How to exclude the Sunnis? Maliki’s path to the Prime Minister office

Cur­rent devel­op­ment on the Kur­dis­tan Alliance-Iraqiya List pushed Maliki to post­pone his inter­view with the offi­cial Iraqi TV two days giv­ing the incum­bent Prime Min­is­ter the time to adjust his words, accord­ing to the fail­ure of Allawi and Adil Abdul-Mahdi nego­ti­a­tions with the Kur­dis­tan Alliance, which came as a relief for the “Sadrists”, and the “State of Law” leader Al-Maliki.

Accord­ing to the last infor­ma­tion, and after the last meet­ing held between Barzani and Tal­a­bani, Kur­dish lead­ers had decided their final posi­tion in favor of Al-Maliki.

Exter­nal and inter­nal rea­sons behind the Kur­dis­tan Alliance decision:

Maliki was able to per­suade the Kurds to resolve the dif­fer­ences between Bagh­dad and Irbil, while Al-Iraqiya’s nego­ti­a­tion with the Kur­dis­tan Alliance focused on its weight in the dis­puted areas, which was seen by the Kurds as a black mail.

Also, lets not for­get that Maliki’s approval by the Kurds fol­lowed a tele­phone call made by Iran­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad with Iraqi Pres­i­dent Jalal Tal­a­bani. Add to this the state­ment released by the Iran­ian Ambas­sador in Bagh­dad say­ing that his coun­try will with­draw its claim of Iraq-Iran war compensation.

Another fac­tor that forced Maliki to give more con­ces­sions to the Kurds to speed up the for­ma­tion of the Government:

Maliki sees the release Wik­ileaks doc­u­ments and his con­nec­tion to “Death Squads”, as a plot played by for­eign and regional coun­tries, to send the Prime Min­is­ter to sit on the same chair where the for­mer Yugosla­vian pres­i­dent, “Slo­bo­dan Milo­se­vic” sat in the Hague (see: Arab League urges jus­tice on Wik­ileaks rev­e­la­tions)

Per­son­ally, I expect that Maliki will be more close to Iran than ever, since this is his only chance to save him­self from the “big Amer­i­can stick”.

Maliki will need to tighten his grip in the com­ing days, espe­cially if the Par­lia­ment approve Maliki’s bid for the Prime Min­is­ter office. The Army Com­mand announced two days ago that it will start a mil­i­tary maneu­vers across the coun­try to raise their effi­ciency and their prepa­ra­tions (see, the two mil­i­tary maneu­vers in Najaf and Basra this week), and I bet the maneu­vers in Bagh­dad may coin­ci­dent with the par­lia­men­tary session.

P.S.

Accord­ing Kuwaiti news­pa­per Al-Rai for­mer US Ambas­sador Ryan Crocker expressed his con­cern in a recent speech in the US about Maliki’s attempt to estab­lished his own Com­mand and Con­trol unite, not through the Chief of Staff of the Army or Sec­re­tary of Defense. Crocker warned that this will lead to mil­i­tary coup.

How to deal with Al-Iraqiya?

“State of Law” mem­ber, Khalid Al-Asadi said:

National Alliance is expect­ing from Al-Iraqiya to present a can­di­date for the Par­lia­ment pres­i­dency, but if he insisted not to par­tic­i­pate we will look for an alter­na­tive (Sunni) bloc.

P.S

Notice that in Al-Asadi inter­view, he repeat­edly said: The 25 points Kud­is­tan Alliance demands and not the known 19 Kurds demands. This is because Maliki “donated” extra 6 points to the Kur­dish list of demands.

“State of Law” and its allies dis­cussed the reac­tions of Al-Iraqiya after being con­fined and iso­lated in the (Sunni) corner:

Al-Iraqiya to boy­cott the gov­ern­ment — This will be a golden chance for the oppor­tunists in Al-Iraqiya List to declare their split on the ground that the List boy­cotted the polit­i­cal process, and they don’t want to repeat the 2004 elec­tion mistake.

Those who split from Al-Iraqiya later will join “Maliki-friendly” Sunni bloc Al-Tawafiq. Later a one of the mem­bers of the “newly formed” Sunni bloc will head the Parliament.

P.S.

Makes  you won­der: Why the “Round-Table” meet­ing, and all this polit­i­cal circus”.

The final nail in Al-Iraqiya cof­fin, is what revealed by the “State of Law” mem­ber Has­san Al-Sunaid saying:

The sin­gle point of dis­pute with the Kur­dis­tan Alliance was the the res­ig­na­tion of the gov­ern­ment if the Kurds min­is­ters with­draw, but we found a solu­tion; to go to the Fed­eral Court.