Friday, November 23, 2012

The powder keg Iraq

In Iraq, the political crisis on top of the political crisis continues.  Kitabat notes things are so fraught that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has had to weigh in to try to resolve the situation.  The Grand Ayatollah is calling for the Constitution to be followed with regards to the conflict.  All Iraq News notes that Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karabalai has joined the Grand Ayatollah's call.


The crisis results from Nouri sending forces into the disputed areas after years of refusing to implement Article 140 of the Constitution (which states that disputed areas will be resolved via census and referendum).  The Kurds see this is as an attempt by Nouri to seize the areas and claim them for the Baghdad-based area.  Realizing too late that Barack Obama's for-show trip to Asia was a mistake, the White House is scrambling to get more face-to-face diplomats into Iraq.  (The trip was a joke and Barack made a fool of himself.  Americans didn't give a damn about the visit, his reception on the trip was lukewarm and Hillary Clinton seized all the news interest with her trip to the MidEast leaving Barack looking like a glorified extra on the world stage.)  Reuters adds:

 Washington intervened to end a similar standoff in August and is now again in contact with Iraqi and Kurdish officials to ease tension mounting over the formation of a new command center for Iraqi forces to operate in the disputed areas.
A legislator with the Sadrist bloc, a critic of Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki within his coalition, said the talks were not serious and dismissed the entire conflict as a sham.


Iraqi politicians are attempting to resolve the issue as well.  Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi visited with KRG President Massoud Barzani Wednesday and returned to Bahgdad yesterday to meet with Nouri al-Maliki.  All Iraq News notes that they met late yesterday evening and that a statement issued by al-Nuajaif called the meeting productive.

Bit by bit, all of the political blocs are getting into the process.All Iraq News notes that the National Alliance leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari is preparing a paper on the issue.  Alsumaria notes that Kurdistan Alliance MP Mahmoud Othman is calling for Nouri al-Maliki and Massoud Barzani to sit down together (this echoes Moqtada al-Sadr's call for a working lunch between the two to be hosted by Moqtada).Kitabat reports that sources are stating Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and KRG President Massoud Barzani are discussing the option of withdrawing confidence from Nouri. Dar Addustour reports that Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi traveled to Erbil yesterday to meet with Talabani and Barzani to discuss this issue.  All Iraq News says that Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadr bloc, has given the green light for such talks. 

Kitabat picks up the story about Nouri al-Maliki declaring that Kuridstan officials could not leave the country without the federal government/s permission -- that would be Nouri's permission.  It is intended to be an inflammatory insult.  It has no teeth.  Not unlike when Nouri was screeching that the KRG had to hand over Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and they didn't have to do that and they didn't do that.  They will continue to do as they want.  They share a border with Turkey which doesn't take orders from Nouri.  Hurriyet Daily News notes:


The Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement on its website today calling for the Iraqi government to “not make imaginary assumptions about the expectations of the Turkish public, but to listen to advice instead,” according to daily Hurriyet. 
The statement was released Nov. 23 in response to a statement issued by the Iraqi Prime Ministry several days before that accused Turkey of “meddling with regional problems." 

 And we'll close with this from observations on the region by Khalaf Al Habtoor (Gulf News):

Conversely, the real news barely gets a front-page mention primarily because the American readership is disinterested in what their military has perpetrated in Afghanistan and Iraq in their name. How many care that thousands of their troops were sacrificed under democracy’s standard when, in reality, Iraq has fallen into the arms of America’s enemy Iran? Conversely, the real news barely gets a front-page mention primarily because the American readership is disinterested in what their military has perpetrated in Afghanistan and Iraq in their name. How many care that thousands of their troops were sacrificed under democracy’s standard when, in reality, Iraq has fallen into the arms of America’s enemy Iran? 
Where is their fury over up to one million lost Iraqi lives and the squandering of more than one trillion of their tax dollars? 


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