”

Maliki’s behavior after the election was even more alarming. Iraqiya won 91 seats, besting Dawaa’s 89. Constitutionally, that should have given Allawi, the victor, first dibs on forming a parliamentary majority. But a day before the official results were released, Maliki quietly persuaded Iraq’s Supreme Court to let him share that right—a prerogative that he used to assemble a majority coalition. He also petitioned Iraq’s de-Baathification commission to disqualify dozens of victorious Iraqiya candidates, which would have barred Allawi from naming replacements and made Maliki’s own party the biggest one in parliament. The effort failed, but Maliki spent nearly a year sparring with Allawi over who would assume the premiership, paralyzing the government.

After lengthy U.S.-brokered negotiations, the two men reluctantly agreed to share power. Maliki would get a second term as prime minister and Allawi would helm a so-called National Council for Strategic Priorities, a body with vague instructions to oversee Maliki’s government and set policy on oil, security, and other issues. Maliki also vowed to give key ministries—Finance, Defense, Interior—to Iraqiya members. Instead, he assumed direct control of Interior and Defense and gave many of the most powerful remaining posts to members of his own Dawaa Party. He never created the council, and his allies openly say he has no intention of doing so. “The council that Allawi is looking to create isn’t in the constitution,” says Tahsin al-Sheikhli, a government spokesman. “Do you think any Iraqi will accept that? Of course not.”

Allawi, a U.S. favorite, says that Maliki is committed to sidelining rivals and centralizing power; the leader of Iraqiya also says he doubts that the prime minister will step aside as he has promised when his second term ends in 2014. “He wants to control the country for good,” Allawi says. “Promises can be set aside. If he was serious, he would pass a parliamentary decree to make that promise more tangible and binding. But his excellency the prime minister would never do that.”

(cont'd)