Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki may be trying to salvage his fragile government, but Iraq's political crisis seems as deadlocked as ever, writes Salah Hemeid Hoping to jump-start the stalled political rebuilding of their violence-torn nation, Iraq's leaders met several times this week in a fresh bid to resolve their differences. In a last-ditch attempt to halt the disintegration of his government, Iraqi premier Nuri Al-Maliki last Sunday also called on leaders from the country's key political parties to meet in a crisis summit in the hope of forging a grand compromise among the warring factions. However, the meeting, expected as early as Tuesday, did not materialise, apparently due to continuing differences. Instead, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani hosted a luncheon meeting at his residence in Baghdad's Green Zone on Tuesday, pulling together some 50 members of various political groups for informal discussions about the nation's deepening political crisis. However, this gathering too produced no results. "We sat together, we laughed, and we ate", Talabani said later, while acknowledging that nothing political had been discussed. Notable among the absentees from the meeting were Sunni Vice-President Tareq Al-Hashimi and former prime minister Iyad Allawi, both staunch critics of Al-Maliki's government and proponents of its replacement by what they describe as a more representative government. Seventeen of Al-Maliki's 37 ministers have abandoned the government in recent weeks, many claiming the Shia prime minister has failed to build a national consensus, badly needed to end the country's four-and-a-half years of sectarian strife. While many Shia accuse Al-Maliki of incompetence for his failure to end attacks by Sunni factions, especially by Al-Qaeda, Sunni groups blame him for failure to crackdown on Shia extremists, such as the Al-Mahdi militia, which is charged with torture, assassinations and execution-style slayings. On Sunday, Adnan Al-Dulaimi, a senior Sunni politician, threatened to take the issue to the Sunni Arab world, warning of what he called an "unprecedented genocide campaign" by Shia militias. Al-Dulaimi, whose Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni political bloc in parliament, has pulled its six ministers out from Al-Maliki's government, said the Shia were on the brink of taking total control of Baghdad and would soon threaten the Sunni Arab regimes which predominate in the wider Middle East. As impatience with his government mounts, Al-Maliki faces the daunting challenge of achieving reconciliation between the country's different groups and of stopping the sectarian violence that is threatening to tear the country apart, if he wants to stay in power. One of his main tasks will be to bring Sunni members back into his government, these having suspended their membership pending implementation of a long list of demands including a bigger role in decision-making and repealing the country's de-Baathification law. Al-Maliki will also need to lure back six other ministers loyal to the Shia cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, and five ministers associated with Allawi, a secular Shia, who have also been boycotting cabinet meetings. Nevertheless, Al-Maliki has thus far remained defiant and has not met the demands of the various groups who have pulled their ministers from his cabinet. While he can outmanoeuvre Al-Sadr's and Allawi's supporters by counting on support from his own Shia United Iraqi Alliance, he has also issued a threat to isolate the Sunni political bloc who have boycotted his government, suggesting that they could be replaced by local Sunni tribal leaders who have recently joined US-led efforts against Al-Qaeda in Iraq. "We hope to end this crisis and that the ministers will return to their ministries," Al-Maliki said at a news conference. "But if that does not happen, we will go to our other brothers who are offering their help and we will choose ministers from among them." Al-Maliki could be right in his uncompromising attitude. Even before his threat on Sunday, elected Sunni leaders worried that they could be pushed out by leaders from the Al-Anbar Salvation Council and other Sunni Arab tribal groups that have allied with the American military in its fight against Sunni extremists. In one possible sign of such a more, Al-Maliki met Al-Anbar tribal chiefs on Tuesday and later said that he was considering giving them government positions. This move to push the leaders of warring sects together comes at a time of profound political tension in Baghdad. The political crisis has now left the government without any Sunni Arab members, except the politically unaffiliated defence minister, and Iraq's minority Sunnis are expressing growing anger over perceptions of Al-Maliki as a biased and sectarian leader who has links to Iran. In the eyes of Sunnis, Al-Maliki has failed to bring all sides together after taking office in May 2006 and promising a national unity government. Indeed, many Iraqis have grown so frustrated with the government's lack of progress that they are focussing their hopes on Al-Maliki's quitting and paving the way for a more competent leader to take over. American officials have also been showing growing impatience with Al-Maliki and other Iraqi politicians, with President George W Bush's "surge" strategy in Iraq widely perceived as getting nowhere. Leading figures in the US administration have been increasing pressure on Iraq's leaders to hammer out a grand compromise on several outstanding issues, from a new oil law to provincial elections. Washington's impatience was also vividly expressed by Bush last week when he rebuked Iraq's prime minister for speaking too favourably about Iran. "My message [to him] is that when we catch you playing a non-constructive role there will be a price to pay," Bush said. Nothing better illustrates the current frustration than the abduction of the deputy petroleum minister and four other officials from their offices on Tuesday. Violence also continues as a suicide truck bomber struck a strategic bridge on a highway linking Baghdad with the northern provinces, and four suicide bomb attacks took place in Mosul that killed 200 members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect and wounded 200 others. The attacks continued as US troops in Iraq launched two major assaults against Al-Qaeda-linked militants and Shia extremists. Operations Phantom Strike and Lightning Hammer, the military announced, were being waged to build on successes during recent offensives in Baghdad and surrounding areas. A statement by the US military did not give details but said US forces would increase pressure on Al-Qaeda and its Sunni militant allies, as well as on rogue Shia militiamen nationwide. These operations are part of the "surge" strategy that has added 30,000 US troops to quell the insurgency. President Bush faces a deadline to show progress from his strategy by September, when General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, will give Congress an assessment. However, at some point both Bush and Al-Maliki will have to realise that a military solution is not forthcoming to end the deadlock. With no stable government in Baghdad, and no strong security forces, military actions are unlikely to succeed. Success will only come when Iraqi politicians are able to reach agreement on a number of key dividing issues and to set out policies to promote reconciliation between rival sectarian and political factions. (see p.7 & Editorial p.14)
