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description= 8 posts published by Reidar Visser during January 2012;
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maliki will press for a separate budget deal with whomever is prepared to negotiate with him on his terms iraqiyya are trumpeting the initiatives from sadrists and isci as opposed to the stance of maliki as reasons for returning to parliament if there is to be more than rhetoric to this they will need to find agreement on issues and agendas when parliament reconvenes tomorrow 31 january the budget is now the number one item on the agenda posted in iraq s 2010 parliamentary election 29 comments the state of the union and the iraqi enfant terrible posted by reidar visser on wednesday 25 january 2012 18 16 white house speechwriters must be thoroughly annoyed with iraq these days last month barely had the dust settled after the departing us forces and jubilant ceremonies in washington before iraqi politicians began escalating their political antagonisms to levels not seen since 2006 even though the whole thing is somehow still hanging together the signs of warning are arguably more numerous than for many years yesterday just hours before president barack obama was to deliver his state of the union address iraq blew up in his face again close to the capital baghdad mulla nazam al jibburi was killed by a gang of gunmen jibburi was a prominent defector from al qaeda who had helped build the largely sunni sahwa movement in support of the iraqi government this was not quite in harmony with the message of obama s address hours later he told us ending the iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies from pakistan to yemen the al qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling knowing that they can t escape the reach of the united states of america because in iraq there are no al qaeda anymore right except that they may well have been the ones who opted to assassinate jibburi just hours before president obama s speech the problems in the state of the union address as far as it related to the middle east don t stop there how about iran again according to obama through the power of our diplomacy a world that was once divided about how to deal with iran s nuclear program now stands as one the regime is more isolated than ever before its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions and as long as they shirk their responsibilities this pressure will not relent are we so sure that obama s policies in the region have consistently weakened iran is it not the case that after failed us diplomacy in 2010 nuri al maliki was forced to rely on sectarianism to clinch his second premier term in ways that at least temporarily increased iranian leverage in iraq is not the resultant maintenance and reinforcement of the tehran damascus axis part of what makes iran able to resist other manoeuvres by the international community or maybe us policies towards iran have different goals let there be no doubt america is determined to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon and i will take no options off the table to achieve that goal but a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible and far better and if iran changes course and meets its obligations it can rejoin the community of nations so no nasty nukes please and we ll give you a free hand in iraq in return is that the deal obama is envisaging perhaps iraq is better left for iran and turkey to slug it out bringing the region back as vp biden once called it let s consider the region more broadly as the tide of war recedes a wave of change has washed across the middle east and north africa from tunis to cairo from sanaa to tripoli a year ago qaddafi was one of the world s longest serving dictators a murderer with american blood on his hands today he is gone and in syria i have no doubt that the assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change cannot be reversed and that human dignity cannot be denied saudi no matches found bahrain no matches found what if iranian oil is sufficiently attractive to asian markets to make the likely impact of the boycott higher oil price bigger in crisis hit european economies than in tehran this might well enable iran to hold on to syria and control iraq while preventing obama from talking tough on human rights to the remaining strategic allies in the middle east due to continued reliance on their oil unless obama can maintain a consistent discourse on the middle east perhaps it would be better to leave the region out of the state of the union address altogether posted in us policy in iraq leverage issues 28 comments blame it on the iraqis christopher hill goes rural posted by reidar visser on friday 20 january 2012 13 50 in his tireless efforts to convince the world that political problems in post withdrawal iraq cannot possibly be attributed to his own tenure as the us ambassador in baghdad from 2009 to 2010 christopher hill today presents a new twist to his narrative having apparently realised the failure of his previous attempt to explain that it is all the fault of iraqis hill now informs us that the really really deep sectarian conflict in iraq is rooted in the rural parts of the country according to hill we other mortal iraq analysts who focus on the politics of baghdad urban bias are incapable of seeing the big picture because we are not privy to the ambassador s unique rustic insights forget about baghdad and its artificial coexistence between sects instead consider the countryside trips outside of the capital to sunni dominated anbar or shia controlled southern iraq often reveal a country much more focused on and animated by the sunni shia divide and this phenomenon did not begin with the us led invasion it had a thousand year head start it is hard to know where to begin for example did hill take note of the recent episode in dhi qar where a sunni soldier nazhan al jibburi sacrificed his life to stop a terrorist attacking mainly shiite targets and immediately had streets and new born shiite children named for him maybe that was not rural enough let s venture further away from the urban distortions of the real iraq and try to reach the rural purity that hill doubtless found unadulterated of course by any possible presence of american security details or other distractions of non iraqi origin did ambassador hill consult some of the best anthropological material on iraq like the marsh dwellers of the euphrates delta by sm al salim 1962 relating to chubayish between basra and dhi qar or shaikh and effendi by r a fernea 1970 relating to daghara in the mid euphrates there really is not much about sectarian conflict in those volumes but maybe the 1970s were exceptional maybe the 1960s were exceptional too perhaps the generally peaceful monarchical period and the late ottoman eras were exceptional too if the ambassador is so sure about a thousand year head start for sectarian problems why doesn t he at least do us the favour of enumerating some historical empirical examples of bloody sectarian conflict in iraq say between 1650 and 1970 to back up his own impressions today hill is telling us that iraqiyya is essentially a sunni party and as such it should by definition accept a secondary role in iraqi politics there are many good reasons for iraqiyya to reconsider its relationship with maliki but the idea of accepting that shia majority rule is an immovable fact of life just isn t one of them the examples of shiites bitterly disagreeing with each others are simply too many for iraqis to accept this