The Postponement of Provincial Elections in Anbar and Nineveh: Initial Reactions

Iraq being Iraq, it refused to stand still for the start of the 10-year war anniversary. As Americans began marking the day when President Bush declared war, Iraqi newswires were awash with reports that local elections scheduled for 20 April had been postponed for a maximum 6 months throughout the country for security reasons. Subsequent reports qualified the initial once and said only the Sunni-majority governorates of Anbar and Nineveh would be affected, although there has so far been remarkably little in the way of official, written confirmation. Nonetheless, the epic timing of this decision immediately raises questions that are highly relevant to the outpouring of punditry assessing the war: Was the derailment of elections simply the most symbolic indicator possible that Iraq’s transition to democracy has failed?

Not so fast. Some theories immediately thought the cancellation of the elections in Sunni provinces bordering Syria was a response by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki based on fear that radical Sunnis would come to powers in large numbers – thanks mainly to the general radicalization of the political atmosphere in those areas, which are seen as largely loyal to the Syrian opposition. But there is evidence going back several weeks that local politicians in Anbar had in fact contacted the Iraqi elections commission IHEC exactly with such a postponement in mind. Subsequent to the news that the Iraqi cabinet had decided on a delay, those local politicians went on to express satisfaction about the decision to postpone.

To some extent, of course, this could be simply the result of some politicians fearing they would lose their jobs due to popular dissatisfaction. Turning to Nineveh, though, there is a different picture altogether. The outcry against the postponement has been loud there, and here Usama al-Nujayfi, the parliament speaker and brother of the Nineveh governor, condemned the delay.

Evidently, the Nineveh politicians are far less afraid of losing their jobs than their Anbar counterparts. This may be performance-related, but it could also have to do with different views on the Syrian uprising and the radicalism it has brought to Sunni-dominated parts of western Iraq. Anbar has after all seen some of this before: The sahwa movement was a response to unwanted radicalism on the part of Al-Qaeda. Last year, Maliki succeeded in winning over a sufficient number of local shaykhs to dilute a movement in favour of federalism for Anbar. What we are seeing today in terms of rapprochement over elections postponement could be much-needed tendencies of cooperation between Maliki and Sunni local leaders at a time when regional winds are clearly blowing in a sectarian direction. With many Iraq commentators focused on black and white characterizations of Iraqi politics (or “crescents”) we tend to forget that many Iraqi Sunnis still find themselves sandwiched between extremist Al-Qaeda sympathisers and an Iraqi government they suspect of having too close links to Iran.

Nineveh appears to be a different story, thus cementing the sense of a complete rupture between Maliki and the Nujayfi brothers. Some Maliki critics in Nineveh go all the way and call for federalism as an appropriate response. Still, the stark discrepancy between the Nineveh and Anbar responses should in itself give pause for those in a hurry to declare any kind of Sunni region. If Maliki is smart, he will take this last-minute opportunity to win some much-needed Sunni friends in Anbar. Already the Sadrists that saved his premiership last year (and the budget earlier this month) have declared a cabinet boycott, saying they take orders from Muqtada al-Sadr only. That sort of capriciousness should be a reminder to Maliki about what sort of forces he will be hostage to if he perseveres with a strictly sectarian approach in order to guarantee his political survival.

How Bush’s Promise of “Even-Handedness” Led Britain into War in Iraq

The decision by President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was probably made a long time before the actual invasion on 20 March. However, a key role in building a degree of international acceptance for the war was played by the UK prime minister, Tony Blair. 10 years later, we often forget how silly Mr. Blair’s arguments in favour of the war were. For example, while it is true that some attention has been paid to the flawed intelligence with which Blair tried to persuade the House of Commons, most people seem to forget that the argument that seemed to tip the balance for Blair in favour of intervention in mid-March 2003 was the promise by Bush to be “even-handed” regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict in the future!

My angry newspaper letter to The Independent, comparing the stance of the UK on Iraq and Israel and warning about naïveté exactly 10 years ago:

Blair’s “even-handedness” is a farce

Sir, to present George Bush’s new “initiative” for the Middle East as a real step forward (leading article, 15 March) is merely to add to the hypocrisy which fuels anti-Western sentiment around the world. Of two Middle Eastern countries in non-compliance with UN resolutions, country A is starved almost to death and deprived of essential imports for the maintenance of its infrastructure, then threatened with some 200,000 soldiers, and at the precise moment when progress towards compliance is greater than ever before, looks set to become the victim of a devastating military campaign. Country B is treated essentially as any other state for more than thirty-five years, then, in an attempt by world leaders at establishing perfect even-handedness in their approach to all countries in the region, is issued with a warning of a most threatening nature, namely, a statement of intent to publish, at an early date, a three-year road map which might possibly, in the future, bring about a result vaguely resembling compliance with the original resolution. Would not a policy somewhere in between towards both these countries yield better results for the Middle East as a whole?

