Arab News Blog

AP reports that guerrillas drove a car bomb into an Interior Ministry crime lab in the Karrada district of Baghdad on Tuesday, only a day after a coordinated bombing attack on the city’s hotel district, killing 22.

Al-Zaman says that a number of high-ranking officers are among the dead, and that some 80 are wounded. Many Iraqi politicians live in Karrada, an upscale Shiite neighborhood. Haydar al-Jurani, a member of parliament in the Islamic Mission Party (Hizb al-Da’wa) to which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki belongs, was walking near the building and was taken to hospital with a mild head wound.

If the attacks were meant to demoralize, they seem to be succeeding. Al-Zaman reports that many in Baghdad blame the security forces for either being incompetent, or for being actively complicit (e.g. taking bribes to allow cars through checkpoints) in the bombings.

The crime lab, which had been recently renovated with American aid funds, was almost completely destroyed. Obviously, a terrorist group would want to disrupt the forensics capabilities of the Iraqi security forces.

The Australian Broadcasting Co. has a video report:

AP’s Brian Murphy also quotes Gen. Ray Odierno, the US commander in Iraq, to the effect that the explosives used in the past two days appear to have been less powerful than in the August and December attacks, but that guerrillas have developed new tactics– having an armed band shoot it out with building security forces, e.g., clearing the way for a car bomb to be driven into the building. The US military suspects that there are bomb-making factories in the semi-rural areas just outside Baghdad, from which the payloads are driven into the capital. The guerrillas’ strategy has also shifted, Odierno, said, from a attempt to mount a popular insurgency to overwhelm the capital [in 2004-2005] to a rearguard set of small terrorist actions aimed at destabilizing the Shiite-dominated government. [Cole would add that the reason for this shift is that the Sunni Arabs have been largely ethnically cleansed from Baghdad, so that it is no longer plausible for them to take over the capital using their old demographic base in e.g. al-Mansur. Thus the spoiler actions of bombing downtown buildings, which cannot change the government but can keep it weak.]

Muhammad A. Salih reports for IPS that the Accountability and Justice Commission, which excluded some 500 candidates from running in the March 7 parliamentary elections, may be softening. It recently reinstated 59 candidates. The ostensible reason given for the exclusions was that the candidates were too closely linked to the banned Baath Party. But among those excluded was Salih al-Mutlak, who had sat in parliament as leader of the 11-seat National Dialogue Bloc and who had left the Baath Party in 1977. I am quoted saying that this move by the committee comes as too little, too late, and that the goal of the exclusions seems to be to make sure that the Shiite religious parties retain control of parliament, whichthey have had since January 2005.

Carnegie has a good overview of the politics of the exclusions. The authors maintain that Shiite ex-Baaithists were also banned, and that most of the 500 were minor political figures, but that the more prominent of them were Sunni Arabs, creating an impression of sectarian bias. The head of the Commission is a fundamentalist Shiite also running for parliament, a situation many have decried as inherently unfair.

The next big security challenge comes this weekend, with the advent of the 40th day commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at his shrine in the holy city of Karbala south of Baghdad. Some 20,000 army troops, police and other security men have been positioned through the city to forestall bombings of the pilgrims or the shrine, which would have the potential to throw Iraq back into intense ethno-sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. Pilgrims are being forbidden to wear burial shrouds, which some do to symbolize their willingness to be martyred along with Imam Husayn for the truth. I suppose authorities feel that the loose shrouds could too easily hide a belt bomb.

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Al-Zaman reports in Arabic on Monday’s string of bombings in Baghdad, in which late reports say 37 persons were killed and more than 100 wounded. The bombings especially targeted the Jadiriya district, where many foreigners, diplomats, and Iraqi policiticians reside. Al-Zaman says that most leaders of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, including Ammar al-Hakim and parliamentarian Humam al-Hamudi, live there and there is a presence as guards of the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of ISCI.

Two car bombs targeted the Palestine Meridien and the Babil hotels.

Other bombings sought to damage Al-Zuhur Hotel in a complex of hotel buildings that includes the al-Hamra’ and the Qurtaj.

