August 17, 2010
Allawi Pulls Out of Iraqi Government Talks Due to Name-Calling
Welcome to the war that’s going well. Or at least, that’s what they say:
A major U.S. diplomatic push aimed at promoting a coalition government between the two top vote winners in Iraq’s long-stalemated national elections suffered a setback Monday when former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi broke off negotiations with his nearest rival, current Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.
Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc, which narrowly came in first in the March voting, announced it was suspending talks with al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc until Maliki apologized for a comment in a TV interview aired Monday in which he described Iraqiya as a “Sunni” bloc.
Allawi is a secular Shiite whose bloc attracted the support of most members of Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority, but also a fair number of Shiites, and it is the only parliamentary bloc that can claim a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites among its ranks.
Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoon Damluji said Maliki’s comment mischaracterized Iraqiya. “We are a nationalist, non-sectarian bloc. We don’t think in terms of Iraq as being Sunni, Shiite and Kurd,” she said. “We refuse to negotiate with anyone who sees us as other than we are.”
I see the adults have taken over in Iraq. Remember, of course, that the Shiites and Sunnis have no history of sectarian strife because “Iraq’s always been very secular,” according to Bill Kristol.
Let me posit that this probably gets us closer to an actual government. The Shiites were simply not interested in a national unity coalition with Allawi’s bloc, even if he won the most seats in Parliament. With Allawi out of the way, a Shiite coalition can emerge if they decide on a Prime Minister candidate. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise if Allawi was just looking for an excuse to pull out of the stalemated talks. While the Iraqi National Alliance, the more hard-liner, religious Shiite bloc, has refused to negotiate with Maliki as well, you can see them reaching some accommodation now that Iraqiya is out of the way. That probably doesn’t end with Maliki as the Prime Minister, since the INA demanded he step down as a condition of their joining the coalition.
I don’t know if this outcome is positive for the people of Iraq at all. But Allawi was no picnic, either. At least some faction of the US wanted Maliki and Allawi to basically govern together, but it seems that both of them have been rejected. This creates uncertainty about who will emerge, and the resulting power vacuum of five months-plus without a government has already taken its toll on Iraq. Just this morning, a suicide bomber killed 61 people outside a Army recruitment center as they queued up to join the security forces.
Compared to Afghanistan, this looks like a glorious victory, which is more a commentary on Afghanistan than Iraq.
Source: http://articlesofinterest-kelley.blogspot.com/2010/08/allawi-pulls-out-of-iraqi-government.html
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