Needless to say, the letter wasn’t even published by the newspaper.

De-Baathification in the Iraqi Provincial Elections by Governorate and Political Entity

Exactly as in the 2010 parliamentary elections, the release of official candidate lists for the 20 April local elections is a two-tiered process. An initial batch of approved candidates – the majority of 8,099 vetted candidates – has been released first. Candidates that have been struck from the lists due to problems with their candidature have their names suppressed in the first list, but they can appeal. If they succeed, they will appear in an addendum to the official candidate lists, to be published by IHEC separately.

Also like in 2010, it is possible to use the statistics of omitted candidates from the released lists of candidates as an indication of de-Baathification issues and how they affect different political entities and geographical regions of Iraq. True, omitted candidates also include a minority of people whose exclusion may relate to other factors, such as criminal charges or forged documents. There are also a host of other methodological issues to keep in mind. Nonetheless, since the majority of the omissions appear to relate to de-Baathification, these statistics do offer a sufficiently distinctive picture to say something about how people’s relationship with the old Baathist regime are still having an impact across Iraq .

The picture that emerges from a tabulation of this data is quite clear, and very similar to 2010. In terms of party allegiances, the Shiite Islamists and Kurds generally have few problems with de-Baathifications. It is noteworthy that whereas Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did have some de-Baathification issues in 2010, this time his lists have been mostly untouched by the de-Baathification committee. On the other hand, the secular and Sunni-dominated parties are represented disproportionately among the entities targeted for de-Baathification. Iraqiyya stands out, accounting for the lion’s share of all likely de-Baathification cases. A similar fate has befallen some (but not all) of the Iraqiyya splinter groups, a case in point being Free Iraqiyya. (Conversely, White, the mainly Shiite breakaway group from Iraqiyya has apparently not experienced any nomination trouble at all.) The unwavering cross-sectarian partisans of Nadim al-Jabiri and Mahmud al-Mashaddani have only managed to put up a list in Baghdad; it too seems to have a few cases of de-Baathification. Three interesting but far less known entities are 429, 492 and 517. All of them stand out for making an attempt at running in several provinces, and all of them figure disproportionately among the likely de-Baathification cases. They include Wasfi Asi Hussein, the leader of list 517 who ran with Maliki in 2010; he is now contesting Baghdad and Anbar. Other local (i.e. one-governorate) lists with notable nomination trouble include 401 and 435.

Geographically, it is also a well known story we are dealing with. South of Baghdad, there is now hardly any de-Baathification at all after an extra-judicial witch hunt of anyone with ties to the Baath blossomed during the months prior to the March 2010 parliamentary elections.  The majority of de-Baathification cases are from the Sunni-majority areas as well as the capital Baghdad, with Nineveh taking the biggest share of the total. It is noteworthy though that the generally close ties between the northern regions and the regime affect even candidates on the Shiite and Kurdish lists. The few cases of Shiite de-Baathification issues that can be found arise in the north, and even Kurds in Nineveh appear to have problems getting some of their candidates approved.

One final indicator worthy of consideration relates to the list rank of the de-Baathified and disapproved candidates. With respect to some entities – again often the Shiite parties – the few cases of excluded candidates that appear are far down the list and may relate to sloppy documentation and oversight by the party leadership who may not care that much what happens to bottom-of-the-list candidates. However, certain lists have seen their top candidates slashed in what amounts to highly symbolic moves against their leaderships. One example is the list of Iraqiyya politician Saleh al-Mutlak in Baghdad, which has yet to get its top candidate approved. (Maybe Mutlak’s reported support for Maliki recently in settling the budget against the wishes of the Kurds will help him once again.) Other such entities include list 429, which seems to be the personal creation of one Rushdi Saidi who is presumably the top candidate in Baghdad for whom approval remains lacking. Same story with 468 in Karbala and 505 in Diyala. These are lists and figures worth keeping an eye on simply for the fact that the de-Baathification committee finds it worthwhile to target them at the top.

Of course, this year’s de-Baathification purge comes against the backdrop of the big controversy relating to Midhat al-Mahmud, the supreme court chief. Mahmud was recently himself subjected to de-Baathification, although the de-Baathification appeals board subsequently approved his appeal and reinstated him, saying they found no trace of any connection to the Baath. That is somewhat hard to believe given Mahmud’s elaborate CV of achievements in the judicial system of Iraq since the 1990s, but then again it would be an exaggeration to say that the de-Baathification law has been applied to the letter since it was passed in 2008. The political context of the reinstatement of Mahmud suggests the Sadrists caved in to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in this case by letting the prime minister replace the Sadrist head of the de-Baathification board – and perhaps with the message that de-Baathification needs not be applied quite so strictly when it comes to Shiites. Recent Sadrist alignment with Maliki to get the budget passed despite the demands of the Kurds and the boycott of Iraqiyya is an indication of the same trend. Judge Midhat has quickly moved to reassert himself by sacking the court spokesperson and striking down a piece of legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament without consulting the government; the recent attempt to limit the term limits of the prime minister will likely suffer the same fate.