Al-Hayat says that an Interior Ministry official alleged that all the bombings were suicide bombings. A Baghdad security official was quoted as saying that the suicide bomber who targeted the al-Hamra Hotel was accompanied by a band of armed men who shot it out with the hotel guards before the bomber ran his car into the building and detonated its payload.

Al=Zaman says that three katyusha rockets also targeted the US embassy in the green zone downtown. Parliament abruptly ended its session, with parliamentarians and their guards shouting that the katyushas falling on the green zone could target their session at any moment, and hurrying out of the hall.

In other violence on Monday, 7 were killed in political attacks in Mosul and two policemen were attacked in the northern contested city of Kirkuk.

AP has video:

The bombings are similar to those in August and December, so that it is probably not accurate to tie them to the upcoming parliamentary elections as some observers. including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are doing. They are not connected to specific events, but rather the manifestation of a still-powerful Sunni Arab guerrilla insurgency unreconciled to the emergence of a Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated Iraq, and which is determined to destabilize and overthrow this new ruling government.

Sawt al-Iraq transmits analysis from the Kuwaiti al-Qabas that points out that the attacks demonstrate the existence of a sophisticated intelligence and planning cell within the insurgency that is capable of gathering the detailed information necessary for such an attack and coordinating multiple field officers. The piece also laments that Iraqi government security forces seem still to be relatively incompetent at forestalling these periodic big assaults on Baghdad’s landmarks. Those security forces are at the moment a laughingstock because of their preference for phoney ‘bomb-detecting devices’ that are just a scam of some British company, which the UK government has now forbidden to export to Iraq.

Al-Qabas also argues that the attacks on fancy hotels were clearly aimed at hurting foreign investment in Iraq, at discouraging foreigners from visiting the country (and thus isolating it) and in hurting public confidence. The hotels also have the advantage of being relatively soft targets with regard to security, as compared to Iraqi military installations. Since so many journalists stay in those hotels, the attacks were sure to get a lot of publicity and to send the signal that the new Iraq is unstable and perhaps unsustainable.

But if the bombings are not necessarily motivated by upcoming elections, the article says, they are nevertheless likely to have an effect on them. They come after 500 mostly Sunni Arab candidates were disqualified from running in the March 7 parliamentary elections, and at a time when rumors are rife that high-ranking Sunni Arabs will be purged from the military and security agencies.

These steps derive in part from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s preoccupation with the threat of a Baathist comeback, but the purges he backs risk further alienating ordinary Sunni Arabs who had joined the party for instrumental rather than ideological reasons. The party after all ruled for 35 years, and few Iraqis had nothing at all to do with it.

And the attacks came on the day that the Iraqi government executed Ali Hasan al-Majid al-Tikriti, a cousin of Saddam Hussein, who used poison gas to repress the Kurds in 1988 (killing 5000 at Halabja), and who brutally put down a Shiite rebellion in spring, 1991, after the Gulf War. Aljazeera English has his obituary:

Iraqi Kurdistan erupted with joy at the news of the execution, though some Kurds expressed disappointment that it was not televised. The Iraqi government took pride in the execution having not been marred by the taunting and use of cell phones to record it that marred the execution of Saddam Hussein, and Kurdistan officials concurred. One regret many Kurds had was that the judgment against “Chemical Ali” had condemned him for “crimes against humanity” rather than, as they had wanted, for “genocide.”

The president of the Kurdistan super-province of Iraq, Massoud Barzani, is in Washington for consultations with President Barack Obama, another point of pride for Iraqi Kurds.

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Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Baghdad on Friday in a bid to settle conflicts over the March 7 parliamentary elections.

The exclusion of hundreds of candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections by the Accountability and Justice Committee, and signed off on by the High Electoral Commission, continues to generate lively controversy in Iraq. On Friday, the HEC head, Faraj al-Haidari, told AP that he expected yet more candidates to be excluded. Most of the ex-Baathists being forbidden from running are Sunni Arabs, many running on secular parties, so that the move benefits the Shiite religious parties. Some suspect that the latter are being pressured by Iran or are trying to please it by excluding Arab nationalists (many of whom supported Iraq’s invasion of Iran in the 1980s). Reidar Vissar breaks down the some 500 candidates excluded by party and finds that the list targets the secular parties.

