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description= 7 posts published by Reidar Visser during August 2009;
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mic supreme council of iraq isci and the sadrists plus elements from the wing of the most pro iranian of the two daawa factions known as the tanzim al iraq branch as well as ibrahim al jaafari s breakaway faction the only significant components from outside the old uia are the anbar salvation council headed by hamid al hayis a breakaway group of the anbar awakening which received only a modest share of the votes in the last local elections and khalid abd al wahhab al mulla the president of a sunni group of islamic scholars from zubayr outside basra additionally the party of the shiite bahr al ulum family which was sometimes separate from the old uia has been reintegrated it may be useful to briefly recapitulate how the new alliance evolved the idea of a revived shiite alliance with a more national orientation was first introduced publicly by muqtada al sadr in qum iran in mid february 2009 when he requested a full makeover of the uia which in the future should be referred to as the united national iraqi alliance sadr was responding to the results of the january local elections in which the daawa party of prime minister nuri al maliki was rewarded by voters for a rhetoric in which the sectarian agenda was pushed in the background and the focus on national and centralist values was strengthened after sadr s initiative other forces in the old uia including the pro maliki independent abbas al bayati as well as ahmad al chalabi soon offered their support but it was not until may that the project got going in earnest by that time isci which had been punished particularly hard by voters in the january polls had taken over the initiative and within weeks several dozen key uia members paid their visits to isci s ailing leader abd al aziz al hakim at a convalescent home in tehran where details of the new alliance were discussed reportedly muqtada al sadr also made the journey from qum to reconcile with hakim a long time opponent apparently seeing the symbolic change of name as a sadrist demand that could justify their return to the uia at one point it seemed as if the new alliance was on course to co opt maliki and thereby could hope to reclaim lost voters however once more old disputes between maliki and isci came to the fore in june and july far from preaching ecumenism towards isci maliki held on to his centralist discourse on several occasions focusing on the limits of the power of the governorates at a time when isci along with the kurds kept talking about unrestrained decentralisation similarly at the recent general conference of the daawa party maliki s distaste for militias was emphasised we don t have militias because we believe in the state another indication that he did not mind his differences with isci and the sadrist remaining on display in the public domain while maliki talked about no alliances for the sake of alliances isci seemed prepared to ignore ideological differences if only maliki would join their new alliance and thereby keep the shiites unified at any cost his disinclination to do this was ascribed to personal ambitions regarding the premiership and the daawa share of seats in the new alliance last week the entire process seemed to be in complete disarray during the course of a single day no less than four different dates for the forthcoming announcement of the alliance were cited by various uia members simultaneously at the level of local government maliki supporters were allegedly expelled from the provincial council of diyala by an isci friendly coalition while isci partisans complained of their marginalisation by the maliki dominated council in diwaniyya however not even the latest string of bomb attacks in baghdad no doubt designed to hurt maliki s vision of a normalised iraq where concrete barriers could be safely removed and even blamed on iran by at least one senior intelligence official seems to have changed his mind as a consequence the maliki branch of the daawa was the notable absentee at today s announcement a footnote on the perennial subject of daawa subdivisions seems appropriate at this point during the summer there have been several of them mostly neglected by the international press first in late july diyya amin al sayyid nur abruptly declared a complete change of leadership in harakat al daawa one of the smallest and oldest wings of the daawa with particularly close ties to basra the late izz al din salim was perhaps the most prominent representative of the party a few days later muhammad jasim khudayr al maksusi another party member categorically rejected the move then in early august an apparent coup attempt took place within the tanzim al iraq branch of the daawa the party is of far more recent origin and while it is often misinterpreted as some kind of domestic daawa it seems clear that it was created by iran shortly before 2003 in order to regain lost control within the daawa movement operating out of offices in qum and london before it came to baghdad after the american invasion earlier this month whilst many leading parliamentarians were on summer holiday abd al karim al anizi arranged a party conference in baghdad and elected a new leadership to loud protest from other party members including the party chairman hashim al musawi but with the support of isa al firayji the head of the television channel al masar which since has physically occupied the tanzim al iraq website significantly after this incident anizi has remained particularly central to the formation of the new ina he is considered among the most pro iranian elements in daawa tanzim al iraq and is also known as a consolidator who has been emphasising sectarian solidarities with the sadrists his role in reconstituting the uia was highlighted by isci preacher jalal al din al saghir a few weeks ago and today during the formal launch of the ina he was once more prominent whereas many other tanzim al iraq leaders were reportedly absent the centrality of people like anizi to the ina project is one among several factors that raise certain doubts about the sincerity of its new national agenda of course some will ask how there could possibly be anything sectarian about a new alliance that actually leaves out some shiites maliki to the advantage of sunnis such as al hayis similarly at one point the pro shiite newspaper al bayyina al jadida claimed that the highly respected former minister ali allawi had joined the project surely he could be a bridge builder towards secularists but while new constellations of this kind in themselves doubtless are of immense value to the maturation of the iraqi political process in this case the basic facts of the genesis of the alliance simply speak a lot louder than rhetoric of national unity agreement on the new alliance seems to have been arrived at in tehran and it is basically a case of shiite islamists with long standing iranian sympathies like abd al aziz al hakim and abd al karim al anizi reaching an understanding with other shiite islamists whose turn to iran is of far more recent date and probably is still disputed by many of their adherents in iraq as in the case of muqtada al sadr already in may full lists of the new alliance circulated they included the entire old uia with unspecified independent and tribal sunnis forming a beautifying addendum look we are a national party we are not excluding our brothers from western iraq last week isci even let it be known