Regarding this latest act of mass de-Baathification, the statistics speak for themselves as regards who is being hit. It should be added, though, that if the law had been applied evenly and if the appointment of the de-Baathification board had been less politicised there would probably have been greater numbers of disqualifications on both sides, among Sunnis and Shiites alike. Many ex-Baathists of either sect are probably able to run simply thanks to wasta (informal patronage) rather than fulfilment of the judicial requirements – consider for example how unscathed the list of parliament speaker Nujayfi is.

A “state of law” it certainly isn’t.

IHEC Publishes the Candidate List for Iraq’s Local Elections

They have been long in the making but now they are finally published: The lists of 8,100 candidates for Iraq’s 20 April local elections. This is quite a substantial source of 200 plus pages of candidate names, but at least some initial conclusions can be drawn regarding how the battle is shaping up in the various provinces.

One way of looking at the candidates and the competing coalitions is to study which political movements compete in all of the country, and which are limited to particular areas and regions. From that angle, it is clear that only one list fields substantial numbers of candidates  throughout the country from Anbar and Nineveh in the north to Basra in the south: The secular Iraqiyya headed by Ayad Allawi. Even before the ballots have been cast, this must be considered something of a triumph for Iraqiyya (list 486), which has shown considerable signs of cracks and internal splits during the political turmoil following the US exit from Iraq in December 2011. Despite rumours of major defections as well as the emergence of actual splinter groups, Iraqiyya continues to muster candidates in Sunni and Shiite areas alike.

Iraqiyya is the only major coalition to do so. Unlike the situation in 2009, the Shiite Islamist parties have decided to form one umbrella Shiite ticket in all areas where the Shiites are minorities (list 472 in Salahaddin, list 463 in Nineveh and list 501 in Diyala) and are not competing at all where there is no significant Shiite electorate (Anbar). A clearer message of sectarian disinterest could hardly have been formulated: These coalitions are no longer even trying to compete for the vote of people of a different sect, quite similar to the well-established ethnic strategy of the Kurds (list 469 across the northern governorates). As for the situation in the Shiite-majority areas south of Baghdad, it is shaping up as a three-way struggle for the Islamist vote between Muwatin or ISCI (411), the expanded State of Law coalition of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that is now also featuring  the Badr organisation and Fadila (419), and the Sadrist or Ahrar list (473).

The rest of the field consists of two things: Firstly, coalitions who have tried to follow the Iraqiyya model of contesting both Shiite and Sunni areas, but without the ability to cover all of the country; secondly, local curiosities. To the first group belong parts of the Iraqiyya parliamentary bloc that have decided to run separately in the local elections, including most prominently the Mutahhidun (444) of parliament speaker Usama al-Nujayfi and his brother Athil, the governor of Mosul. In addition to Nineveh, this list is running in Basra, Baghdad, Salahaddin and Anbar. The inclusion of Basra makes it look like more than a narrowly oriented regional coalition, although the number of candidates it is fielding there (8) is unimpressive. Similar attempts to be national without really succeeding can be seen in Saleh al-Mutlak’s list (list 425 in Baghdad, Anbar, Salahaddin and list 466 in Muthanna) and among Iraqiyya breakaway elements like the pro-Maliki White (456, running only in Basra, Babel, Qadisiyya and Karbala) as well as Free Iraqiyya (list 467 running in Baghdad and Diyala and list 499 in Karbala).

There are several local phenomena that will make for special dynamics in particular governorates. In Anbar, Allawi, Nujayfi and Mutlak are challenged by several lists with a more local orientation, as is the case in Salahaddin (including the list of the governor, 430). In many of the Shiite-majority areas, there are small independent challengers to Maliki, including an independent list in Basra run by a prominent businessman (432). Powerful local lists that helped Maliki win control in Karbala and Najaf in 2009 are still running separately there (434 and 441 respectively, though the Karbala governor himself is now on the Maliki list). One of the small Shiite Islamist parties, the Tanzim al-Dakhil branch of the Daawa, has elected to run separately in most governorates (list 460), and the shadowy, possibly pro-Maliki Knights of the Law Supporters (484) appear with small lists in Salahaddin, Wasit, Baghdad, Dhi Qar and Diyala.