For the Obama administration, the stakes are high. If current Sunni-Shiite tensions over the elections boil over, the ensuing instability could endanger the withdrawal timetable to which Obama is committed. The 110,000 US troops now in Iraq will help lock the country down for the March 7 elections, and after that more than half will be withdrawn through the spring and summer.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Biden met with the presidential council (President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd; Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi (a Sunni Arab); and Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi (a Shiite). Abdul Mahdi is recently returned from Iran, and is said to have briefed Biden on Tehran’s view of the Iraq crisis. Biden then met separately with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Zaman says that Biden agrees with Talabani that the Accountability and Justice Committee has no legal standing, and urged Iraqi leaders nt to allow it to damage the credibility of the March parliamentary elections.

Al-Hayat writing in Arabic points out that there is a conflict between President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over the issue. Talabani questioned the legitimacy of the Accountability and Justice Committee, saying no such body had been authorized by the parliament. He also said that while those who followed or were close to Saddam Hussein could be legitimately excluded from politics, mere former members of the Baath Party should not (the party ruled Iraq for 35 years and lots of people felt they had to join for various reasons, even just to get a passport.) Al-Maliki has supported the exclusions, though he went further in a speech on Friday and said that the electoral commission alone could not hope to wipe out the Baath legacy, but rather it was the task of the Iraqi electorate.

Biden’s mission was rejected as outside interference by several Iraqi politicians, including Abdul Karim Anazi, a leader of the (Shiite fundamentalist) Islamic Dawa- Internal Organization, and al-Maliki spokesman Ali Dabbagh.

One possible solution suggested by some is to have Salih Mutlak, the most prominent of the politicians excluded from runnin in March, sign a formal disavowel of the Baath Party. Mutlak’s National Dialogue Bloc has 11 seats in the current parliament and is part of the joint Sunni-Shiite, secular-leaning National Coalition. On Friday, Mutlak said he would sign no disavowal, since it was effectively a ‘test of honorability’ to which he could not subject himself. He has appealed the ruling of the High Electoral Commission to the courts, and says he expects to be reinstated as a candidate.

Aljazeera English reports on the electoral controversy in Iraq over the exclusion of ‘Baathist’ candidates and parties.

The Baath or ‘resurrection’ party was formed in the 1940s and combined pan-Arab nationalism with socialist economic principles. After a short-lived coup in 1963, it came to power in Iraq in 1968 and ruled until overthrown by George W. Bush in 2003. A one-party state, it created a large public sector and repressed dissent. In the period 1988-1992 it committed massacres of Kurds and Shiites over their perceived inclination toward Iran, with which Iraq fought a vicious war 1980-1988. From 1979, the head of the party was Saddam Hussein, a particularly brutal dictator who promoted a disproportionate number of Sunni Arabs into leadership roles.

The Baath era still haunts Iraqi politics. On Friday, Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr denounced his Shiite rival, cleric Ammar al-Hakim, for cooperating with the American occupation and being soft on the Baathists. Al-Hakim leads the Shiite fundamentalist Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which has indeed cooperated with the US. But ISCI is as anti-Baath as the other Shiite religious parties. Sadr is likely trying to hurt ISCI’s electoral chances.

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Five large bombs were detonated throughout Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 127 persons and wounding 500, and damaging important government buildings. Three of the five were suicide bombs.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the bombings targeted the ministries of the interior and of finance, as well as a popular market and a court house. They hit on either side of Karkh and Rusafa districts. The first bombing struck at the gates of a Technical Institute in Dora, about 10:05 am, and then a courthouse in Karkh. The final bombing occurred in the Western Sunni district of Mansur, striking near a federal police building and a publicity office of the US military. The Ministry of Finance building hit on the edge of a market was the one employees moved into when the original Finance offices were destroyed by a massive bombing in October. Over-all, many of the dead were police or officers.

The streets were eerily empty in the aftermath of the attacks, and American helicopters hovered above the sites that had been bombed, according to al-Zaman. Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that security at checkpoints was redoubled after the bombings.

