MESOP : MALIKI UNDER FIRE ! – Maliki digs in as U.S. pushes for new Iraq government
BY MICHAEL GEORGY – (Reuters) – 11-8-2014 – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was battling to keep his job on Monday, deploying forces across Baghdad as some parliamentary allies sought a replacement and the United States warned him not to obstruct efforts to form a new government.Widely accused of a partisan obstinacy that has fuelled the communal violence tearing Iraq apart, the Shi’ite Muslim premier went on television late on Sunday to denounce the ethnic Kurdish president for delaying the constitutional process of naming a prime minister following a parliamentary election in late April.
However, President Fouad Masoum won a rapid endorsement from Washington. With Sunni fighters from the Islamic State making new gains over Kurdish forces north of Baghdad, the United States renewed its call for Iraqis to form a consensus government to try and end bloodshed that has prompted the first U.S. air strikes since the U.S. occupation ended in 2011. And in pointed remarks aimed at Maliki, Secretary of State John Kerry said: “The government formation process is critical in terms of sustaining stability and calm in Iraq, and our hope is that Mr. Maliki will not stir those waters.
“There will be little international support of any kind whatsoever for anything that deviates from the legitimate constitution process that is in place and being worked on now.”
Complicating efforts to propose a replacement from among fellow Shi’ites, who appear to have some support from both the country’s leading cleric and from the Shi’ite establishment of neighbouring Iran, the country’s highest court ruled that Maliki’s State of Law bloc is the biggest in the new parliament. That, a senior Iraqi official said, was “very problematic” for attempts to have President Masoud offer the premiership to an alternative candidate to Maliki – an alternative that one senior member of his party said had been close to being chosen. As Shi’ite militias and security forces personally loyal to Maliki deployed across the capital, the prime minister made a defiant late-night address saying he would pursue Masoum in court for violating the constitution by missing a deadline to ask the leader of the biggest party to form a new government.
However, the deputy speaker of parliament, Haider al-Abadi from Maliki’s own Dawa party, tweeted that the broader State of Law bloc was close to nominating a new premier. Abadi has himself been cited as a possible alternative.
Serving in a caretaker capacity since the inconclusive election on April 30, Maliki has defied calls by Sunnis, Kurds, some fellow Shi’ites, regional power broker Iran and Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric to step aside for a less polarising figure. Critics accuse Maliki of pursuing a sectarian agenda that has sidelined minority Sunni Muslims and prompted some of them to support Islamic State militants, whose latest sweep through northern Iraq has alarmed the Baghdad government and its Western allies, prompting U.S. air strikes in recent days. “Maliki knows it is very difficult to gain a third term and is playing a high-stakes game to try and ensure his authority and influence continue into the new government, despite who may officially become prime minister,” said Kamran Bokhari, a Middle East specialist at analysis firm Stratfor.
MALIKI UNDER FIRE
Washington seems to be losing patience with Maliki, who has placed Shi’ite political loyalists in key positions in the army and military and drawn comparisons with ousted Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, the man he plotted against from exile for years.
A State Department spokeswoman reaffirmed Washington’s support for a “process to select a prime minister who can represent the aspirations of the Iraqi people by building a national consensus and governing in an inclusive manner”.
“We reject any effort to achieve outcomes through coercion or manipulation of the constitutional or judicial process,” she said in a statement, adding that the United States “fully supports” Masoum as guarantor of Iraq’s constitution.U.S. President Barack Obama has urged Iraqi politicians to form a more inclusive government that can counter the growing threat from the Islamic State. But Maliki, an unknown when he first took office in 2006 with help from the U.S. occupation administration, is digging in. The Interior Ministry told police to be on high alert in connection with Maliki’s speech, a police official told Reuters. As residents saw police with armoured vehicles block roads and set up checkpoints around Baghdad early on Monday, another police source said there was an “unprecedented deployment” of army commandos and special forces to secure the capital.
.(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Will Waterman)