A couple of hundred candidates have been provisionally struck from the lists by the de-Baathification committee. This is a lower percentage than in the parliamentary elections of 2010, though a cursory reading of omitted candidates suggests it is once more the Sunni-majority governorates and the secular parties that are taking the heaviest toll. They still have the possibility to appeal the decisions individually, and a final roll of last-minute approved candidates will be published by IHEC.

All in all, the candidate lists suggest a political atmosphere that is looking more sectarian than in 2009, with the Shiite parties largely giving up the fight for Sunni votes. To what extent Iraqiyya will actually succeed in its nationally oriented strategy, remains to be seen as well. Nonetheless, given Iraq’s increasingly homogeneous sectarian population patterns, the majority of these contests will be of an intra-sectarian nature. To some extent, the electorate will give their verdict on four years of rule by Maliki allies; these figures are now at the top of the State of Law list in their respective areas, including in places like Basra and Baghdad. The concomitant sectarian infighting can perhaps in itself have some positive impact on an Iraqi political situation that seems stalemated internally and under severe pressures from regional dynamics, above all in Syria.

The Political Dynamics behind the Downfall of Midhat al-Mahmud, Iraq’s Supreme Court Chief

News out of Iraq indicates that the country’s de-Baathification committee has decided to remove the supreme court chief, Midhat al-Mahmud, because of his ties to the previous Baath regime.

In some ways, the ruling is not really controversial: It is widely agreed that Mahmud’s leading positions under the former regime are in conflict with the requirements of the de-Baathification law from 2008 which are particularly strict when it comes to leadership of judicial institutions. Everyone knew that Mahmud had those ties to the former regime; his tenure at the supreme court was simply seen as one of many exceptions to the rule in the new Iraq whereby some Baathists were granted permission to stay on if they proved useful to people in positions of power – and in particular to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Additionally, Mahmud’s continued tenure as an octogenarian seems to be a conflict with a law still in force stipulating age limits for retirement of Iraqi judges at 68.

Thus, rather than reflecting new legal realities or path-breaking judicial interpretations, the new situation regarding Mahmud has to do with a changing political dynamic in Iraq. Ever since the Shiite Islamist Sadrists and ISCI with Iranian support pushed the de-Baathification issue to the forefront in Iraqi politics ahead of the March 2010 parliamentary elections, there has been a shift of power towards Sadrist dominance of appointments to the de-Baathification committee and other legal institutions involved in the de-Baathification process. This was seen not only in the appointment of a new de-Baathification committee in May 2012. Also the composition of the appeals court for de-Baathification cases (to which Judge Midhat may now appeal) was influenced by Sadrist pressure in parliament. Finally, the recent passage by the Iraqi parliament of the law for the higher judicial council, which to some extent prepared the ground for the elimination of Judge Midhat, was seen as a bid by the Sadrists along with the Kurds and the secular and Sunni-dominated Iraqiyya to put pressure on Maliki.

It is hard to overestimate the significance of this move against Prime Minister Maliki. Since 2008, the Iraqi federal supreme court has increasingly been seen as an ally of Maliki, often issuing rulings that strengthened the executive in ways that seemed in conflict with the constitution or even the court’s own past decisions.  Tareq Harb, a lawyer close to Maliki, often prevailed with his arguments before the supreme court. Maliki, emboldened by judicial support, appeared to pay ever less attention to the fact that his parliamentary support base is in fact very limited. During the no confidence crisis of spring 2012 he failed to build bridges to disaffected factions of Iraqiyya and had to rely on support from Iran and the Sadrists to avoid getting unseated. To some extent then, this latest move is parliament paying back for Maliki’s arrogant approach to them.

For these reasons, some will no doubt construe the de-Baathification of Mahmud as a welcome check on Maliki’s authoritarian tendencies. Still, those who celebrate this move should take into account the fact that the campaign against Midhat has been spearheaded by Shiite Islamist hardliners in the Sadrist camp. We can now ask the question of who the Sadrists will attack next using de-Baathification as a tool. For example, many of Maliki’s generals are also due for retirement if the de-Baathification law were to be followed to the letter. Some of these generals are part of the backbone of the system of relative security that has emerged in Iraq since 2008.

The secular and increasingly Sunni-dominated Iraqiyya’s support for the move is particularly ironic since Mahmud in many ways was one of them in the past. Their embrace of the decision (“finally the de-Baathification committee is taking on a Shiite” according to parliament speaker Nujayfi) in some ways goes to underline their own increasingly Sunni sectarian position. It could be argued that what we are seeing in practice here is that Iraqiyya effectively supports Kurdish separatist policies and Sadrist Islamist policies at the same time in order to weaken Maliki. It’s actually not the first instance of this either: Recently Iraqiyya asked the all-Shiite National Alliance and the clergy of Najaf to come up with a candidate to replace Maliki, thus similarly reiterating the idea of sectarian alliances and even a role for the clergy in politics. It is true that Maliki has failed to make political gain from the only remaining issues where he can expect to win some Sunni and secular support – anti-federalism and disputed-boundary conflicts with the Kurds – but Iraqiyya’s actions show that we should not one-sidedly accuse Maliki of being the single factor behind the recent increase in sectarianism in Iraq.