Parliament’s Security Committee announced that it would question security-related cabinet ministers on December 17 as to how this serious lapse in security occurred. Hadi al-Amiri, chair of that committee, is head of the Badr Organization, a Shiite paramilitary related to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a pro-Iran, fundamentalist Shiite party. ISCI took a bath in last January’s parliamentary elections, facing a strong challenge in Baghdad and Basra from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Dawa or Islamic Mission Party. Some of the outrage directed at the government is probably related to the upcoming parliamentary elections, in which attempts will be made to depict al-Maliki and Dawa as ineffective in providing security. Al-Zaman, reporting in Arabic, says that Baha’ al-A’raji, a Sadrist MP, also slammed the government for failing to stop the bombings.

What I remember is that bombings were a feature of Baghdad life when the US was actively patrolling

Aljazeera English reports on the dilemma created for Washington by the security challenge in Baghdad.

Aljazeera notes that some US media outlets did not bother to cover these attacks in Iraq, and wonders if the story will return. I think the answer depends on the journalistic integrity of the outlet. For many, the answer will be no. Many US media are nationalist media, and cover stories having to do with US national projects. Americans have already decided that Iraq was a mistake, and they know the US military is leaving, and so what happens there is not “news” as much of the corporate media defines it (i.e. a story that generates profits because of wide public interest in it).

CBS, to its credit, did cover the story:

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Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who is a Sunni Arab, has vetoed the election law recently passed by parliament. Iraq has a president (currently a Kurd, Jalal Talabani) and two vice presidents (the other is Adil Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq). Al-Hashimi reportedly dislikes being call the “Sunni vice president,” but that is certainly how he acted with his veto. In the Iraqi constitution, the president and the two vice presidents function as a “presidential council” who are supposed to decide whether parliamentary legislation should be approved or not. Iraqi practice has been to read the constitution to require that the presidential council pass legislation unanimously, creating a veto power for each of the three members.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (from the Shiite fundamentalist Da’wa or Islamic Mission Party) criticized al-Hashimi’s move, calling it a “dire threat” to the political process. He asked the Iraqi High Electoral Commission to continue to prepare to have elections in January. The Commission, however, announced that it was halting all arrangements for the election “without delay.” But the High Electoral Commission instead said that it was ceasing preparation for the elections, scheduled for mid-January.

The move threatens to postpone the elections and even to create a political vacuum and create a constitutional vacuum.

Al-Hashimi said he did not intend to veto the bill in toto, just the part of it that specifies that Iraqis in exile abroad will fill only 5% of seats. Since there are thought to be over a million Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan, and since most are Sunnis, this provision reduces the weight of the Sunni Arabs in the election. Al-Hashimi wants the proportion of seats set aside for expatriates and religious minorities set at 10% or 15% instead.

Al-Zaman writing in Arabic stressed that Gen. Ray Odierno said that no big decisions about the pace of American withdrawal have to be made until spring, 2010, so that a slight delay in the holding of the parliamentary election would not much affect US troops.

Aljazeera English has an interview with VPTariq al-Hashimi:

Reidar Visser has more on the electoral crisis.

Meanwhile, US military suicides are headed for a record, provoking dismay and puzzlement at the Pentagon.

Russia Today interviews Adam Kokus, an Iraq War veteran, on the spike in US military suicides:

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Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the Iraqi parliament approved the electoral law to govern the elections scheduled for early next year. The vote was 141 in favor out of what Al-Zaman said were 175 attending (the Iraqi parliament has 275 seats, so a simple majority is 138). AFP estimated attending MPs at 195.

President Barack Obama hailed the vote as “an important milestone as the Iraqi people continue to take responsibility for their future.” In other words, it means to the Obama administration that the time when they can get out of Iraq is nearer. US ambassador Christopher Hill is said to have played a key mediating role in pushing the law through after it was voted on and failed to pass numerous times.

