Needlenose

“You win some, you lose some. And then there’s that little-known third category…”
– Al Gore, on the 2000 U.S. presidential election

A couple of days ago, while awaiting the final results from Iraq’s parliamentary elections, Marc Lynch (a/k/a Abu Aardvark) wrote that the country “faces a double-edged test”:

If al-Maliki triumphs in a narrow election and assembles a coalition that largely reproduces the outgoing government, many Iraqis may feel that the election was a sham, and that democracy is not capable of producing true change. If al-Maliki loses, he may not surrender power without a fight…

Or, you know, both could happen.  From the New York Times this morning:

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s party lost the Iraqi election, but a day after the results were announced it became clear that he would fight to hold on to his post — even before the outcome was declared.

On Thursday, a day before the results were announced, he quietly persuaded the Iraqi supreme court to issue a ruling that potentially allows him to choose the new government instead of awarding that right to the winner of the election, the former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi.

On another front, officials in charge of purging the government of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party said Saturday that they still expected to disqualify 50 political candidates, many of them members of Mr. Allawi’s Iraqiya Party. That could strip Mr. Allawi of his narrow plurality, 91 parliamentary seats compared with 89 for Mr. Maliki’s State of Law party.

And if all that does not work, the prime minister still is clamoring for a recount. . . . Ultimately, the same Supreme Federal Court, which is nominally independent but has proved friendly to Mr. Maliki in the past, will decide the recount issue.

Yes, it’s always nice to have a friendly Supreme Court in your back pocket in case of a close election, isn’t it?

The relevance of the court’s decision is that under the Iraqi constitution, the electoral coalition with the largest number of seats in parliament gets the first chance to form a government, including choosing a prime minister.  But because although Allawi’s slate came in first in the voting, the court ruled that a coalition formed after the election would be eligible — meaning that Maliki’s party and the bloc of Shiite religious parties (who came in second and third, respectively) could unite and thereby “win” the right to stay in power.

As a result, a coalition like the one I predicted two weeks ago is still the most likely outcome: Maliki’s “State of Law” bloc (unfortunate acronym and all), his off-and-on Shiite allies (including those loyal to U.S. bogeyman-cleric Moqtada as-Sadr), and the largest Kurdish parties, creating a near-reunion of the 2005 government.

Why?  Because despite ordinary Iraqis’ unhappiness with the incumbent regime’s corruption and ineptitude, the high-level fault lines that brought about the Shiite-Kurdish alliance — in particular, the desire to remove any trace of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated Baath party from the government and especially the military — still exist.

In 2005, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani oversaw the creation of a nearly all-Shiite electoral slate in order to ensure that Iraq’s majority sect would control the country’s post-Saddam future.  Even if just enough voters in Iraq’s predominantly Shiite regions rejected that sectarian strategy (either by staying home or defecting to Allawi’s coalition) to tip this month’s election results, Sistani is not likely to accept such a swift unraveling of his master plan — and his will is unlikely to be defied by the politicians he brought to power, especially for the sake of a minority role in an Allawi-led regime.

Similarly, as Juan Cole notes this morning, an alliance between Allawi and the Kurdish factions is implausible because of the battles for influence between Kurds and the Sunni Arabs who make up Allawi’s political base in Kirkuk and other parts of northern Iraq.  As Cole concludes, “Allawi may therefore have a plurality that is incapable of growing into a majority.”

The primary impact of Prime Minister al-Maliki’s surprising (if narrow) second-place finish, if anything, is likely to be felt by Maliki himself.  Even if Team Shiite reunites as I’ve been predicting, Maliki’s rivals in the religious parties may demand his scalp as the price for patching up the assorted feuds of the last four years.  But that would put all of the factions in the troublesome position of having to agree on a successor, meaning even more wrangling before a government can be formed.

But then, given the congested and inconclusive results of the election, I suppose that would be fitting.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

So the election results are trickling in slowly from the Iraqi parliamentary elections, and the coalition led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expressing confidence that they will come away with the largest share of the votes — a confidence that may or may not be related to the gradually accumulating accusations of fraud in the ballot-counting process.

Although all of the blocs that made up the Iraqi national legislature have frayed somewhat since the last round of elections at the end of 2005, virtually all of the major players are expected to return when the dust settles this time… most likely including al-Maliki as the prime minister.

As happened four years ago, you can expect the major Shiite religious parties to join forces with the dominant Kurdish groups to form a ruling coalition, shutting out all but a few token Sunnis as well as secular Shiite politicians like the former U.S.-installed interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi.  Although there was a much-ballyhooed split between Maliki and the other religious factions last summer, several savvy observers noted right away that a reunion was inevitable.