In some ways, Judge Midhat’s continued tenure at the supreme court symbolized the contradictions of the “State of Law” Iraq where the law makes surprising twists and turn and is certainly not applied equally across the board. But the political direction of all of this –  with the Sadrists in an attack position and general sectarian polarization in the region thanks to the Syria conflict – suggests that in the long run, the situation in Iraq may be exacerbated rather than alleviated by these latest developments.

Chuck Hagel, Iraq and Obama’s Easy-Listening Foreign Policy

There has been no lack of critical voices regarding the nomination of Chuck Hagel as US defence secretary. Protests against the nomination range from accusations of homophobia to suggestions he is “soft” on Iran and lacks “commitment” to Israel.

One argument against Hagel that is never going to be used in the hearings on Capitol Hill today but is nonetheless worth mentioning concerns his views on Iraq, particularly as expressed during the debate about the Bush policy of a “surge” of US forces in early 2007. Some will perhaps make use of those remarks to argue that Hagel was against the “successful” surge of US forces. That view to some extent exaggerates the significance of the surge as an independent factor behind the reasonable political climate that briefly prevailed in Iraq between April 2008 and April 2009, and is not really a meaningful argument against Hagel’s candidacy. But there is another, deeper argument relating to Hagel’s epistemology of Iraqi politics that came to the fore in those heated debates in early 2007. In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting on 12 January 2007, Hagel contended that,  “we are in a civil war. This is sectarian violence out of control, Iraqi on Iraqi. Worse, it is inter-sectarian [sic] violence, Shia killing Shia”.

Hagel probably said, or meant to say,  “intra-sectarian”. In any case, his point was very clear: There is supposedly a natural state of affairs in Iraqi politics, consisting of endless sectarian conflict. Sunnis killing Shiites would have been “natural” to Hagel. When Shiites began killing Shiites, it meant the situation was “worse”, unnatural and out of control.

This little piece of simplistic Iraq epistemology may perhaps come across as innocuous to the majority of American commenters on Middle Eastern affairs. Indeed, there is nothing terribly unique in what Hagel says, even though he is pitching the message in a more clear-cut manner than most others. Many US analysts prefer to see Iraq as an eternal battleground of Shiites and Sunnis, supposedly going back many centuries in time.

And today, of course, some will no doubt claim that the current situation in Iraq and the region proves Hagel was right in 2007. Aren’t Shiites fighting Sunnis more than ever, aren’t Sunnis demanding their own federal region in Iraq, and isn’t there even a clear-cut regional dimension since Turkey (the successor to the Ottoman Empire) is sponsoring Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis, and Iran (the successor to the Safavids) is doing the same with regard to Iraqi Shiites and Syrian Alawites?

The point is, though, that this situation today does not reflect a unilinear, steady deterioration of affairs in Iraq from the time Hagel made his statement in 2007 until today. Following that period, thanks both to the surge and the growing rejection by many Iraqi politicians of parts of the hastily crafted 2005 constitution, a more moderate political climate dominated in 2008 and during the 2009 local elections. Crucially, after a sectarian climate had prevailed during the civil-war like conditions of 2006 and 2007, the atmosphere of Iraqi politics improved sufficiently during 2008 to encourage Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to run on a separate electoral ticket in the local elections in January 2009, quite despite the expressed desire for Iran to see greater Shiite sectarian unity.

Prior to the parliamentary elections of 2010, Maliki tried the same thing. But when the new Obama administration initiated ouvertures to Iran in spring 2009, Iran reciprocated by asserting itself even more strongly in Iraqi politics, propelling de-Baathification to the top of the agenda and gradually focing Maliki back to sectarian unity. Symptomatically, in the upcoming Iraq local elections on 20 April 2013, unlike in 2009, Maliki will run a big Shiite sectarian coalition in most provinces and all-Shiite coalitions in areas with Shiite minorities, entirely in accordance with Iranian preferences for unified Shiite coalitions.

The Obama administration, with numerous people sharing Hagel’s epistemology, probably even didn’t see that sectarian turn as a true anomaly. This of course is not to suggest that US influence in Iraq before 2009 was singularly virtuous or that the micro-managing of the Bush administration rested upon superior epistemological bases. But it did mean a multipolar environment for the Iraqi Shiites which has virtually disappeared during the Obama administration. Today, Iran seems to be the only game in town – and Obama seems to think that is a natural state of affairs.

