The Common Ills: 8 dead in Iraq as Barack blows off visiting

Saturday, March 23, 2013

8 dead in Iraq as Barack blows off visiting

Ayad al-Tamimi (Al Mada) reports US President Barack Obama was called out by the Iraqi Parliament for Barack's visit to the region which did not include a trip to Iraq. Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) reports on the lack of influence the US has in Iraq (though one insider insists, basically: We still supply the weapons!). From Londono's article:

No one in Iraq is calling for a return to the time when the United States acted as an occupying power, dictating the tenets of the constitution and running the country’s security policy. But senior Iraqi officials lament that the United States has become little more than a bystander on hugely consequential matters, perhaps most notably a renewed effort by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to marginalize senior Sunni politicians. Maliki’s government accused the country’s former Sunni vice president of links to terrorism in December 2011, forcing him into exile.

Of course, being blown off by Barack isn't even a major blip on the chart of problems in Iraq. Ali Abel Sadah (Al-Monitor) reports:

The controversial cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is paving the way for the collapse of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. On March 19, Sadr issued a strongly worded statement in which he criticized the government and declared that "staying in the government is a sin and a fatal error." When a Shiite cleric uses the word "sin" in Iraq, it serves to prohibit or forbid.
In the statement, released by his office in Beirut, Sadr said, "The government is selling its land to the south, and claims that al-Qaeda controls some of Iraq's western and northern provinces. The country is without a president, the parliament is weak, and the judiciary is politicized. Thus, staying in this government has become more damaging than useful; remaining in the government assists 'sin' and aggression."

Iraq is facing many crises. That includes the political crisis. After the US-brokered Erbil Agreement gave Nouri al-Maliki a second term as prime minister (to overturn the results of the 2010 elections), Nouri quickly trashed the contract and refused to honor his part of the bargain. Since the summer of 2011, the Kurds, Iraqiya (which came in first in the 2010 elections) and cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr have been calling for Nouri to implement the Erbil Agreement.

Instead of honoring the contract and power sharing, Nouri's stuck to power grabbing. That's why there is no Minister of Defense, for example, all this time later. Nouri's gone through his second term and refused to nominate anyone to be Defense Minister because he wants to control everything. Including the police and army. As Eli Sugarman (The Atlantic) notes:

Iraq's increasingly powerful Shi'ite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, started accumulating power following the 2010 parliamentary elections. He secured a second term -- after a drawn out eight-month power struggle - by promising to share power with other political blocs, including Iraqiyya (a more secular party that has attracted Sunni support) and the Kurds. That promise quickly disintegrated. Instead, Al-Maliki preferred to assert personal control over the security forces, target senior Sunni officials with arrest, and otherwise eviscerate many of the safeguards enshrined in the Iraqi Constitution. His actions ignited widespread protests in Sunni majority provinces in December 2012 that continue as of writing. Today, many in Iraq's Parliament fear that he is a dictator-in-the-making.

And many Iraqis take to the streets, over 10% of the country has been in the streets in the last months as the protests have grown each week. Ghana News reports:

The demands from tens of thousands of Iraqi demonstrators on human rights issues and access to basic services must be urgently addressed by the Government, the top United Nations envoy in the country said today, warning that not doing so would increase volatility in the streets.
Since late December, thousands of demonstrators in Iraq’s western provinces have taken to the streets to voice their grievances. While the Government has taken measures to address some of their concerns, the Secretary-General’s Representative for Iraq, Martin Kobler, stressed that more needs to be done, especially in the area of human rights.
“[Demonstrators] feel unprotected, insecure, and excluded,” Mr. Kobler told the Security Council as he presented the latest report by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the activities of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). “Around the country, we listened to the demonstrators’ frustrations. Over time, they spoke more harshly and proposed more radical solutions.”

Al Mada notes that Moqtada thanked the protesters for their work today. He observes that they are calling to be a part of Iraq, not calling for sectarianism. Alsumaria adds that Moqtada stated Nouri's State of Law is acting as if Iraq doesn't need Sunnis.

Turning to the topic of violence, National Iraqi News Agency reports, "In three separate incidents, gunmen assassinated a doctor in downtown Baghdad, government official in northeastern Baghdad and wounded a mosque Imam in western Baghdad," an armed attack in Tikrit left 1 Sahwa dead and two more injured, 1 corpse was discovered in Kut, a Baquba armed attack claimed the life of 1 police officer and left another injured, and 3 police offers were shot dead in Mosul.

The following community sites -- plus Dissident Voice, the Guardian, Antiwar.com, Cindy Sheehan and PBS' The NewsHour -- updated last night and today: