Election Preparations in Iraq

July 4, 2008

The upcoming provincial election in Iraq, late this year or sometime next year, are instigating political shifts and infighting.

The purges against Sadr groups in Basra and Amara have strengthened the
main coalition partner of prime minister Maliki, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), but
not his own position. Maliki’s Dawa party has split into a Dawa- National Reform group headed by former prime minister Jaafari and a rump group still headed by Maliki.

Within the parliament Maliki depends on the support of the ISCI, the main Shia party founded and supported by Iran (an issue major U.S. political commentators are obviously unable to understand.) There has been trouble between Maliki and ISCI over the still unfinished election law. ISCI wants to use religious symbols in its campaign, while Maliki wants to ban the use of such.

Maliki is now looking for new and additional partners to strengthen his position. He arranged and hopes to get support from a new tribal council, an undemocratic institution also used by Saddam Hussein.

Another step by Maliki is to realign with some Sunni side in the parliament. The Awakening Councils, former Sunni insurgents currently bribed by the U.S. to stay peaceful, are looking for political power. In Ramadi and elsewhere they compete against the Iraqi Islamic Party, mainly former exiles who today govern Anbar province only because most Sunni boycotted the 2005 election.

On the federal level the Iraqi Islamic party is part of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF). There was recent news that the IAF would rejoin the Maliki government. Shortly thereafter Maliki announced that the Awakenings would be dissolved. (U.S. spokesmen Bergner also somewhat called for this.) I assume that this move is part of a deal between Maliki and the IAF.

The tribes that make up the Awakening forces will not agree to a diminished position. They had
hoped for a permanent role. But out of some 90,000 ‘Sons of Iraq’
only 12,000 have been accepted for security service roles. Their firing is likely to renew full-fledged insurgence activity in Anbar province. Some of them are already putting out feelers towards the resistance.

The raids against al-Sadr’s Shia nationalists continue. The governor of Maysan province, was arrested and Sadrist people get purged from their administrative functions. This follows the same scheme seen before in Basra and Amara. An Arab paper writes:

The campaign aims to restructure more than 50% of the police and security leadership and the institutions of the province.

The Sadrists are still in the process of reinventing their military arm. Maliki’s purge of Sadr supporters from local security positions will give them additional experienced forces.

Maliki’s recent moves against the Awakenings and against Sadr are creating two groups of nationalist Iraqis with popular support that are able and willing to fight the occupation forces. It remains to be seen if and how these two groups will unite or at least coordinate their activities.

Posted by b on July 4, 2008 at 13:11 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Totally OT, b, but in honor of the 4th of July, here is an interview with a favorite American roots-rock musician, with songs.
Thanks b for another great post. Look forward to reading and learning here every day.
Hope ya’ll enjoy the music too.

Posted by: Hamburger | Jul 4 2008 18:06 utc | 1

There was a congratulation-fest for b the other day, and I have to agree: I admire the mastery of so many different subjects by our host. I couldn’t do it. My main point here is the odd niggle on a subject which I happen to know a little about.
The politics of the upcoming regional elections in Iraq seem to me totally obscure. We are told in the media, both Arabic (see Badger) and Western, that the Sadrists have taken a baff in Basra, then in Sadr City, and now in Amara. Which Sadr has not resisted. Nevertheless other reports have talked of the popularity of the Sadr cause, nationalist but shi’a.
Are we to think of a Zimbabwean type of situation, where the opposition leader loses his nerve, and gives away everything to the power in place?

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 4 2008 23:05 utc | 2

Husseinites and Sadrists don’t mix, I think……

Posted by: bellgong | Jul 5 2008 1:58 utc | 3

Holding elections in Iraq will serve no interests that are currently in power, and so they have about zero interest in holding them. And would surely cancel them were it not for the insistence of the Baby Huey militia (big but illiterate) now allied with the otherwise totally unpopular excuse for a government in the green zone – as it allows them to rearrange their plastic army men figures in such a way that serves their big man infantile fantasies. Which in the real world translates into coping with the geopolitical catastrophe of their own making, of empowering their arch-enemy Iran, and its influence within the sitting Iraqi government right under their nose. Following this narrative, the U.S., in order to maintain its relevancy has to backtrack on its many policies that have created the current state of affairs. So as the Iraqi security forces have become more formidable in sync with U.S. muscle, Maliki and his feckless green zone (& unelectable) cohorts have allied into a sort of new militia. In an effort to push out the other militias, beginning with AQiI, former Baathists, then the various Sadrists currents, and now increasingly (& incredibly), even the Badr organization and the Sons of Iraq in an effort to consolidate a power sympathetic to the U.S. long term goals of maintaining a permanent military presence and cutting Iran totally out of the Iraqi equation, as more or less outlined in the original SOFA proposal. Which is of course the present state of affairs, a virtual lock down of dependency on U.S. power. The prospects of making it official and long term, by signing a SOFA – or by giving the people a choice, with elections, both hold the potential of bringing the whole house of cards down in a thump. So neither are likely to happen before bush goes back to Texas.

Posted by: anna missed | Jul 5 2008 9:27 utc | 4

The excellent Moscow ‘Exile’ magazine has been closed down and the War Nerd column it carried lost its home. We are delighted to find the War Nerd continuing his sharp and funny essay’s at AlterNet:
Bringing Ireland to Baghdad: How the Resistance Will Eventually Kick the Americans Out
One thing the United States doesn’t get about guerrilla warfare: It’s not over until the guerrillas win.

So Sadr has had a big slap in the face, and he’s got to go into relaunch mode. Luckily for him, he has outside help in the brains department, with advisers from Hezbollah in Lebanon, the very best guerrilla movement in the world right now, and Iranian intelligence, the MVPs of this whole war. I’d take that lineup over hick boneheads like Cheney any day.

Interesting idea to compare Sadr’s movement to Sinn Fein and its IRA.

Posted by: b | Jul 5 2008 18:19 utc | 5

Back to Main