Perhaps Obama also sees some sort of potential in an Iran-dominated Iraq? It is very hard to avoid wondering whether the current acquiescence in face of rising sectarianism in Iraq actually constitutes something of a dangling carrot in front of Iran, not unlike the Arab-press conspiracy theory of concessions to Iran in Iraq in exchange for a deal on the Iranian nuclear file. These days, American oil in Iraq, including Chevron where Hagel serves happens to serve on the board of directors, seems to be migrating northwards to the Kurdish areas of Iraq that are under Turkish influence.

Obviously, rapprochement with Iran, with which Hagel is associated as part of a greater effort to disentangle the US from the Middle East, is in itself not a bad thing. But it should still be possible to criticize the precise nature of such movements. To use Iraq as a bargaining chip with Iran is simply just a lot more ahistorical than Obama realizes, and as a consequence, perhaps less sustainable over time. Historically, despite the cooperation between Iran and Iraqi Islamist parties since the 1980s, Iraqi Shiites have tended to resist Iranian domination. The difference is that whereas Hagel and his friends posit sectarianism as an eternally dominant theme of Iraqi politics, Iraqi history shows a far more spasmodic pattern in which the significance of sectarianism has often receded in the absence of foreign intervention or regional instabilities. There was not much in the way of sectarian violence during the several centuries of Ottoman rule, or during the Iraqi monarchy period.

Is it advisable to induce pan-Shiite tendencies in Iraq just for the sake of epistemological simplicity? So far, without moving on the nuclear issue, Iran has only taken the opportunity to strengthen its hold over Iraq and Syria. Approaching the Syrian crisis with Hagelian worldview, in turn, illustrates how the act of colouring whole areas and even countries sectarian inevitably means caving into the most radical sectarian forces in the region. Syria, in the eyes of Hagel, is presumably as “Sunni” as Iraq is “Shiite”. In this simplistic view, all Sunnis of Syria staunchly oppose Assad and only Alawites (and maybe Christians) support him. Of course, exactly like in Iraq, history is more complex. Anyone who is familiar with Syrian history knows that “Sunni” Aleppo may well have different dynamics from “Sunni” Damascus. In fact, if Syrian politics could be reduced to a sectarian battle, Damascus would probably have fallen long time ago.

It is simplistic approaches to Middle Eastern sectarian dynamics like those of Chuck Hagel that help bring about a situation where the West is fighting Al-Qaeda in Mali and is tacitly supporting them in Syria. And Hagel will join an increasing number of people with similar simplistic, easy-listening approaches to the Middle East in the Obama administration. Alongside Chuck “It Is Natural for Sunnis to Kill Shiites” Hagel at defence, we will have John “They Have Been Fighting Each Other for Centuries” Kerry as secretary of state, and Joe “My Guess Is It Will Be Three States” Biden as vice president. With policy-makers like these, there may unfortunately be a whole lot of Benghazis to come.

New Law Limits the Terms of Iraq’s Prime Minister

A couple of points regarding the law on term limits for the “three presidencies” passed by the Iraqi parliament on Saturday.

• The law limits the three presidencies (president proper, speaker of parliament and prime minister) to two terms, whether successive or not.
• Whereas a limitation on the presidency to two terms is prescribed in the Iraqi constitution for the presidency proper, no such restriction appears with regard to the premiership. Maliki supporters is calling the law unconstitutional for this reason. It may be more correct to see the law as “extra-constitutional” (since the constitution is mute) but that does not mean the supreme court will not find problems with it.
• Another noteworthy problem is that the law is a “proposed law” rather than a legislative project. In 2010, the Iraqi supreme court struck down another such “proposed law”, arguing that parliament had no right to initiate legislation other than making a proposal that would then have to pass through parliament. The supreme court may opt to strike down the bill simply for that reason.
• Note that rejection of the bill is not automatic: It must be specifically challenged before the supreme court. Maliki will probably lose no time in doing so, but it should be added that at least a couple of dozens of “proposals” have indeed been passed into law apparently without such challenges over the past few years, and quite a few others are on their way. The sheer volume of this legislative action suggests the Iraqi supreme court may gradually find it harder and harder to defend what is arguably a somewhat contrived ruling.
• It is noteworthy, too, that the law shows the Iraqi parliament can be effective when it wants. The bill was introduced, read and passed all in the single month of January.
• The bill passed with 170 votes. That’s of course more than the magical 163 threshold that was not achieved when the sacking of Maliki was on the agenda last spring. Nonetheless, the bill is so clearly directed against Maliki personally that it should be taken to mean any other vote in parliament other than a non-confidence motion is potentially problematic to him. Maliki may hide behind supreme court activism that effectively confines the ability of parliament to legislate introduce bills or hold ministers accountable for the purpose of sacking them. But he needs to get a budget passed and handle acute tensions with the Kurdish federal government, some of which require legislative agreement. Maliki cannot survive merely on the basis of an amenable judiciary and populist gestures of an increasingly sectarian nature.