The Kurdistan Alliance scored a major victory insofar as the law agrees to use the 2009 voting rolls for the polls in Kirkuk Province. The Kurdistan Regional Government began as a provincial confederacy incorporating 3 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, but over time the original provincial administrations and borders were erased, leaving the KRG as a super-province in its own right. Kurdistan wishes to incorporate into itself a fourth province, oil-rich Kirkuk, which has a mixed population of Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs. Turkmen and Arabs on the whole do not wish to become part of Kurdistan. There has been enormous Kurdish immigration into Kirkuk in recent years. Kurds say these immigrants had been in Kirkuk but were expelled by Saddam, who brought up Arabs to Arabize the province.

But there were lots of Arabs in Kirkuk before Arabization, and probably a significant proportion of new Kurdish immigrants were not traditionally residents there. Arabs and Turkmen also charge that the current voting rolls are full of fraudulent names, as Kurds have attempted to pack the registration list. The Arab and Turkmen members of parliament had wanted the 2004 electoral rolls used, to offset the likelihood of a Kurdish landslide in Kirkuk province that might set the stage for its full incorporation into the Kurdistan Regional Government. The compromise is that the Kirkuk electoral rolls will be subject to special scrutiny. If at least 5% of voter registration in a district is found fraudulent, then any 55 parliamentarians may call for a recount.

Al-Zaman says that during the moments when the vote was taken and the results announced, the chamber was in chaos. Some members of parliament doubted that the measure actually received 141 votes. The Kurdistan Alliance MPs went wild with joy at the passage of the law in this form.

Some members of parliament objected to a provision whereby displaced Iraqi outside their own original places of residence are not allowed to vote. Given the ethnic cleansing of so many Sunni Arabs of Baghdad and environs this provision probably hurts the Sunni Arab parties. Critics of the measure said it was unconstitutional, since the Iraqi constitution does not tie voting rights for citizens to place of residence.

The election had been scheduled for January 16, but it is now set for January 23. Ambassador Hill is reportedly pushing hard for that date as final.

Nevertheless, al-Zaman reports that the Iraqi High Commission says that this law was enacted too late to hold the election on time. He is requesting a 3-month delay, to April 16. This delay would affect Americans, since the US military is being kept in Iraq at this point primarily so that it can lock down the country for 3 days to allow voters to go to the polls without being blown up. Delaying the date of the election might delay the timeline for taking troops out of the country. This delay is no doubt what spurred Ambassador Hill to insist that January 23 is the firm date. Constitutionally, moreover, the election must take place in January.

The law calls for a system wherein voters vote for candidates by name, though these are part of an electoral list or party. This system should not be confused with the US and British open voting, wherein one can vote for candidates regardless of their party or even vote for independents. In Iraq, the party lists still put up the candidates. Iraqis contrast this “Modified List” system to the closed list system that had been used for previous elections, where voters only have the option of choosing an electoral list or party when they vote, but had no control over which candidates the victorious party would seat in parliament.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraqi Shiites, had campaigned hard for a modified list system, appearing to believe that the closed list encourages sectarianism, and that it is undemocratic insofar as it detracted from popular sovereignty (the people should have a say in particular politicians elected and not just which party gets to choose them).

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that the number of seats in parliament will be expanded from 275 to 310 by this law.

The passage of the electoral law now allows Iraq to proceed on something like the timeline envisaged for it in the Status of Forces Agreement. If the election is held on January 23, there will probably be months of wrangling over who will be the new prime minister. But that indecision should not be a bar to withdrawing US troops, who are continuing to come out of Iraq ahead of schedule.

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The death toll of Sunday’s twin bombings in Baghdad has risen to 155, and tragically it turns out that two dozen children were among the victims.

I still disagree with those who have been alleging that the bombing puts the upcoming parliamentary election in question, or raises questions about whether the Iraqi troops can keep order. These big bombings have been going on for years, and they went on when the US was in charge of security, as well. In fact, civilian deaths from political violence have fallen in recent months.

Although initial reports about the massive bombings in Baghdad on Sunday said that they were car bombs, McClatchy is now reporting that they were large trucks. One was packed with C4 explosives and the other with TNT. The Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq are still mining old Baath weapons depots, but my suspicion is that the C4 probably was imported from outside the country. Al-Hayat transmits from AFP in Arabic that one of the trucks was a Renault from the Water Department in Falluja, a city to the west of Baghdad that has been a center of Sunni Arab fundamentalist resistance to the US and the Shiite government. In November-December of 2004, the US military invaded and destroyed Falluja, so there may be people there for whom Sunday’s bombings were a form of revenge on the capital.

