Friday, August 7, 2015

Antichrist Influencing Iraqi Politics (Revelation 13)

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Fighting Over Who Heads Important Political Alliance Threatens to Split Shiite MPs
Ibrahim Saleh
At a time when the country badly needs stability, infighting about who will lead the country’s biggest political alliance is a sign of local MPs’ badly timed power games.
6.08.2015  |  Baghdad
In September 2014, senior Shiite Muslim politician Ibrahim al-Jaafari was named the leader of the Iraqi Parliament’s largest bloc of Shiite Muslim parties. The bloc is known as the National Iraqi Alliance and members include all the major political parties made up of mostly Shiite Muslim interests, such as the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the Sadrist movement and the State of Law alliance. The country’s current Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, is a member of the Dawa party, which in turn is the cornerstone of the State of Law bloc, and therefore also of the National Iraqi Alliance, or NIA; so was the country’s last Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

The problem is that al-Jaafari is also Iraq’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and he must be replaced as leader of the National Iraqi Alliance.

But this has become a problem: Just because most of the Shiite Muslim-majority parties are in the NIA doesn’t mean they always agree. During the last elections, at the end of 2014, as MPS wrangled to form a government there were major divisions within the NIA. Alliance members had to try and decide on a new Prime Minister for the country and al-Maliki, of the State of Law bloc, insisted he should retain the job despite what many saw as his poor performance over the past few years. Other Alliance members insisted that he didn’t stay in the job and threatened to withdraw their support from the bloc if he did. In the end, another member of the State of Law coalition, the far more conciliatory Haider al-Abadi, was nominated Prime Minister and things settled down again.

But now the same parties within the NIA are fighting once again – only this time their argument is not about the Prime Minister-ship, but about who leads the NIA. Some analysts have suggested that leadership of the NIA is a purely symbolic position but the infighting seems to indicate that it is actually considered more important than that.

Once again it is the State of Law bloc that is in conflict with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, or ISCI.

The State of Law bloc apparently considers that the removal of al-Maliki from the country’s top job has diminished its influence within the NIA. That is despite the fact that Prime Minister al-Abadi is also a member of the bloc. Currently the State of Law bloc are wanting to give the job to another of their senior members, Ali al-Adib.

Meanwhile the ISCI believes that their party’s leader, Ammar al-Hakim, should be heading the NIA. They say that the job is rightly his because the Alliance was actually created by al-Hakim’s father, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Additionally it would only be a fair way of splitting Iraq’s top political jobs, they say – the State of Law bloc already has the prime minister’s chair, why shouldn’t the ISCI then get the leadership of the NIA?, they argue.

Al-Hakim hasn’t officially nominated himself for the job but he has said a few things that indicate that if the issue isn’t resolved to his satisfaction, certain steps would be taken. Reading between the lines of al-Hakim’s various comments, observers say that this might mean that the ISCI could withdraw from the National Iraqi Alliance, or that the Alliance could be reformed to leave the State of Law bloc out of it.

An MP affiliated with the ISCI, Salim al-Muslimawi, told NIQASH that in fact, the ISCI prefers to keep the National Iraqi Alliance united, and that stability is especially important in the face of the challenges that Iraq currently faces.

“Any suggestions the ISCI makes aim to maintain the Alliance’s unity and strengthen it,” al-Muslimawi stated. “But if a certain bloc wants to nominate a member for leadership of the Alliance but they are not necessarily qualified to lead, then the ISCI must take appropriate steps by itself.”

Al-Muslimawi also hinted that, as they did when the issue of the new Prime Minister was being debated, that the Sadrist movement would support the ISCI.


The State of Law coalition believes that another way of resolving the issue might be to organise an election process to choose the head of the Alliance. Several other parties within the Alliance have agreed that this may be the best way forward.

The other option might be to try and find some sort of consensus internally, within the Alliance,” suggests Abbas al-Bayati, a senior member of the State of Law bloc; al-Bayati also added that he didn’t think this issue should be a problem for the Alliance

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