The Iraqi Parliament Moves against Maliki on Several Fronts

Reports out of the Iraqi parliament are getting more and more extraordinary. The summary of events relating to its session on Monday is no exception.

Among the items on the agenda that were taken up for debate was nothing less than the “questioning of the minister of sports in absentia”. The sports minister, a Turkmen Shia Islamist and an ally of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has been accused of misconduct relating to the affairs of his ministry, including a major sports city project. The questioning went ahead headed by a Sadrist, whereas Maliki’s minister of parliamentary affairs called for legal procedures before the federal supreme court (relating to recent limitations on the rights of parliament to question ministers) to run their course before any questioning.

In another challenge to Maliki, a second reading for a bill intended to limit the terms of the “three presidencies”(i.e. the president of the republic, the “president of the cabinet” which is Arabic for the prime minister, and “the president of the national assembly”, i.e. the parliament speaker). The move, initiated with a first reading just a week ago, is seen as an obvious attempt to curb Maliki’s ambitions for a third term. It is noteworthy that whereas term limits for the president of the republic exist in the constitution, there is nothing in the Iraqi charter that prevents a prime minister for continuing for unlimited periods as long as he wins parliamentary support to accede to the position each time. Maliki allies have pointed out this, and claim that any attempt to impose limits without fixing the constitution itself (that requires supermajorities) would be unconstitutional. It is also unclear how the federal supreme court would deal with any passage of the law since it is a mere “proposal” rather than a cabinet-sponsored “project”, a legal distinction that limits the possibilities for the Iraqi parliament to initiate legislation.

Finally, Parliament Speaker Usama al-Nujayfi formally communicated a decision by the presidency of the parliament to withhold the voting rights of Maliki ally Hanan al-Fatlawi until she has apologized formally to Nujayfi for insults thrown at him. It is noteworthy that the parliament presidency is dominated by Nujayfi (Iraqiyya) and his two deputies – a Kurd and a Sadrist. In the case of Fatlawi, at least, these forces are standing firm against Maliki, and it will be interesting to see whether Maliki will use the upcoming annual budget law to expand his parliament support base somewhat, or whether he will persevere with his current strategy of a de facto minority government as the local elections of 20 April come closer.

Emergency Session of Iraqi Parliament Indicates Size of Opposition to Maliki

Yesterday’s attempted emergency session of the Iraqi parliament was an important expression of how recent weeks of protests in Iraq translate into parliamentary arithmetic.

Numbers and rumours regarding the participation of various blocs have been flying around ever since the beginning of Sunday’s session. Regarding the parties that refrained from attending, the reports have been quite consistent: The State of Law bloc of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki along with Shiite Islamists allies Badr, Fadila and, somewhat more surprisingly perhaps since they are not in alliance for the local elections except in the north, the ISCI-Muwatin bloc of Ammar al-Hakim. Also the White bloc, a mostly Shiite breakaway faction from the secular-Sunni dominated Iraqiyya boycotted the session. That means there were MPs present from Iraqiyya (whose constituencies have played the dominant role in the recent protests), the Kurds, and the Sadrists.

The theoretical parliamentary strength of those who boycotted is around 130, whereas the attendants, again in theory, should at least be able to muster 170 deputies, above the 163 mark that signifies the quorum level in the Iraqi parliament. Things got quite ironic during the course of Sunday as press reports made headlines to the effect that the quest to reach quorum was so intense (and the general attendance level of the Iraqiyya deputies so poor) that even Iraqiyya leader Ayyad Allawi came to parliament (he usually doesn’t, although it is of course his a duty as an MP to attend). In the end, it wasn’t enough. According to the official parliamentary report, 161 deputies attended, just 2 MPs short of quorum. This is higher than some of the unofficial figures that circulated earlier on Sunday but of course not enough to hold a valid parliamentary session.

As the Iraqi political scene heats up, it is equally important to be aware of the parameters within which the Iraqi parliament can affect change. Two supreme court rulings have hamstrung the parliament in significant ways over the last few years. The first, from July 2010,  considers the modalities of introducing a bill, in practice restricting the right of parliament to initiate legislation since every law needs to pass through the government before it can get voted on. The second, from May 2012, considers limitations on the right of parliament to question ministers.

It should be added here that even the act of cancelling a bill in practice requires a “legislative project” that needs to pass two readings. This is relevant since there was some talk about projected attempts to strike down anti-terror legislation with which many of the Anbar protestors are unhappy.

