Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq threatened on Wednesday to abandon an American-backed power-sharing government created a year ago, throwing a fragile democracy into further turmoil just after the departure of American troops and potentially tarnishing what has been cast as a major foreign policy achievement for President Obama.
In a nearly 90-minute news conference broadcast on tape-delay, Mr. Maliki defied his rivals and pushed back on all fronts in Iraq's deepening political crisis, threatening to release investigatory files that he claimed implicated his opponents in terrorism.
He also threatened the Kurds, valuable allies with close ties to the Americans, warning that there would be “problems” if they protected Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who fled to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in recent days to escape an arrest warrant on charges that he ran a death squad responsible for assassinations and bombings.
Divisions in three main factions
The escalating political crisis underscores the divisions among Iraq's three main factions — Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — that were largely papered over while the American military maintained a presence here. The crisis also lays bare the myriad problems left behind with the final departure of American troops: sectarianism, a judiciary that the populace views as beholden to one man and a political culture with no space for compromise.
And it highlights the waning American influence on events here, after a war that lasted nearly nine years. For Mr. Obama, the political dysfunction represents an embarrassing turn of events, coming so soon after the troops left. This month, he met with Mr. Maliki in Washington and praised Iraq's internal affairs, calling the country “sovereign, self-reliant and democratic.”
The crisis has also come at an inopportune time: Many on the extensive American Embassy staff here have gone home for the holidays. Ambassador James F. Jeffrey, who left the country after a ceremony last week to mark the end of the war, cut short his trip to rush back to Baghdad, and was meeting with senior Iraqi leaders, as was David H. Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and former military commander in Iraq, who arrived on Tuesday, an American official said.
U.S. involvement
If the crisis continues to intensify, the Obama administration is likely to draw new criticism for failing to negotiate an extension of the American troop presence in Iraq. While an agreement negotiated by the administration of President George W. Bush called for a final departure at the end of 2011, both countries spent the summer trying to negotiate an extension — something that military leaders and many analysts argued was needed to secure Iraq's fragile democracy and protect the gains achieved in a war that cost nearly 4,500 American lives and close to $1 trillion.
“This is an absolutely critical moment,” said Kenneth M. Pollack of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and an advocate for a continuing American troop presence. “It is critical for the White House's Iraq policy. The underlying theme of their Iraq policy is that Iraq is a success and it is relatively stable and it does not need American troops to continue the move forward. This crisis is a clear and unmistakable challenge to both of those premises.”
In the coming days, America's ability to shape outcomes in Iraq, already flagging in the period leading up to the troop withdrawal, will be sharply tested. The largest American Embassy in the world is here. The United States is spending nearly $1 billion a year to train Iraq's police, and is spending billions more arming Iraq's military with tanks, fighter jets and other weapons.
Even with all combat troops departed, 157 military personnel remain in the country, overseeing military sales to Iraq that amount to $10 billion in weapons contracts, $3 billion of which is paid by the United States.
“I'm a glass-half-full guy, so I'm not looking at the doomsday possibility,” said Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen, who heads the embassy's Office of Security Cooperation. He added that “there is more common sense in the government and more ability of our international community to help coach the Iraqis to make wise decisions on how they govern.”
Yet the huge weapons sales and enormous diplomatic mission still may not carry much weight when it comes to the hard task of reconciling Iraq's divisive sectarian politics. “Trying to include all the major elements in one government was always a prescription for paralysis, or at least food fights,” Christopher R. Hill, the Ambassador in Baghdad last year, said by telephone.
He added, “This Shia-Sunni divide is big and it's never gone away and it's going to take generations to go away. There's a lot of hostility there. It's up to us to try to be helpful to try to get Maliki to try to do the right thing.”
Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, also issued a warning to his rivals — and, incongruously, to his coalition partners — in Iraqiya, the largely Sunni bloc of lawmakers that includes Mr. Hashimi: If they do not end their boycott of Parliament and the Council of Ministers, he will move to form a majority government that would exclude them from power.
If Iraqiya's ministers do not show up at future sessions, he said, “we will appoint replacements.” The news conference was the first time the Prime Minister had spoken directly to the nation since the controversy erupted several days ago.
Judicial system
The crisis began when the Shiite-dominated government issued its arrest warrant for Mr. Hashimi, the top Sunni politician, on terrorism charges. Mr. Maliki offered to defuse tensions by calling for a conference of Iraq's political elite to discuss the matter. But his efforts at conciliation seemed to end there, and Iraqiya rejected calls to meet and said it would pursue a long-shot no-confidence vote against Mr. Maliki.
The arrest has cast a spotlight on Iraq's judicial system, which for almost nine years has been pushed by American diplomats, military personnel and civilian experts toward a system based on evidence rather than confessions. Yet the government has made its case to the public against Mr. Hashimi by broadcasting videotaped confessions that Mr. Hashimi has said were fabricated and that others contended were made under duress.
The timing of the decision to seek Mr. Hashimi's arrest — the government is said to have been compiling a case against him for years — has further inflamed the situation.
“The timing of the release of such details and accusations against Hashimi raises question marks, since Maliki said he had the documents against Hashimi three years ago,” said Muhammad al-Khafaji, a lawmaker from the Sadrist bloc and an ally of Mr. Maliki. “Why didn't Maliki release them to the public before this time? I think the timing was chosen on purpose.”
If there is one ray of hope, it is that public life in Iraq is one of perpetual crisis, and that seemingly intractable conflicts have been resolved before. But some analysts say this is the worst political instability here in years, certainly the gravest since it took nearly eight months to form a government after last year's parliamentary elections. And, of course, the American military is no longer here.
In calling for the Kurds to turn over Mr. Hashimi, Mr. Maliki risked alienating a powerful minority that operates in its own semi-autonomous region and whose support he would need to form a new government without Iraqiya. While in the north, Mr. Hashimi is largely out of reach of Mr. Maliki's security forces, and could easily flee the country.
“We demand the Kurdistan region hand him over,” Mr. Maliki said, adding, “If he escapes, this will create problems.”
Iraq faces a number of difficult political problems that in sum could derail the national unity government created last year to give meaningful roles for Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. This, in turn, raises fears of a return to sectarian and factional violence — although so far it appears that the infighting has remained confined to politics.
There has been no recent spike in attacks. But the latest problems have laid bare the sectarian fissures still pervasive in society.
The minority Sunni population, which had dominated Iraq's affairs under Saddam Hussein, feels increasingly marginalised.
In addition to seeking Mr. Hashimi's arrest, Mr. Maliki has recently sought a vote of no-confidence from Parliament against another Sunni leader, a Deputy Prime Minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq, for calling Mr. Maliki a “dictator” in a television interview.
“Although Maliki is going after political rivals, his impulsive actions have the same consequences to Iraq's stability as if he were targeting the Sunni community as a whole,” said Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. “The Iraqiya bloc is simultaneously Maliki's main political rival and represents the Sunni community.” ( Reporting was contributed by Jack Healy, Michael S. Schmidt, Yasir Ghazi and Omar al-Jawoshy .) — New York Times News Service
