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Weekly UpdatesEarlier in July, Iran and Syria got Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs in Kirkuk to unify their efforts to create a political front, aimed at countering KRG ambitions in the oil-rich area ahead of forthcoming Iraqi elections. The coalition, called the Arab Political Council (APC), includes scholars, independents, tribal leaders and politicians from the Arab Unity bloc.
While the coalition says there are Arabs in Kirkuk, not just Kurds, and are opposed to the KRG taking the area, Erbil wants execution of the constitution's Article 140 which calls for a referendum in Kirkuk to see if its population wishes to remain part of Iraq or join Kurdistan. But whereas Turkey is maintaining trade ties with and investing in Kurdistan, Syria and Iran are strongly opposed to KRG ambitions in Kirkuk. Yet Ankara back Kirkuk's Turkomans, while the KRG is offering them a deal.
The KRG is uncomfortable with the new coalition and are alarmed by a recent Maleki statement calling for a stronger central government. Achieving that, Maleki said, required constitutional changes strongly opposed by the KRG. Maleki added: "the constitution is not perfect and is not a good formula for building a modern state". The KRG fears that if Maleki gets his way, its autonomy will be threatened, giving Baghdad more say in Kurdish affairs. There are already rising fears in the Kurdish community that with Iran's and Syrian backing, Maleki is preparing himself to become "another Saddam Hussein".
When Maleki speaks about Kirkuk, the KRG sees this to be the wish of Iran and Syria which are worried that the Kurdish ambitions could spill over into their own Kurdish minorities. The KRG is also suspicious that Iran and Syria have lately been helping Neo-Salafi insurgents increase their attacks in Kirkuk and other northern regions being claimed by the Kurds, including areas where the Christian community has been attacked by suicide bombers. Several Christian churches have been hit by Neo-Salafi suicide bombers recently, compelling members of this community to flee Iraq altogether. Thus the size of the Christian community in Iraq is getting dangerously smaller, which has alarmed the Vatican and Western powers.
Constitutional changes are very difficult to pass in Iraq because it takes only three out of 18 provinces to block any amendment. Kirkuk itself, swarming with Kurds, makes up three of the provinces. Maleki in 2007-08 personally supervised the uprooting of Arabs from Kirkuk to increase the city's Kurdish population, saying Arabs had illegally been brought there by Saddam. Then, Maleki needed Kurdish support to keep his coalition government alive, after Sunni heavyweights and Shi'ites loyal to anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr walked out on him.
Maleki has since parted with the Kurds, after mending fences with Sadr and following Iranian and Syrian advice to stop being close to the Kurdish coalition. But by moving against the KRG, Maleki is gradually losing American support at a time when the Obama administration has made VP Biden its point man in Iraq. Just as Maleki is suspicious of the American VP, during his July 3-4 visit, Biden made it clear to the PM that Washington did not approve of Baghdad falling under the influence of Iran and Syria.
In the meantime, however, Maleki is facing hostile attitudes from fellow Shi'ite parties - mainly the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), former PM Ibrahim al-Ja'fari's faction of al-Da'wa al-Islamiya and al-Fadhila al-Islamiya. These parties, though still backed by different factions of Iran's Shi'ite theocracy, are particularly concerned by Maleki's new secular tendencies and his call for "real parliamentary democracy", as opposed to a system based on national consensus on which these groups insist.
Iraq's Shi'ite Arab Vice-President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a key figure in the SIIC leadership, remains a strong ally of Iraq's Kurdish President Talabani, who is the main partner of Barzani in ruling Kurdistan. Talabani keeps insisting he will not seek another presidential term as he wants to concentrate on overhauling and modernising his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) which controls the eastern half of the KRG territory.
Talabani, however, remains close to the Iranian theocracy's leadership as well as to the Syrian regime. Within Iraq, he maintains close relationships with powerful Sunni and Shi'ite Arab leaders who are no longer on good terms with Maleki. A liberal and pragmatic man, this Kurdish leader is particularly close to Iraq's secular leaders who sympathise with former members of the Ba'th Party whom the US wants to see included in the proposed national reconciliation.
On Reconciliation With Moderate Ba'thists & Washington Conference: During his Baghdad visit, Biden pressed Maleki to be more flexible on the proposed reconciliation with former Ba'thists who had only joined the party in order to survive during Saddam's dictatorship. Former PM Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite, is strongly in favour of such reconciliation. Allawi was formerly a member of the Ba'th Party.
Yet Maleki has rejected all calls for reconciliation with such Ba'thist figures, calling them "murderers and criminals". In a statement on July 12, Maleki said: "It is not justice to reconcile with those responsible for widowing women, orphaning children and destroying the country". These people, he noted, took the country from war to war, "and did not apologise, not even until this moment". He added that they should be punished, not rewarded by being brought out of jail and put into government positions.
Maleki warned Iraqis against believing claims being made via "satellite channels" which are subsidised by political parties and aimed at "distorting" the minds of the country's voters ahead of the January 2010 legislative elections. Speaking to a tribal gathering in Anbar shortly after Biden's visit, Maleki said: "We will not allow anyone to interfere in our internal affairs or to be a supervisor of the national reconciliation or political process".
The difference in what Biden said, and what Maleki wanted to hear, was clear on the face of the PM during his press conference with Biden. Maleki was visibly angry, reportedly because Biden sounded as if he was dictating what he wanted to see in Baghdad, without hearing out the PM's worries. While en route back to Washington, Biden spoke to The New York Times, hinting that the future of Iraqi-US relations depended on Maleki's ability "to get it right on the political side". He bluntly said that was why he went to Iraq, "and this is the reason I'll be coming back".
Apparently alluding to the same issue of reconciliation, Obama during July 4 Independence Day festivities said: "Iraq's future now rests in the hands of its own people", adding that the mission "won't be without problems". Biden is trying to get Iraqis from all sides to go to Washington towards the end of 2009 to speak about reconciliation - under the chairmanship of Obama.
Under this formula, the moderate Ba'thists would be included in the talks, about which neither Maleki nor Iran and Syria are happy. According to al-Ahram Weekly, Biden urged Maleki to allow these Ba'thists to regroup into a new party and run in the January 2010 elections. This was flatly rejected by Maleki's spokesmen.
The proposed Washington conference will be attended by several Arab states. These will use their influence, through Syria, to guarantee that the Ba'thists will lay down their arms in exchange for a greater role in decision-making - if, as a Syrian official says, "they are allowed to function as a legitimate political party".
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