This analysis originally released in Arabic (All rights reserved, please do not cite or distribute without permission).
Received a special treatment, held meetings with top US administration, Maliki’s visit to the U.S. turned into an occasion to show the United States unlimited support for Prime Minister.
The official reason behind his visit, as announced by the Prime Minister’s Media Office:
- To meet U.S. officials.
- Conferences on private investment and business in Iraq.
- Attend the U.S. – Iraq cooperation Summit.
One of Maliki’s meetings was with vice-president Joe Biden.
During Biden’s visit to Baghdad last month, his meeting and discussion with Maliki focused on the bilateral strategic arrangements and the Iraqi – U.S. investment opportunities.
As for their last meeting in Washington there are no leaks, not even official statement about this meeting, which suggests that the meeting mostly focused on the concessions provided by Maliki to the US administration in exchange for maintaining his position as Prime Minister for a new term.
Maliki’s “number one item” during the meetings was:
The need to “an international investigation of 19-August bombing in Baghdad”. US officials expressed their full support for Maliki ” to achieve “justice”.
In his meeting with Barak Obama, Maliki expressed his fear that “intervention of some regional and global capitals will dilute the issue “, the US president said with a smile, “not on my watch”, the US president will not tolerate states who harbor terrorists or contribute to the destabilization of Iraq’s security.
It seems that Maliki changed his priorities from internal policies to foreign policies.
The question: Can Maliki correct the domestic imbalance affairs through the foreign policy?
In other words, Maliki wants to ignore the importance of relying on Iraq’s political process and the internal political system, and wants to use his vision of forming a state rely on the US pressure.