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description= 7 posts published by Reidar Visser during May 2011;
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escent involved as seen for example in kuwait but in bahrain the majority of shiites are also baharina and this adds a special dimension to the conflict second obama seems to overplay the extent to which iraq truly is such a wonderful triumph of democracy in the arab world yes the iraqis have rejected the perils of political violence in favour of a democratic process as obama said incidentally as obama failed to remind us they also rejected vice president joe biden s agenda of comprehensive federalisation of the iraqi state but even the participants in the current unity of government in iraq are beginning to criticize the formula of government that was adopted when maliki was appointed for a second term back in november 2010 44 ministries and three vice presidencies are seen as ridiculous and ineffective in terms of providing services for iraqi citizens and regular security ministers have yet to be appointed due to ongoing bickering between the many members of the oversized government the truth is that in today s iraqi democracy parliamentary politics has lost much of its meaning since almost every decision of significance is arrived at behind close doors outside the parliamentary compound if he is genuinely interested in safeguarding regional stability in the gulf obama ought to go beyond dialogue in bahrain and do a more critical evaluation of multi ethnic democracy in iraq to do that while at the same time making provisions for a post 2011 us presence in iraq and securing a home for the fifth fleet of the us navy somewhere in the gulf can prove to be something of a challenge posted in us policy in iraq leverage issues 26 comments kuwait port project makes waves in iraqi politics posted by reidar visser on thursday 19 may 2011 12 17 with the month long parliamentary holiday well underway iraqi politics has lost some of its momentum despite rumours about imminent emergency sessions a decision on the security ministries still seems some way off meanwhile a decision by the kuwaiti government to press ahead with a project to build a grand new port on the bubyan island to be named mubarak port appears to be what occupies the minds of most iraqi politicians these days since the project entered the public debate a short while ago politicians of all stripes have rushed to condemn it bubyan is the territory marked as kuwait on the above map it is interesting that many protests against the project are not focused on the territorial status of the bubyan island as such despite the fact that iraq claimed ownership of the island for much of the twentieth century and that it featured as one among several elements in the official iraqi justification for invading kuwait in 1990 rather several of the arguments against the port are of a practical nature above all commentators tend to focus on the fact that if kuwait finishes its port project ahead of iraq s own scheme of a great new harbour at neighbouring fao south of basra iraqi commerce will suffer some even predict that the fao project will be abandoned altogether as a consequence of the kuwaiti initiative as a result of this focus the protests may perhaps turn out to be short lived even some of the protestors admit that the iraqi government itself must shoulder some responsibility for having procrastinated with building port facilities in a more timely fashion at fao which would have enjoyed unrivalled access to the gulf and altogether avoided the problems of the khor abdallah the sound shared with kuwait in which bubyan lies and which leads to the iraqi port of umm qasr it should still be noted that lingering iraqi claims to bubyan are not entirely gone despite the un demarcation subsequent to the gulf war some legal experts contend that un boundary commission went too far in settling the maritime border in addition to the land border and by using the median of the khor abdallah sound instead of the thalweg the line that follows the natural riverbed in a recent interview tariq harb a legal adviser to prime minister nuri al maliki went as far as claiming that the un demarcation under unsc 833 was illegitimate or at least disputable given the alleged absence of any iraqis on the border commission this seems to misstate the case somewhat since the iraqi government was indeed represented through riyad al qaysi and eventually accepted the demarcation in 1994 only a more fundamental challenge by the current iraqi government relating to the very legitimacy of the pre 2003 baathist government as a representative of iraq in international affairs would be able to question the post 1991 settlement more generally but there would still remain difficulties in finding historical arguments for treating the bubyan and the second disputed island of warba different from the rest of kuwait for now perhaps the most interesting result of the kuwaiti port project is the creation of a new alliance in the iraqi parliament that brings together people who usually stand rather far apart but who now all agree to watch the issue of the kuwaiti port scheme closely a new parliamentary formation tajammu thus apparently not a bloc or kutla was declared wednesday with members mainly from the breakaway faction of iraqiyya known as white iraqiyya aliya nusayf aziz al mayahi and kazim al shammari iraqiyya itself attab al duri qusay al abbadi and hasan al hamdani sadrists asma al musawi hayfa al atwani and rafi abd al jabbar plus izzat shabandar an ex iraqiyya member who is now a member of state of law so far of course this is a small sized movement and mostly a curiosity it is probably still a phenomenon that the political leadership needs to take seriously as they move ahead on more important issues like the security ministries and the question of a post 2011 us military presence it is noteworthy that this alliance brings together both sadrists and iraqiyya members duri that have been publicly critical about a post 2011 american presence and if maliki wants to challenge them on this issue he will need to do more important things than bickering over vice presidencies the latter holds true also for the salih al mutlak faction of iraqiyya which lately has spent time challenging the newly elected vice president for state of law khudayr al khuzai according to the law on the deputy presidents only the president himself has an explicit right to initiate a process of sacking his deputies parliament can only summon them to question them what the vice presidential vote demonstrated was that maliki s dream of a political majority is still a long way off in this case it was threatened through opposition from both sadrists and isci of his own all shiite national alliance the latter may well opt to join the sadrists in opposing any sofa extension making it doubly important for maliki to bring iraqiyya firmly over on his side if he does indeed harbour a desire to obtain a parliamentary majority for any kind of prolonged us presence beyond 2011 posted in iraqi nationalism uia dynamics 3 comments parliament approves three vice presidents posted by reidar visser on thursday 12 may 2011 12 52 totally out of the blue and despite acrimonious exchanges between iraqiyya and the state of law bloc of prime minister nuri al maliki the iraqi parliament today voted to approve three deputies to president jalal talabani adel abd al mahdi of isci tareq al hashemi of iraqiyya and khudayr al khuzaie of state of law this latest