I wrote at the time that the strategy behind the frenemies-style breakup seemed to be to diffuse the public unhappiness with the Shiite-dominated government’s lack of results in delivering basic services:

… Maliki would pick up votes from those who didn’t want to elect a sectarian slate [again], while the Hakim-Sadr-et al. group could pose as running against the Maliki regime… even though (surprise!) everyone would wind up in effect reelecting Team Shiite, with Maliki on top.

For better or worse, judging from the early voting returns and the political jockeying that has already begun, this analysis from last August seems to have been on target.

The difference this time is something that may not bear fruit until the next parliamentary elections, whenever those might be.  By apparently unifying behind Allawi’s slate, the fragmented losers from the 2005 elections — Sunnis of all stripes, as well as secular Shiites — will in effect make him the clear, singular leader of the political opposition.

Given the rampant corruption and ineptitude of the current (and likely to be re-installed) Iraqi government, that could be a favorable spot to hold.  If the next few years aren’t much of an improvement over the last four, and voters choose not to be fooled again by a faux split among the religious Shiite parties, Allawi would be uniquely positioned to ride the wave of political resentment.   (What would happen then is something even I can’t begin to guess.)

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

Juan Cole discusses some of the fall-out from the latest blast in Mess-o-potamia.  Given that the blast wounded some members of the Iraqi parliament, Hadi al-Ameri, a member of parliament rightly asks:

“We’ve heard a lot of brouhaha about successes on the security front,” he said. “Where are these successes?”

Good question.  Seems like things are heading South again, with increasingly brazen attacks reminiscent of the Groundhog Days of ’04 and ’05.

In the same post, Juan Cole discusses how affairs between the Kurds and the rest of Iraq are heating up around the flashpoint Kirkuk.  Those of you who aren’t afflicted with American Amnesia might remember how we called Kirkuk out as a flashpoint way back when, and how the Kurds have been continuously working to reclaim demographics and control on the ground in this oil-rich city.

I guess with Obama shifting his focus on our other failing occupation, and with our gradual troop removal the Petreus plan to stabilize the Iraqi Civil War is slowly and painfully coming off, like a band-aid on a hairy leg.

One didn’t live to see his long-held dream come to fruition. The other did.

Kim Gamel and Qassim Abdul-Zahra of the Associated Press report from Baghdad today:

The Iranian-backed Shiite parties that helped propel Iraq’s prime minister into power three years ago dumped him Monday as their candidate for re-election, forming a new alliance to contest the January vote.

The move dealt a blow to Nouri al-Maliki’s chances to keep his job next year and set the stage for a showdown between competing factions in the Shiite coalition that had dominated Iraq’s government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

. . . The Shiite prime minister’s efforts to win public confidence by portraying himself as a champion of security have taken a battering in recent weeks. A wave of horrific bombings has called into question the government’s ability to protect the Iraqi people two months after most U.S. forces pulled out of urban areas.

. . . Monday’s political announcement — made with fanfare at a news conference — represents a major realignment.

The new bloc, called the Iraqi National Alliance, will include the largest Shiite party, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, or SIIC, and [Moqtada] al-Sadr’s bloc . . .

. . . [Maliki] stayed out of the new alliance because leaders refused to guarantee him the prime minister’s spot, officials said. Rumored possibilities for the job include new alliance members ex-Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, current Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and even Former Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a one-time Pentagon favorite.

(*A brief pause here, to allow readers to shudder*)

The realignment does not immediately threaten al-Maliki’s position as prime minister, but points to stormy politics in the election campaign and beyond, as U.S. troops begin scaling back their presence.

Supreme Council lawmaker Reda Jawad Taqi said a last-ditch meeting was held Sunday to try to bring al-Maliki into the fold but it failed to overcome the differences.

Then again, with at least five months to go before the elections, nothing can be considered final:

One of al-Maliki’s advisers, Hassan al-Sineid, said in a televised response that the prime minister and the leaders of the new alliance differed over “the mechanism of participation in the alliance and the need to open this alliance to include a broad range of political powers.”

In other words, the assorted hucksters couldn’t agree on the latest division of the loot (i.e., the respective number of seats in the Iraqi parliament and allotted Cabinet posts, and the opportunities for graft that go with them).

The prime minister instead is working to form an alternate coalition. He is reaching out to a prominent Sunni sheik in Anbar province, whose followers include fighters who joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq.

