The prophecy is more than seeing into the future. For the prophecy sees without the element of time. For the prophecy sees things as they were, as they are, and as they always shall be.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Al-Maliki Resigns, Makes Way For Sadrists
Embattled Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to step aside
The Guardian
Maliki says he has accepted the candidacy of Haider al-Abadi, nominated by the president to form a government
Prime Minister al-Maliki Resigns
People hold a portrait of Nouri al-Maliki and signs as they gather in support of him in Baghdad. Photograph: Ahmed Saad/Reuters
In a speech, Iraq’s two-term leader Maliki said that he accepted the
candidacy of Haider al-Abadi, nominated last week by the Iraqi president
to form a government.
Maliki had been struggling for weeks to stay for a third four-year
term as prime minister amid an attempt by opponents to push him out,
accusing him of monopolising power and pursuing a fiercely pro-Shiite
agenda that has alienated the Sunni minority.
The pressure intensified this week when his Shiite political alliance
backed another member of his party, Abadi, to replace him, and
President Fouad Massoum nominated Abadi to form the next government.
With his announcement, Maliki was bowing to the inevitable. He had
lost the support of his party, of the president, the parliament, the
Americans, Saudis and finally the Iranian government, his biggest
foreign ally and sponsor. Even the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei,
issued a statement pointedly welcoming the appointment of Abadi.
But the confirmation of a new prime minister is only a small – albeit
essential – step towards the huge task now facing the new government in
Baghdad, which must knit the country back together again following its
spectacular and violent unravelling this year. National cohesion will
take a lot longer to recreate that it did to lose. The tribal structures
of the Sunni population, which would have to be the building blocks of
national reconstruction, have been severely damaged by Isis brutal sweep
through the country.
Abadi however, has the great advantage of not being Maliki, whose
narrow sectarian approach to government and brutal methods, made him a
hate figure for Sunnis, and ultimately a liability for the Iraqi Shia
and for Iran.
Like his successor, Maliki rose from obscurity to power, in large
part due to the frustration of the US with existing prime minister
Ibrahim Jafari. Installed in 2006 with US backing, Maliki’s star rose
within American circles in 2007 when he permitted US forces to pursue the Shia militia of Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad and later ordered his own to attack the militia in Basra.
But Washington’s faith concealed a growing vindictiveness toward his
rivals. US officials nervously watched him arrest Sunni ex-insurgents
who had agreed to fight al-Qaida. In 2008 he outmaneuvered US diplomats
seeking a long-term presence in Iraq, a precursor to the lack of Iraqi
support in 2011 for a residual force.
Once US forces left, Maliki accelerated his consolidation of power,
installing loyalists in key military and security positions. He ordered
the arrest of the top Sunni in the government. As sectarian violence
returned to Baghdad, Maliki proved unable to stop it, even as Iraqis
came to see him as a miniature Saddam Hussein.
His alienation from Washington was on stark display last fall when he
visited Obama with an urgent request for weaponry, including a
long-delayed sale of F-16s. Maliki returned to Baghdad with little more
than a pledge of Hellfire missiles and Apache attack helicopters. Isis
was at his doorstep.
Maliki’s resignation paves the way for closer US military assistance
to stop Isis, which occupies three cities, much of Iraq’s rural heart,
and continues to menace Baghdad. Isis also controls most of the border
between Iraq and Syria, has emptied the Ninevah plains of minorities
that have co-existed for several thousand years and advanced towards the
Kurdish capital, Irbil.
Iraq’s new leader has pledged to work on building bridges between the
Shia-led Government, the Sunnis and the Kurds. Central government
control has whittled away as Isis has seized ground and public
confidence in the political class has tanked.
With al-Abadi facing no further legal hurdles, he now has 26 days to
form a government. Iraq’s constitution gives a nominated prime minister
30 days to do so, however the past four days had been consumed by Maliki
refusing to leave.
US officials have indicated that an inclusive central government
would make it easier for them to provide the same sort of military
support they had to the Kurds in recent weeks. Airstrikes have slowed
the momentum of Isis near Irbil and in the country’s northwest. However
Barack Obama has ignored persistent pleas from Baghdad for similar help,
insisting that political unity first be established.
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