publicly that there had been a visit to the grand ayatollah ali al sistani in najaf the world s most prominent shiite leader to confer about the new alliance and while most elements of the new programme and principles of the alliance published today come across as rather bland unobjectionable and therefore also unremarkable fostering civil society protecting the environment etc one item will be difficult to stomach for those with more secular inclinations or non shiite backgrounds the new alliance will adhere to directions from the marjaiyya which could mean the higher shiite clergy in its widest possible sense even the usual restriction to the marjaiyya of najaf or the marjaiyya of iraq is omitted in this context hayis and other elements from outside the old uia run the risk of becoming figureheads and stooges for shiite islamist interests first and foremost the invitation to other forces to join now looks somewhat tongue in cheek given that the party programme has already been decided and seems mainly aimed at the possibility of maliki joining at a later stage the mention of the possibility of constitutional reform the reference to the virtues of a strong state as well as the absence of the word federalism from the key party documents released today might all represent potential olive branches in this regard as for the reasons for the sudden haste in declaring the alliance with the apparent use of a deadline to put pressure on a maliki we can only speculate but at least two factors stand out firstly in tehran abd al aziz al hakim s health once more seems to be deteriorating with reports that he has been transferred to a more intensive form of hospital care secondly from qum there are rumours that muqtada al sadr may be about to return to iraq possibly even with enhanced scholarly credentials both these factors might unleash destabilising forces within the shiite community that iran may wish to avoid struggles for power are already going on within isci and the badr forces they look set to intensify in the case of a succession crisis after hakim similarly muqtada al sadr has been sheltered from iraq for more than two years now and any sudden reunion between him and his supporters in iraq would carry the potential for disagreements destabilisation and fragmentation to iran then it may have seemed prudent to try to put in place some kind of integrative mechanism that could guarantee shiite sectarian unity in the 2010 parliamentary elections ideally this would have involved maliki participation and some kind of public embrace by sistani from this point of view the ina still looks very rudimentary and unsatisfactory the attention will now shift to those forces that have yet to declare their alliances for the parliamentary eletions that are scheduled for 16 january 2010 maliki as well as the various nationalist opposition parties if iraq is to make a meaningful transition to a less sectarian form of politics it is important that the anticlimaxes of 2008 are not repeated during the spring there was a lot of cross sectarian cooperation in the iraqi parliament but while this resulted in victories like the provincial elections law nothing durable came out of all the promises of a monster national alliance maliki for his part will also need to go beyond what he accomplished in the local elections which was more of a shift in rhetoric than a real integration of new political forces outside the shiite islamist core so far there has been talk about an alliance between maliki and the awakening forces of anbar as for the nationalists there are signs of growing cooperation between forces like iraqiyya the constitutional party of jawad al bulani tariq al hashimi salih al mutlak nadim al jabiri from fadila which early on rejected the uia makeover as political theatre but which now is reported as a last minute convert to the project and mahmud al mashhadani the former speaker of parliament associated with the 22 july movement a trend that seems particularly significant in that it could potentially reverse a tendency of iraqiyya to sometimes support isci in parliament even in cases where this runs counter to its own declared ideological principles in early august there was even a visit by an iraqiyya delegation to iran if two such grand cross sectarian coalitions should emerge then the next elections could indeed become a step forward for iraq and in that context the ina in its unfinished state and therefore in practice somewhat less sectarian than originally intended could also play a constructive role posted in iranian influence in iraq uia dynamics comments off on after sadr badr compromise in tehran the iraqi national alliance ina is declared launch of iraq and gulf analysis posted by reidar visser on monday 24 august 2009 13 02 the blog iraq and gulf analysis is an occasional supplement to the iraq website historiae org which specialises in issues related to national reconciliation and state structure in iraq the blog will feature intermittent news stories related to the iraqi political process often of a more speculative nature than the main articles published at historiae org an archive of old articles from historiae org has been reconstructed and is available from the sidebar but the comments feature has been closed for these postings posted in uncategorized 3 comments the shabak react to the atrocities of khazna tepe posted by reidar visser on monday 10 august 2009 17 57 the latest series of violent attacks against shiite targets in iraq has prompted the usual outpouring of stereotypical readings by international media with the dynamics at play invariably described as sectarian sunni shiite or ethno sectarian shiite kurdish in character this tendency is at its most pronounced in the case of the khazna tepe village in nineveh governorate where the largely shiite shabak minority was targeted and suffered some of the heaviest human and material losses seen in iraq since the withdrawal of american troops from urban areas on 30 june the shabak are a minority with a distinct language that combines elements of kurdish turkish farsi and arabic in terms of religion they are majority shiite with a minority of sunnis but while leaders of the shabak aspire to treatment as a separate ethnic minority within iraq numerous other communities have tried to impose their own preferred narratives in dealing with them and it is to these dominant discourses most journalists covering the latest developments now turn for example there is the practice of labelling the shabak as kurds this reflects a conscious strategy by the kurdish regional authorities to assert control of the shabak who inhabit a series of villages in what the kurds consider disputed parts of the nineveh governorate partly by assimilating them and partly by trying to co opt their leaders a competing narrative emanates from certain assyrian christian leaders inside and outside iraq not least outside it who through highly imaginative readings of the iraqi constitution of 2005 want to prepare the ground for the establishment of a federal minorities region in those parts of the nineveh governorate that are known as the nineveh plains the strategy refers to article 125 of the iraqi constitution which guarantees the administrative political cultural and educational rights of the various nationalities such as turkomen chaldeans assyrians and all other constituents to read this as a green light for a second federalisation track is far fetched in the extreme but some of these people are taken v...
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