August 27, 2007
Bush Stands By Al-Maliki, But For How Long?
En route to a GOP fundraiser in Albuquerque, President Bush made an unscheduled statement about a new tentative Iraqi political accord.
"I congratulate Iraq's leaders on the agreement reached yesterday in Baghdad," Bush said after disembarking from Air Force One. "While yesterday's agreement is an important step, I reminded them, and they understand, much more needs to be done."
Yesterday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced a deal that would move the central government closer to unity after a meeting with President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who is Sunni, Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who is Shia, and Massoud Barzani, president of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. Included in the package were an agreement to release detainees held without charge, the majority of whom are Sunni, and a consensus on oil, gas and water distribution. Many of the 18 benchmarks laid out by Congress had been worked out, the leaders said.
The announcement comes little more than two weeks before a long-awaited report on Iraq's progress is delivered to Washington, and as calls for al-Maliki to be replaced reach widespread consensus. Bush has revived his public campaign of support for al-Maliki, telling critics last week that the decision to remove the prime minister belongs to the Iraqis and not Washington, D.C.
Increasingly, however, Iraq's dysfunctional central government is seen as the biggest obstacle to that country's long-term stability, even as sectarian violence and bombings continue to rage. Kurds and especially Sunnis distrust al-Maliki, who's been able to stay in power as long as he has thanks to support from the murderous anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Leaders in Washington and elsewhere are calling for al-Maliki to be replaced by a prime minister who can win the goodwill of Sunnis and Kurds and clamp down on militias including al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Al-Maliki has lately taken to lashing out at his critics and threatening to ally himself with enemy states Iran and Syria. On Sunday, he railed against prominent critics, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Carl Levin and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, all of whom have advised that he be replaced.
"There are American officials who consider Iraq as if it were one of their villages, for example Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin," he said. "They should come to their senses."
BBC News reports that Kouchner has offered to apologize for appearing to interfere "directly in Iraqi affairs."
One of the issues facing al-Maliki is that while he reminds the world of Iraq's sovereignty, it's unclear just how sovereign Iraq is. For one thing, more than 160,000 American troops are occupying the country. Plus, the U.S. oversees much of the government, and has direct control over parts of the Iraqi military and intelligence services.
In some ways, replacing al-Maliki could speed up reconciliation, at least to those who see the collapse of his government as inevitable. At the same time, there is no clear candidate to replace him, considering the seemingly intractable divide between Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis. Yesterday's announcement of a political compromise didn't impress Sunnis boycotting the Iraqi government.
"The government is trying to show to the world that it is working, but it is a failure, and has to go. It does not have credibility," said Khalaf al-Alayan of the National Concord Front. The NCF, an umbrella group of the government's Sunni factions, left the government earlier this month, and without their participation it's unlikely any of the political benchmarks set for the Iraqi government can be met.
The Bush administration, meanwhile, is dismissing any public talk of dissolving the government.
"It is in our interests that we help the Iraqi people succeed," Bush said. "And that's why the United States will continue to support Iraq's leaders and all the Iraqi people in their efforts to overcome the forces of terror that seek to overthrow a nascent democracy."
But as the gulf between the Iraqi people and those elected to lead them widens, pressure for the White House to choose a side may increase.
Posted at 3:46 PM
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Bush Administration, Iraq, Middle East, President Bush
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