Many in Baghdad are scratching their heads and wondering how in the world these big trucks filled with explosives were allowed to get anywhere near government ministries. Dark suspicions of security personnel bribed or traitorous are circulating.

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reports in Arabic that public confidence in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been shaken by the bombings, and quotes opposition politicians from rival groups such as the Sadrists as slamming the PM for not doing enough to provide security in the capital.

In the light of the security lapses for which he is now being taken to task, al-Maliki’s decision to stay out of the National Iraqi Alliance coalition joined by most other Shiite parties may have been the wrong move. He is now running against parties which can depict themselves as out of power and so not responsible for the steady drumbeat of bombings. Al-Maliki has no larger coalition partners in whom he could take cover. If his Da’wa Party loses big time in the parliamentary elections, that loss could help destabilize Iraq. A new prime minister will have to struggle to get hold of the security and intelligence forces, and the US military will have to work with a new cast of characters.

Government workers who reported for work on Monday, according to CBS, said that they felt as though they were at a funeral. Some were afraid there might be more attacks on government offices:

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that there is a great deal of popular anger over the slowness of the rescue operations in Baghdad.

Aljazeera English reports on popular anger at the government and security forces over the lapses that allowed the drivers of the trucks to position themselves downtown in the morning.

Russia Today’s Baghdad offices were devastated by the blasts, and that channel reports from Baghdad:

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Al-Hayat reporting in Arabic surveyed the reactions of Iraqi politicians to the massive bombings on Sunday. As with Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, they blamed remnants of the former, Baath, regime and “al-Qaeda” (Sunni fundamentalist militants). I was struck by how they for the most part responded technocratically, by pledging a review and an improvement of security procedures.

As I predicted yesterday, some figures are already using the blasts for politics. Hadi al-Ameri, a member of parliament and a leader of the paramilitary hard line Shiite Badr Corps, implicitly came after al-Maliki. “We’ve heard a lot of brouhaha about successes on the security front,” he said. “Where are these successes?” The Badr Corps is aligned with its parent organization, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), which is running against al-Maliki’s State of Laws coalition in January.

Al-Zaman reports on some of the casualties. A woman member of parliament, Maha al-Duri, was wounded and two of her bodyguards were killed. The lieutenant governor of Baghdad Province was wounded. Several members of the Sadr Bloc were wounded as they were commemorating the anniversary of the death of Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr in the Justice Ministry building.

Meanwhile, one of the more contentious issues in the upcoming parliamentary elections is how to deal with the contested province of Kirkuk. The USG Open Source Center translates an article from the Kurdish press in which major Kurdish parties threaten to boycott the elections if a special election law for Kirkuk is passed. (Kirkuk is by now probably majority Kurdish, so the Kurds will dominate its provincial council unless the Kurdish bloc is diluted by special provisions in the electoral law).

Iraqi Kurdish lists to boycott elections if consensus not reached
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Document Type: OSC Summary

Iraqi Kurdish lists to boycott elections if consensus not reached

The Kurdistan Alliance and the Islamic Union of Kurdistan (IUK) lists have said they would boycott the Iraqi upcoming parliamentary elections if a special election law for Kirkuk is passed, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) media website reported on 24 October.

The alliance and the IUK’s representatives expressed their concerns in a press conference which was held today in the Iraqi parliament’s office in Arbil Governorate.

The deputy head of the alliance, Sa’di Barzinji, said in the press conference that there were elements in the Iraqi parliament who wanted to pass a special election law for Kirkuk, adding that such efforts were contrary to the country’s constitution.

We, the Kurds, work in accordance with the Iraqi constitution, and the country’s High Constitutional Court has rejected a special election law for Kirkuk, Barzinji said.

Barzinji said that no changes were made to the voter registration, referring to these elements’ demand for a special election law.