kind of simplistic and essentialist formula for their politics do these problems really have nothing to do with the conflict paradigm of iraqi politics that seems to have been a staple of most us ambassadors in baghdad from paul bremer via zalmay khalilzad and ryan crocker to hill himself does hill not realise that some of his own policies actually abetted sectarian tensions for example when he was apologetic about the de baathification excesses of early 2010 one good thing about the latest revelation by hill is that it may help explain some of his own delphic policies most of the time hill was out in the desert hiking with camels and doing anthropological research hopefully to be published in a soon to come landmark tome posted in sectarian master narrative 64 comments after one month of boycotting iraqiyya at a crossroads posted by reidar visser on wednesday 18 january 2012 19 27 it is exactly one month since the secular increasingly sunni backed iraqiyya coalition began boycotting the iraqi parliament followed by the withdrawal of its ministers from cabinet sessions it has been a dramatic month full of heated verbal exchanges with political opponents nonetheless it is high time that iraqiyya stands back and reflects on what exactly it has achieved so far in terms of practical results iraqiyya s actions have at least managed to put the subject of some kind of national conference on the agenda iraqiyya are hoping that such a conference will deal with the fulfilment of promises made by prime minister nuri al maliki during the process of government formation in november december 2010 but doubts remain about the exact agenda location and date of the conference more fundamentally speaking it is the unequivocally negative results of iraqiyya s boycott that stand out the boycott has clearly accelerated a trend of defections from the iraqiyya coalition by individual politicians and groups of politicians that are more interested in taking part within the system than in boycotting examples include prominent politicians from babel and nineveh the latter showing that this is a phenomenon that includes sunnis as well as shiites from iraqiyya the defectors are not necessarily openly pro maliki but they tend to agree with maliki on some issues including an aversion against the recent pro federal trend among some sunni politicians the net effect of all the defections from iraqiyya since early 2011 may be a loss of around 5 deputies so far that may not sound like a lot but every single defection does bring maliki closer to his dream of a so called political majority government so what are iraqiyya doing at this momentous juncture alas very few new ideas were presented by coalition leader ayyad allawi during his speech today in fact all three alternative ways forward proposed by allawi involve constitutional problems that have been debated before firstly the suggestion by allawi to have new elections under an interim government is unconstitutional this goes back to an idea which has consumed a ridiculous amount of energy both among iraqiyya leaders and the americans since 2009 to the effect that there could be some kind of neutral caretaker administration during the run up to elections unless the prime minister resigns or is voted out of office there is no such thing as a transitional caretaker government in the iraqi constitution period the legal status of the government remains exactly the same until a new government is formed additionally any call for early elections would of course reopen the stalemated debate about the composition of the iraqi elections commission and the electoral law probably ensuring that actual elections would not happen until 2013 at the earliest the second suggestion by allawi to have the dominant partner in the government the shiite national alliance change its prime minister i e sack maliki is also unconstitutional as long as he means changing the pm only as per the constitution once the pm is voted out of office the cabinet as a whole is considered resigned and it is the job of the president to identify the biggest bloc in parliament and charge its pm candidate with forming a new government constitutionally speaking then there can be no smooth and easy transition from maliki to whoever may be waiting in the wings allawi is probably thinking of adel abd al mahdi iran of ibrahim al jaafari thirdly the alternative of trying to enforce an implementation of the arbil agreement itself would also be unconstitutional as maliki has rightly reminded us lately things like the national council for high policies the idea of balance in the ministries of government and the re establishment of the presidency council are all unconstitutional one of the few specific points of the obscure arbil agreement that actually resonate with the constitution is the demand that bylaws for the cabinet be adopted in the current political climate early agreement on such a complex piece of legislation seems entirely unrealistic the real alternatives for iraqiyya seem very few at this point in time they may of course opt for the pro federal course as some have attempted but this might also end up with a bloody nose as well examples of sunni resistance towards federalism continue to manifest themselves and might well surge considerably if an actual referendum were to be held a far more realistic course of action would be to forget about most of the acrobatics of the arbil agreement and instead focus on something very basic the security ministries that are still run by acting ministers not confirmed by parliament the interior one being of course maliki himself although the constitution does not expressly deal with the question of acting ministers the idea of having ministers confirmed by the national assembly is so central to all variants of parliamentary democracy in the world that maliki would be in for severe international criticism if he should opt to continue with acting ministers indefinitely what iraqiyya could and should do is to make a deal with maliki on the security ministries that appeals to his desire to be in a dominant position vis à vis competing shiite islamist factions it is well known that the sadrists fadila and isci are all critical of some of maliki s nominees for the interior ministry what iraqiyya should do is to give maliki support for an interior minister that is unpopular with the other shiite factions in exchange for a defence minister acceptable to iraqiyya that could over time bring about the rapprochement that the arbil agreement will never be able to produce for iraqiyya the real alternative to rapprochement with maliki is none of the three options discussed by allawi today rather it is an inevitable process of internal disintegration eventually leading maliki to establish a more narrow governing coalition that will likely exclude many iraqiyya politicians entirely posted in iraq s 2010 parliamentary election iraqi constitutional issues 30 comments talabani maliki and the disputed territories posted by reidar visser on thursday 12 january 2012 19 58 certain comments by prime minister nuri al maliki over the past week have failed to receive the attention they deserve as the political scene in iraq quietens down for the shiite arbain festival and a long weekend it may be worthwhile to take a closer look at maliki s statements regarding disputed territories and the creation of new federal regions that may well reflect his negotiation strategy over coming months the most sensational aspects of maliki s comments are as follows first...
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