What this means in practice is that the most that can be expected by parliament in terms of radical anti-Maliki action in a hastily convened session like that of yesterday is passage of a bill that has already been through two readings, such as the vote on the supreme court bill, or perhaps the general amnesty law. Passage of such items in the absence of Maliki should not be excluded altogether despite yesterday’s failure. For example, on the amnesty law, Sadrists and Iraqiyya have seen eye to eye in the past. The successful vote for an electoral commission that was not to Maliki’s liking shows that there is no hard veto preventing the Shiite parties for going against Maliki as long as the subject matter is not the survival of the Shiite-led government as such.

Maliki allies have rightly pointed out that the idea of a “consultative” session is an innovation. Constitutionally, what happened Sunday was nothing more than a tea party. But the session was very close to achieving quorum, and Maliki should not exclude the possibility that similar attempts to score political points will be launched prior to the 20 April local elections. With a coalition-strategy that looks more sectarian than in 2009, he is also less immune to this kind of parliamentary action than he was earlier.

As the Deadline for Forming Coalitions Expires, Maliki Creates a Shiite Alliance for Iraq’s Local Elections in April 2013

In an ominous backdrop to the recent political turbulence in Iraq and mass arrests yesterday of scores of employees of Finance Minister Rafi al-Eisawi of Iraqiyya, the Iraqi electoral commission IHEC has rather silently confirmed that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is beginning to shape a big sectarian alliance for the purpose of contesting the local elections in April 2013.

IHEC continuously updates its list of newly formed coalitions, but the latest addition yesterday of an entity referred to as C26 is surely the most momentous so far (and probably the last one, since 20 December was the extended deadline for registering coalitions). The name of the coalition is State of Law, and its head is “Nuri Kamil Muhammad Hasan”, aka Prime Minister Maliki. The really important thing, though, is the scope of the alliance. Not only are the usual suspects from the various Daawa parties, the “independents” of Vice Premier Hussein Shahristani and the Daawa breakaway faction of Ibrahim al-Jaafari included. Here are also Badr, Fadila, and several smaller Shiite Islamist and (Shiite) Fayli Kurd parties. The only slightly unexpected inclusions are Jamal al-Batikh of the White breakaway movement from the secular Iraqiyya and Iskandar Witwit, also formerly of Iraqiyya. Then again, these are (secular) Shiites, meaning that the overarching theme here is the failure of Maliki to coopt the many Sunni breakaway factions from Iraqiyya who share some of his ideas in the ongoing dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdish federal region. Instead Maliki is relying on a ragtag of smaller parties who stand out mostly for their Shiite sectarian outlook, including some truly unsavory elements like the Tanzim al-Dakhil branch of the Daawa party headed by Abd al-Karim al-Anayzi.

The only major Shiite parties that are not included in Maliki’s new list are ISCI and the Sadrists, the latter having announced a coalition of their own. [Update: "latter" in previous sentence refers to the Sadrists only, not to both. In latest IHEC, ISCI and Sadrists each have little coalitions of their own, named Muwatin and Ahrar respectively.]  To some extent, it may be a healthy tendency that all these three groups should remain in competition in the governorates south of Baghdad. However through this act of coalition-forming, coming on top of the recent decision to create purely Shiite alliances in Shiite-minority governorates like Diyala and Salahaddin (some say also Nineveh but not confirmed by IHEC yet), it is clear that Maliki will not be using the local elections of April 2013 to build bridges to Sunnis and secularists. At one point it was rumoured he even tried to get ISCI included in his coalition.

The alternative of reaching out to some Sunnis and secularists wouldn’t have been altogether implausible. Already there were signs that the various Iraqiyya breakaway elements were fragmenting further into pieces that theoretically could have been partners of Maliki rather than opponents in places where there are mixed sectarian demographics or large secular electorates. One such alliance brings together the Nujayfi brothers, Dhafir al-Ani and Ahmad Abu Risha (rumours that the besieged Eisawi should himself have joined is so far only supported by a few secondary sources; as late as four days ago Eisawi was only discussing a possible alliance with Abu Risha according to his own website). Another more recent coalition includes Salih al-Mutlak and Qutayba al-Jibburi, from one of the many Iraqiyya breakaway factions that appeared earlier this year. But with the seemingly arbitrary arrests of people close to Rafi al-Eisawi yesterday, the effect seemed to be that Iraqiyya got some renewed unity as several of its leaders got together to support Eisawi.

If Maliki uses the run-up to the local elections to persevere with his current conflict against the Kurds and intimidate Iraqiyya without building any bridges to disaffected Sunni Arabs in the disputed territories (and possibly also without having the diplomatic buffer of President Jalal Talabani whose health problems have deteriorated sharply in recent days), he will probably lack the parliamentary and political basis for such an escalation. If his approach remains unrealistic, the chances for violence will also go up.

Every article I have published since February 2011 has been written against the backdrop of on-going police persecution and harassment of me initiated by the Norwegian government and supported by several other Western governments. Please visit my other blog for full details.