He said that the increase in Kirkuk’s voter registration was only 30 per cent, while in other parts of Iraq was 100 per cent. He added that the number of Kurds in the city was significantly reduced during the country’s former regime and thousands of them were killed in the area.

Barzinji said that they would not allow the special election law to pass, even if it is passed, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, can veto it twice and that the law also needed 66 per cent of the parliamentary votes to be passed.
Barzinji said that the Kurds would not participate in the elections if such law is passed; and the Kurds wanted an open election system.

Meanwhile, the IUK’s MP in the Iraqi parliament, Zuhair Khoshnaw, said that his list would not allow a special election law to pass for Kirkuk, adding that the efforts to pass the law were contrary to the constitution.

Khoshnaw said that the Kurds wanted Kirkuk to be treated like other parts of the country. He added that if they did not reach an agreement with the other parties in the parliament, they would refer the issue to the Iraqi political council.

(Description of Source: (Internet) Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Sorani Kurdish — Patriotic Union of Kurdistan media website)

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President Barack Obama’s meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Tuesday generated few deadlines, but some important things were said.

Obama stressed the need for the Iraqi parliament to pass an election law to enable parliamentary elections to be held on January 16. If the law isn’t passed soon, the elections won’t be held on schedule.

This delay would be a severe problem for the US military, which is stuck in Iraq without much to do but waiting to play one last big role, in closing down the country and providing enough security so that elections can be held. While the Iraqi army has gotten better at doing independent patrols and taking on gangs and militias in Shiite areas, it still is not very much in control of the Sunni regions, and it is not clear that it could oversee elections even in the wilder Shiite provinces such as Maysan. (That Iraq still cannot hope to have a simple election without massive security and the prohibition of vehicular traffic for 3 days speaks eloquently to how hard a row genuine democracy still has in that country. That US troops are available for joint patrols with the Iraqi army, which it helped train, but that the Iraqi army is studiedly disinterested, shows how much Americans are actually disliked in Iraq, a very nationalistic country that feels itself run roughshod over).

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the Iraqi parliament has thrown up its hands in despair about crafting an election law. Many parliamentarians haven’t even been coming to the sessions, because there is such bad blood among the MPs over this and other issues. Some blame the intransigence of the Kurdistan Alliance, which is sensitive about the conditions under which elections are conducted in Kirkuk Province, which the Kurdistan Regional Government wants to annex, but the annexation of which is opposed by Arabs and Turkmen.

So parliament is asking the Political Council for National Security to draft the legislation, and to have parliament simply conduct an up and down vote on the resulting bill. The PCNS consists of President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, Vice President Adil Abdul Maliki, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and Kurdistan Regional Government president Massoud Barzani. The council is not specified in the constitution, much less having been given a legislative role, and some critics of this plan are complaining that it is unconstitutional.

It takes 90 days to organize an election in Iraq, so last Monday was technically the deadline for the passage of the legislation. The election must be held by Jan. 31 to be constitutional. The prospect of another sketchy election, after the fiasco in Afghanistan, is worrying the UN and the US military.

Meanwhile, what is probably the last of three major political coalitions was announced on Tuesday, and is analyzed by Reidar Vissar. It comprises both the Sunni Awakening Councils of al-Anbar under the leadership of Abu Risha, and the coterie of Interior Minister Jawad al-Bulani, a Shiite independent. Reidar hails it as cross-sectarian but admits that it may not amount to much in the actual election. I concur in his pessimism. My guess is that the Shiite religious coalition and the Government of Laws coalition (mainly the Islamic Mission or Da’wa Party) of PM al-Maliki will be the major Arab forces in the election, and will likely go into a post-election coalition with one another, preserving the dominance of the religious Shiites.

One wild card is that the Iraqi constitution stipulates that the largest single party in parliament gets the first shot at forming a government. If al-Maliki’s party doesn’t do as well as he expects, he could well lose the prime ministership. Since some of the improved security in Iraq derived from al-Maliki’s talent in gaining control of the army and security forces, and since a new prime minister may not be as adept, the post-election situation in Iraq could be very unstable. That situation would in turn put pressure on the Obama administration to slow the US troop drawdown, at a time when Afghanistan will likely still be very hot and making demands on the administration’s resources. Bush bequeathed Obama two major wars, and it would be ironic if Iraq and Afghanistan both deteriorate simultaneously, putting a squeeze play on the administration and endangering its reelection prospects.

