Maliki should 'stay the course' too

Following a leaked American administration memo casting doubt on his competence late last year, Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has given a personal account of his premiership to the American media, telling the Wall Street Journal of his loathing for the top job and his wish to 'be done with it' before the end of his mandate. Criticised for failing to contain factional strife across the country and even within his own government, he has presided over the bloodiest eight months of Iraq's abominably violent recent history. It is probable that his comments embody nothing more than an attempt to secure an increase in the American military presence which, pace the Iraq Study Group, seems certain to be announced. Should, however, Maliki's language signal an intent to quit in the short term, or if his comments are thus interpreted in Iraq, the Shia-dominated government risks squandering an unrivalled opportunity to pull the country back from the brink of civil war. In the coming months it will be in a unique situation, possessing both bankable political capital within the wider Shia community following the execution of Saddam Hussein and the unprecedented ability to enforce its will through that extra American firepower. It is just conceivable that in 2007 an Iraqi statesman will mollify moderate Sunni opinion and put Iraq back on the path to stability by making vital concessions on the constitution - guaranteeing an equitable allocation of oil revenue and ruling out a Shia ‘super-region’ - and reining in the Shia militia. Such a rosy scenario is most likely if the figure attempting to be that statesman is Nuri al-Maliki.

If he were to quit now, Maliki would risk paralysing the highest levels of Iraqi government just as they needed to be at their most dynamic. It took the UIA five months from the December 2005 elections to anoint a leader acceptable to the requisite two thirds of the Iraqi National Assembly. Moreover, a likely outcome of a repeat of such protracted wrangling would be the messy collapse of the UIA itself and the emergence of a new coalition, lead by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the assembly’s largest party, and excluding the supporters of radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The SCIRI’s leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, whose family has an historical animosity to that of Sadr, was reported by Associated Press as attempting to form such a government in December after meeting US President George Bush. But even if an alternative government was swiftly cobbled together, the expulsion of the Sadrists from the government would be worrying. The two largest Shia militia are the SCIRI’s Badr Organisation and Sadr’s Mahdi Army, whose forces have frequently skirmished in the Shia heartlands. A political coup against Sadr risks the implosion of the Shia community, while ultimately disarming these groups depends on the government retaining some influence over them, and they in turn retaining a stake in government. Maliki was elected as a compromise candidate, and he represents the best hope of keeping both the SCIRI and the Sadrists on board. As a relatively neutral figure, he is also a man with whom dissident Sunnis would be more comfortable in dealing with than a figure from the SCIRI, which is seen as a Trojan Horse for Iranian influence. Maliki has come in for much criticism over recent months, but his departure would create more problems than it solves. Like the foreign troops which prop up his government, Maliki should, at least for now, ‘stay the course’.