development must be characterised first and foremost as a triumph for maliki state of law had been talking about three deputies as far back as in november 2010 reactions from other parties against the state of law candidate for filling one of the three posts khudayr al khuzaie were sufficiently strong that some of them even proposed changing the number and criteria for electing the largely ceremonial vice presidents the kurds in particular had invested much energy in demanding a single deputyship to be filled by a turkmen and according to some a female turkmen but today the three person formula prevailed and khuzaie was duly elected in the single vote that was held on the batch of deputies again a victory for state of law which had insisted on this mechanism exactly why maliki was able to pull this off at this point remains unclear and the reactions from iraqiyya have yet to materialise today s parliament session was attended by 235 out of a total of 325 deputies that same assembly also voted to sack ayyad al kinani who is thought to have sadrist sympathies from the independent electoral commission ihec it is noteworthy that at least two sadrist female deputies have criticised today s vote conspiracy theorists will probably rush to mention the fact that the iranian foreign minister is in town posing smilingly with his iraqi kurdish counterpart whatever the exact reason the decision certainly signifies that maliki is still able to get the decisions he wants in the iraqi parliament and probably gives him enhanced confidence when it comes to getting the security ministers confirmed with the vice presidential deputies confirmed and talk about the strategic policy council fading into the background those ministries represent the final remaining issue in the government formation process that started in november 2010 posted in iraq s 2010 parliamentary election iraqi constitutional issues 18 comments anti corruption measure sparks constitutional confusion in iraq posted by reidar visser on tuesday 10 may 2011 17 45 the decision by the iraqi parliament on 18 april to cancel a clause of an old law dating from 1971 has led to a public debate about presidential prerogatives that reveals just how immature and shaky iraq s post 2003 system of government is the core of the matter relates to the cancellation by parliament of clause 136b in the baath era law on the organisation of the courts from 1971 that offered civil servants a degree of of immunity from prosecution in matters related to government service the measure had been promptly removed by paul bremer in 2003 but was reintroduced during the time of ayad allawi s interim government in 2004 in removing the clause iraqi parliamentarians made reference to the ways in which it had enabled government officials to protect themselves against accusations of corruption the substantive issues at hand could merit a separate discussion however in terms of constitutional implications it is the reactions to the passage of this act of legislation that are most important as indicators of the maturity or otherwise of iraq s post 2003 political system it has been revealed that after the law was passed on 18 april a letter was sent on 26 april from the iraqi government to the iraqi president jalal talabani asking him to take the necessary constitutional measures to oppose the parliamentary decision to annul clause 136b the problem of course is that no such constitutional measures exist after the transitional presidency council was abolished in november 2010 the ordinary president no longer has any specified veto power since laws issued by parliament automatically come into force after 15 days whether the president opts to formally sign them or not had a presidential veto power in fact existed there would have been no need to specify one in the final transitional clauses of the constitution which created the temporary presidency council for the 2005 2010 period also it would not have been logical for the kurds to seek an extension of the collective presidency council this was one of their 19 demands for joining the second maliki government if in fact the presidency alredy enjoyed veto power since everyone expected that talabani would become president anyway at the time when they presented their demands in a move that seemed conspicuously timed to the 15 day deadline for vetoes that applied to the old presidency council president jalal talabani on 2 may sent a letter to parliament concerning the annulment of clause 136b of the law on the courts the full text of that letter has yet to be published but the paraphrases of it that have been circulating in iraqi media are sufficiently interesting in themselves above all they reveal a surprisingly widespread belief among iraqi politicians that the iraqi president still enjoys veto powers on 3 may the independent national alliance politician sabah al saadi told media that prime minister nuri al maliki had told president jalal talabani to veto parliament s changes to the law on 7 may abd al mahdi al khaffaji of state of law suggested that parliament should reconsider the legislation comments by state of law adviser fadil muhammad to al sharq al awsat on 7 may also seemed to reiterate the belief in constitutional options for the president to oppose the legislation and most recently jawad al shuhayli a sadrist of the national alliance indicated that talabani s veto would lead to a second vote in parliament the correct constitutional interpretation was finally stated in a letter from parliament speaker usama al nujayfi on 8 may in which he made clear that any attempt by talabani to oppose the legislation would go beyond his constitutional prerogatives in a fudged response talabani s office yesterday issued a statement indicating that the 2 may letter was after all not intended as a veto that the president had acted on letters received from the iraqi cabinet and that he remained committed to the iraqi constitution an interesting complicating factor in the matter is the fact that the parliamentary action of 18 april was based on the first reading of the law which was introduced by government as far back as on 17 march 2007 in other words it will be difficult for the government to rely on last year s ruling by the federal supreme court to the effect that laws must be introduced to parliament by the executive only the whole affair shows the extent to which the new iraqi constitutional framework still remains contested even in those areas where the charter that was adopted in 2005 is reasonably clear adding to the complexity is also the tendency of iraqi politicians to oscillate between the two visions of iraqi politics that are at stake here power sharing versus majoritarian democracy normally maliki is more majoritarian as seen for example in the struggle about the security ministers but in this case that role is actually played by nujayfi posted in iraqi constitutional issues 8 comments another batch of security ministry nominees turning the clock back to 2006 posted by reidar visser on friday 6 may 2011 22 19 parliament speaker usama al nujayfi has confirmed that prime minister nuri al maliki has presented a second batch of nominees for the crucial security ministries that were left out of the vote of confidence on his second government in december 2010 nujayfi has not indicated when parliament will vote on the three candidates sadun al dulaymi for defence tawfiq al yasiri for interior and riyad ghrayb for national security affairs the absence of an agreed ...
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