Here is the White House video of the Obama/al-Maliki press conference. (Al-Maliki looks a little impatient during the long preface on Afghanistan issues, which surely signal which country is more important to President Obama). The emphasis on investment opportunities in Iraq is probably premature; if a country can’t hold elections without a large foreign army’s help, it is too soon to make big investments in it.

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Mortars were fired in Baghdad, killing 7, and three bombs went off in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing 4 and wounding 48. The bombings were near to holy Shiite shrines, which is extremely dangerous. The bombing of the golden dome at Samarra in February of 2006 set off a vicious Sunni-Shiite civil war that killed thousands each month. The shrine of Imam Husayn, the Prophet’s martyred grandson, in Karbala is among the holiest sites of Shiite Islam.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered the closing for one week of Mustansiriya University in downtown Baghdad and the banning of partisan political activity on campus. The moves alarmed the PM’s critics, who worry that he is gradually abolishing the freedom of speech in the new Iraq and making himself a strongman.

Aljazeera English has video:

Mustansiriya’s student government and administration has been dominated by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and by the Sadr Movement, two Shiite religious parties that are rivals of the Islamic Mission (Da’wa) Party of PM al-Maliki. Although Western reporters for some odd reason want to depict Da’wa as more secular than the others, it is not. It is, however, less puritanical than the Sadrists and led by lay fundamentalists rather than by clerics, in contrast to ISCI. Since ISCI and the Sadrists are part of the National Iraqi Alliance coalition contesting the upcoming parliamentary elections, and Maliki’s Da`wa is running against them on the Government of Laws slate, there is bad blood among the Shiite fundamentalist parties at the moment.

Mustansiriya U.’s president was Imad al-Husayni of the Islamic Supreme Council of iraq. Then Minister of Higher Education Abd Dhiyab al-`Ujayli dismissed al-Husayni and appointed Taqi al-Musawi as university president. But al-Husayni refused to step down. So Mustansiriya U. limped along with two administrations that were constantly fighting with one another.

Then PM al-Maliki stepped in and appointed a third man, a professor in the School of Education, as leader of the university. But that only produced three rival administrations. But beyond personality conflicts, the religious parties and the student unions they dominate were jockeying with one another.

When al-Maliki appointed a personal friend as president, it set off two days of student demonstrations and protests, on Monday and Tuesday, demanding al-Husayni’s reinstatement (i.e. the student unions controlled by ISCI were attempting to flex their muscles). In Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, institutions of higher education have often come to be controlled by fundamentalist political parties, who then give preference to student party members from their party in the admissions process and also favor party members for faculty posts. That is, universities are often part of the same spoils system that operates in government ministries. Having control of a university has many benefits for a party, since it provides it with opportunities for patronage, and gives it a large, visible social space and lots of potential campaign workers.

So al-Maliki was perceived as shifting Mustansiriya out of the ISCI column and making an attempt to put it under the control of his Islamic Mission Party.

Al-Maliki has reacted to the strikes and demonstrations by closing the university down for a while and dissolving the party-based student organizations, attempting to depoliticize student activism. It remains to be seen whether the closing will have much effect, and whether it is really possible to stop politics on campus by fiat.

As for the charge that al-Maliki is acting unconstitutionally in forbidding partisan political activities on campus, it has merit. It would be as though US universities were forbidden to host the Young Republicans or the Young Democrats. Iraq may or may not regain political stability any time soon, but the likelihood that it will have democratic government is low.

Ominously, Iraq has had to slash its government budget and is running a substantial budget deficit this year which is impeeding both spending on civilian infrastructure and the purchase of military equipment.

And, the Kurdistan Regional Government and al-Maliki’s Baghdad are sparring over oil exports. The Kurds are on strike, refusing to export the 100,000 barrels a day their region typically had been sending out through federal government pipelines. A deep Kurdish-Arab divide could end the alliance Kurdish parties have had with the Shiites in parliament, and set the stage for one more civil war.

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