Despite the recent US-Iranian tensions over Iraq, Nuri Al-Maliki has proven to be a smart tactician, writes Saif Nasrawi Just a few hours after appearing to distance Iraq from the US accusations of Iranian meddling in his country, the Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh announced late Sunday in a press briefing arranged by the American Embassy in Baghdad that Prime Minister Nuri Al- Maliki decided to form a high-level panel of defence and security officials to compile the evidence of such interference which will then be presented to Tehran. There is "a concrete evidence" that the Iranians "have interfered in Iraqi affairs," Al- Dabbagh said in that press briefing marking the strongest declaration yet by a top Iraqi official regarding Tehran's alleged role of funding, arming and training Shia militias to attack US troops and Iraqi government forces. Al-Dabbagh was speaking a day after a delegation from Iraq's ruling Shia alliance returned from Tehran after presenting Iranian officials with evidence of the Islamic Republic's backing of Shia militias in Iraq. Earlier on that same day, Al-Dabbagh had said Iraq would not be pulled into conflict with Iran, adding that Iranian officials who met that delegation had denied any interference in Iraq. In addition to the above delegation, Al-Maliki sent yet another delegation of three powerful officials from his ruling Shia United Iraqi Alliance to Tehran to advise Iran to stop backing the militias. An Iraqi official close to the delegation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Iranians were furious with the Iraqi accusations made by both delegations and again denied any involvement in Iraq's internal affairs. "The Iranians were really outraged by accusations coming from Baghdad," the official told Al-Ahram Weekly. He said that the Iraqi delegation met only one senior Iranian official, Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Quds Force who spoke with them for only a short period. Iran even took the offensive on the issue of who is destablising Iraq. Its Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohamed Ali Husseini, said a fourth round of talks with the United States on Iraq would not be possible as long as the American forces were still "bombarding the Shia residential areas" in Sadr City, the nearly two-million stronghold of the Mahdi Army in Baghdad. That was again another clear sign of how the Shia-dominated Iraqi government found itself trapped between the United States and Iran, which, if the allegations against Iran are true, it can be argued both are engaged in a proxy war that goes beyond Iraq's territories to other parts of the Middle East such as Lebanon and Gaza. The delegation's other objective was to meet Muqtada Al-Sadr, who is living in the holy Iranian city of Qom, to try to reach a political settlement to end the clashes between the US and Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army which erupted last March in Baghdad and Basra and claimed hundred of casualties, mostly civilians. "The Iranians did not exert much effort to arrange a meeting proposed by the delegation with Al- Sadr," the official added. A close aide to Al- Sadr said that Iraq's problems should be solved internally, not on foreign soil, referring to Iran. The official clarified that the Iranian message was clear that Tehran welcomes Al-Maliki's effort to disarm the militias but only through political dialogue not military means. Yet, despite all this, Al-Maliki has proven to be a clever tactician. By publicly opposing Iran's interference in Iraq, Al-Maliki has managed to establish himself for both Iraq's Sunni minority and neighbours as independent from Tehran on one side, and a leader for all Iraqis, not Shias alone. Al-Maliki's strategy of cracking down on the Mahdi Army militias as well as Sunni insurgent groups has borne fruit recently when the Iraqi Accord Front, the main Sunni block in the parliament which boycotted his government last year, announced this week that it will return to the cabinet. Adnan Al-Duleimi, a leading member in the Iraqi Accord Front said on Monday that the front will present Al-Maliki with a new list of candidates to fill in its share of the six ministerial positions which were vacant since August 2007, when the Sunni block walked out in protest against sectarian policies adopted by the government. Al-Maliki's attempt to reach out for Al-Sadr was a successful political manoeuvre to project himself as a "man of peace". Although every Iraqi official had publicly denied that the Shia delegation to Tehran had plans to meet Al- Sadr, nevertheless, Iraqi media had extensively quoted "anonymous" officials suggesting a proposal of a possible deal with the young Iraqi leader to end the military onslaught on the Sadr militias in return for a better political representation in both the central government and provincial councils. Al-Maliki's so-far successful campaign to establish law and order in the war-racked country coupled with the Sadrists' lack of a clear political agenda, definitely benefit the prime minister's short-term plan. However, an enduring and durable strategy for a united and secure Iraq now requires serious political compromise to integrate the remaining Sunni insurgents, the impoverished Shia majority, and their Mahdi Army militias.
