News Analysis
By Yasser Alaskary
April 26, 2006
Security
Prime
minister-designate, Jawad
al-Maliki’s selection has given new
impetus to the political process in Iraq. The
greatest casualty of the four-month political deadlock was
Iraqis’ faith in the democratic and political process
– which Al-Maliki will need to revive.
However,
the political process has very little bearing on the terrorism
plaguing Iraq, as Monday’s
bombings demonstrated. At the heart of this misconception
is a failure to understand the driving force behind the
terrorism in Iraq and in turn formulate an effective strategy
to combat it.
Egyptian
dictator Hosni
Mubarak’s gaffe earlier this month, saying
Iraq’s Shia represent a fifth-column is representative
of a general belief amongst most Sunni Arabs across the
Middle East that Iraq is rightfully theirs, as it always
has been for 14 centuries. Feeding into this basic racist
belief is Wahabi-Salafist thought, which preaches that Iraq’s
majority Shia are apostates who must be killed, resulting
in droves of fundamental terrorists eager to fight any democratically
elected government.
Led
by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a Sunni himself who has
been accused of showing signs of favouritism
to Sunni Arabs, the US Embassy in Baghdad has
pursued a policy of placating terrorists and working to
strengthen Sunni Arabs far beyond their electoral gains.
Their argument is that Iraq’s Sunni minority must be
included in the political process, which is certainly true,
but it is not achieved by fuelling beliefs of superiority
and a ‘right to govern’ held by the Mubaraks of
Iraq.
Instead,
the US Embassy should help Iraq’s Sunnis to come to
terms with the new power balance and to take their part
in the democratic process. Washington should also pressurize
Sunni leaders in the Middle East to come to terms with the
new realities that democracy has brought, rather than to
feed and encourage their warped view of Iraq.
This
is not an easy option to follow and may take a new Iraqi
Sunni generation to achieve, but this is the only realistic
long-term strategy for achieving stability in Iraq.
Cabinet
While
PM-designate is tasked under the Constitution to form a
government, in reality the tendency has been for the political
parties to divide up the ministries amongst themselves and
the PM is shut-out of the process. Al-Maliki is a tough-minded
politician and undoubtedly will seek to have an active role
in selecting his cabinet to ensure they are competent. Pressure
will need to be applied to the major political parties to
give him room to do this.
SCIRI
will not give up the Interior Ministry easily, which is
a problem that al-Maliki must overcome. The Kurds
are willing to yield the Foreign Ministry in
exchange for either the Finance or Oil Ministries which
offers a window of opportunity. It is likely that SCIRI
can be persuaded to give up the Interior Ministry in exchange
for the Foreign Ministry, most likely to be run by Hamid
al-Bayyati. The Interior Ministry can then be given to a
more competent Shia politician who is either genuinely independent
or does not belong to a party which has a militia. The Sunnis
will keep the Defense Ministry, but will need to field a
capable candidate not associated with Saddam Hussein’s
Baath Party to get Kurdish and Shia approval.