. . . Despite Monday’s announcement, the new Shiite alliance was careful to leave the door open for the Dawa Party to join later.

Abdul-Mahdi, a top SIIC member, was among those reaching out to Dawa, saying it was important to present a strong united front that can address the overwhelming challenges facing the country.

Bet on Grand Ayatollah/cat-herder-in-chief Ali Sistani to get involved, either personally or through proxies in Iran, to referee the dispute.  By the time the election rolls around, the team is likely to be back together again.

Update: Both Juan Cole and Joel Wing at Musings on Iraq cite claims/rumors endorsing my hunch that the sticking point is how many seats Maliki’s party would be allotted as part of the allied election slate. (Separately, there’s a detailed breakdown of the factions involved from Reidar Visser.)

Prof. Cole raises a point I nearly suggested in my original post — Maliki might run on a different slate from the rest of Team Shiite, then agree to form a governing coalition after the election. The possibly too-clever thinking at work in this scenario could be that Maliki would pick up votes from those who didn’t want to elect a sectarian slate, while the Hakim-Sadr-et al. group could pose as running against the Maliki regime… even though (surprise!) everyone would wind up in effect reelecting Team Shiite, with Maliki on top.

The Washington Post reports today:

The Iraqi government announced Monday that it intends to let voters decide in January whether the departure of U.S. troops should be accelerated.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s cabinet is submitting a draft law to parliament asking it to authorize and fund a referendum on the bilateral agreement that regulates the presence of U.S. troops, the government announced.

The referendum would be held during January’s national election.

U.S. officials have quietly lobbied the Iraqi government to suspend plans to hold the referendum, because they’re all but certain voters would annul the agreement.

If that were to happen, U.S. troops would have one year to depart, moving up their targeted December 2011 withdrawal date by almost a year.

. . . When the security agreement was negotiated last year, some lawmakers demanded that its implementation on Jan. 1 be followed by a referendum. The referendum was supposed to happen in July, but the government took no action, leading American officials to believe it would never happen.

Note that if the Iraqi government really wanted a referendum and a faster U.S. withdrawal, they could have held the vote last month as promised.

Postponing it until January (or whenever the national elections are eventually held) suggests that the main concern is keeping the American occupation alive as a political issue — and thereby distracting attention from the Iraqi government’s ongoing inability to deliver basic services like electricity.  It seems Maliki & Co. don’t want to go into that election with their own performance as the primary issue.

What’s important about the memo, revealed yesterday, from an army colonel advising American forces in Iraq that recommends an accelerated withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country?

It wasn’t an expression of official policy, just one colonel’s advice — and we quickly learned the author, Col. Timothy Reese, was something of a loose cannon in terms of his opinions.

Even so, after years of neocon hype of inevitable “victory,” and as recently as three months ago (even after announcing a withdrawal timeline), President Obama still pretending that there was a mission to be accomplished, Col. Reese has formally placed on the table for discussion within the Pentagon an obvious truth regarding the U.S. in Iraq: “The use of the military instrument of national power in its current form has accomplished all that can be expected.“

It’s about time that top U.S. military officials started facing that fact. For five years now, I’ve been writing about the ability of Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the Shiite-dominated government he shepherded into power to resist American pressure — and been right nearly every time I bet on that ability to prevail.

A year ago, when the conventional wisdom was that Iraqi prime minister Maliki’s demands for a withdrawal timeline (during negotiations for a Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA) were just to placate Iraqi public opinion while coming up with a way for the U.S. to stay, I wrote that Sistani’s plan since 2004 was “to use the American military as a contractor of sorts to help cement a Shiite-led government’s power, then nudge us aside when the task was more or less complete.”

Maliki’s successful insistence on a timeline, and the unexpected restrictions that Col. Reese’s memo says are now being placed on U.S. troops in the wake of the SOFA being implemented, represent that plan in action. And contrary to what many progressives would rightly hope, it’s not an expression of sovereignty on behalf of the Iraqi people. It’s Robert Shaw being hustled out of the building at the end of “The Sting.”

Sure, prime minister Maliki may make noise about extending the U.S. presence — but make no mistake, any new agreement will be on the Iraqi government’s terms, which will have far less to do with building a functional, thriving democracy than with continuing to use American military might to crush Maliki’s political enemies.

