Faith Lost In Iraq PM Amid Political Limbo
Updated: 5:46pm UK, Friday 20 June 2014
By Sam Kiley, Foreign Affairs Editor, in Baghdad
The US President, Shia politicians, Sunni chieftans and none other than the Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani has joined the clamour for Iraq's Prime Minister to move fast and form a government.
The nation has languished since elections on April 30 in a political limbo that arguably undermined faith in the central government, even among the Shia-dominated armed forces.
That might, partly, explain their rapid collapse in the face of far fewer forces from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) plus their allies.
But now that Iraq's supreme court has ratified the results of the elections what possible reason could Nouri al Maliki have for delay?
One explanation may simply be political.
His stewardship over previous years has entrenched sectarian divisions and seen an explosion in corruption.
His party bloc won 92 of the 328 seats in Iraq's parliament and he'll need 165 to form a coalition administration.
He, therefore, has to get involved in some serious horse trading with other Shia parties to build his coalition.
But they are now losing faith in him. Particularly in his apparent refusal to reach out to Sunni parties and offer them stakes in the central government - such as a security portfolio and a ministry which would give them access to patronage systems such as an education or public works - so that they feel both secure and that they have an investment in the future political structures.
A more conspiratorial thesis, fuelled by the conspiratorial utterances of lame duck ministers left over from the previous administration, is that Iraq's latest travails are the fault of external forces.
Jordan, Saudi Arabia (both Sunni countries), the US and others are being blamed for manipulating the Middle East and somehow creating ISIS.
There is evidence of Saudi individual, and possible state funding, for extremist militant groups in Syria, which may include ISIS.
And Jordan has played a significant role in trying to boost the fortunes of the non-extremist Free Syrian Army.
But Mr al Maliki may have calculated that he can either weather the latest storm - or let ISIS form an impoverished caliphate in the desert north of his country which would leave the Shia with Baghdad and the south.
It's the south, after all, that holds the lion's share of the world's second largest oil reserves.
It can ship its oil out through the Gulf, via Kuwait, or via Iran.
A Shia state or semi-state would not only be self-sufficient - it would be spared the burden of sharing Iraq's spoils with other sectarian groups like the Sunni and the Kurds (who already have their own autonomy and oil industry).
Such a move, or allowing events to drift to this reality, would place the south of Iraq firmly inside Iran's imperial embrace.
That is not something that Saudi Arabia would be able to tolerate in the long term as it vies with Iran for influence in the Middle East.
Nor is it anything that a rump Sunni 'caliphate' would be able to live with - the extremists within it would forever plot how to steal it back by force.
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