The Iraq war was a “victory” not for the United States, nor for the Iraqi people, but rather for a corrupt and authoritarian-leaning regime whose most redeeming characteristic is that it isn’t quite as brutal and dictatorial (yet, anyway) as Saddam Hussein’s — which, sadly, was the obviously probable end result all along.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

Six years ago today, on May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in an elaborately executed photo-op and proclaimed, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

At that time, 140 U.S. soldiers had died in Iraq; six years later, the number of 4,281 (with three more deaths reported today), and the toll of Iraqi fatalities is perhaps a hundred times higher or more.

Today’s anniversary is all the more troubling since President Obama, who came into office firmly promising to end the U.S. occupation, seems to still buy into the idea that there is an American “mission” to be accomplished. In his press conference Wednesday night, he said:

Part of the reason why I called for a gradual withdrawal as opposed to a precipitous one was precisely because more work needs to be done on the political side to further isolate whatever remnants of Al Qaida in Iraq still exists.

And I’m very confident that, with our commander on the ground, General Odierno, with Chris Hill, our new ambassador, having been approved and already getting his team in place, that they are going to be able to work effectively with the Maliki government to create the conditions for an ultimate transfer after the national elections.

But there’s some serious work to do on making sure that how they divvy up oil revenues is ultimately settled, what the provincial powers are and boundaries, the relationship between the Kurds and the central government, the relationship between the Shia and the Kurds. Are they incorporating effectively Sunnis, Sons of Iraq, into the structure of the armed forces in a way that’s equitable and just?

Those are all issues that have not been settled the way they need to be settled.

I have bad news for you, Mr. President: those issues are not going to be settled, because the Maliki government has no interest in settling them to the other factions’ liking. I’ve watched since 2005 as the Bush/Cheneyites — with more leverage over the fledgling Iraqi government, and fewer scruples — tried to browbeat the Jaafari regime, and then Maliki, into adopting the kind of reconciliation measures just described.

I predicted then that U.S. pressure would fail, and there’s even less chance of it succeeding now. For better or worse, Iraq’s Shiite leaders view power as a winner-take-all game, and they’re not going to take any chances by sharing. Which is why, by talking up “work to do” and “conditions for an ultimate transfer,” Obama is painting himself into a dangerous corner.

As Spencer Ackerman wrote yesterday, “What was true for Bush is true for Obama: devising responsible approaches to Iraq require a firm handling of the facts involved, not wishful thinking.” For all the talk of conditional engagement, the only way Obama’s policy in Iraq will differ from the previous administration will be if he says flatly that reconciliation or no reconciliation, the U.S. is leaving. Six years after the disastrous “Mission Accomplished” stunt, it’s time for Obama to make that clear.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

A month ago in this space, I expressed skepticism about President Obama’s announced plan for withdrawing from Iraq — not so much because he was backing down from the timeline he campaigned on, but rather because the generals assigned to implement the plan might think he was.

This report today from Jane Arraf of the Christian Science Monitor doesn’t make me feel any better:

In an exclusive interview, the top US ground commander in Iraq says that while Iraqi forces have made huge strides, Iraqi officials are likely to ask for US help in the key cities of Baquba and Mosul, meaning that American troops may stay there after the deadline for redeployment to major bases. Senior military commanders say US troops will also likely stay on in the southern city of Basra.

“In Mosul and Diyala [Province], as we do a combined or joint assessment of the situation on the ground, I have every expectation that both sides will say we need to stay with this a little bit longer until this improves,” says Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, echoing sentiments of Iraqi officials concerned about ongoing fighting in those areas. . . .

“I think the Iraqis know that there are some things that have to occur before we leave,” he says. “They know that there are some capabilities that they have to develop. I think they’ll be up to task when we do leave by 2011.“

Despite the wrangling it took for the Iraqi government to impose a withdrawal deadline on the Bush misadministration, I’m not surprised that they might turn around and ask for extensions. I kept trying to tell people during last year’s negotiations that Prime Minister Maliki’s goal wasn’t necessarily to force the Americans out, but rather to ensure that if they stayed, it would be on the Iraqi government’s terms.

By that, I mean that instead of supporting a (mythical) nascent democracy as it gains momentum, U.S. troops would more likely be subcontractors used by a partisan/sectarian regime to suppress its opponents. As the Maliki government reneges on promises of political reconciliation, that fate becomes more likely. By the time it become obvious to everyone, though, the Obama administration may feel too inextricably bound to its commitments to abandon our supposed Iraqi allies.

Oh, well. At least we’re not getting ourselves mired in deeper in Afghanistan at the same… ooooops!

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

President Barack Obama, February 27, 2009: “To the Iraqi people, let me be clear about America’s intentions — the United States pursues no claim on your territory or your resources.”

After, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, having exhausted all alternatives.