Iraq: Government Finally Seated…Now What?
December 22nd, 2010 by Jason
With the Iraqi government finally in place, commentators and average Iraqis are beginning to take stock of the nine-month process and look toward the future. Liz Sly, writing in The Washington Post, profiles Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the claims that he may be “another Iraqi strongman in the making,” noting that his critics say he has an “authoritarian streak.” Sean Kane of the United States Institute of Peace argues at The Middle East Channel that “Iraq’s Parliament now offers the best hope for political change and progress towards the consolidation of Iraq’s fledgling democracy.” Kane goes on to say that the new found power of Speaker Osama Najafi of Iraqiyya and his First Deputy Qusayal-Suhail, a leading member of the Sadrist coalition, is “noteworthy and represents an opportunity,” for the parliament to exert itself more prominently into Iraqi politics.
Meanwhile, the BBC and The New York Times blog At War both provide perspectives from average Iraqis. One young man from Baghdad told the BBC that the new government “‘is like running a car with cooking oil.’” And a man in Najaf told At War “‘The same people who were against the government and attempting to weaken it by all means portrayed themselves as trouble solvers. […] Now they are part of it. Let’s see what they will bring to the people. I hope they are honest.’”
Posted in Iraq, Political Parties, Sectarianism | Comment »
Lebanon: Khamenei Dismisses STL, “Justice is More Important” Than Stability
December 21st, 2010 by Jason
Speaking during a meeting with the Qatari emir yesterday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) “‘a rubber-stamp one whose verdict is null and void whatever it is.’” The Daily Star reports that the statement from the leader of Iran was not well received by many in Lebanon. “Labor Minister Butros Harb criticized Khamenei’s remarks, saying that it was up to the Lebanese to decide, ‘and not for others to dictate to them how to deal with the tribunal.’” Also in The Daily Star, Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir worries about a possible take over by Hizbullah: “The way Hizbullah is acting and their talk about becoming a significant force leads us to believe that if the party continues to pursue its plan it could seize power.” The patriarch also contradicted the recent assertion by Roger Cohen that stability “trumps” justice, saying “‘Justice is justice and if we sacrifice it once, we could sacrifice it many times. Stability is important but justice is more important and guarantees stability.’”
Posted in Hezbollah, Iran, Lebanon, Political Parties, Sectarianism | Comment »
Iraq: Government Formation Delayed, Sadrists Make Gains
December 20th, 2010 by Jason
After initial reports that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would announce his cabinet today, speaker of the parliament Osama al-Nujaifi told reporters that the parliament would not meet to discuss cabinet appointments. There have also been reports that the prime minister would announce half of his cabinet posts today, with the rest to be announced later. Maliki has until December 25 to unveil his government which will then be subject to parliamentary approval. An editorial in Saturday’s The Wall Street Journal warned that “the deal could fall apart,” while an editorial in today’s The Daily Star argues “if Iraq’s lawmakers cannot take into account the needs of their populace - irrespective of race or creed - regression will surely follow.”
Meanwhile, Jack Healy writes in The New York Times that the Sadrist Movement, led by Muqtada al-Sadr, is “tracing a path mapped out by militant groups like Hezbollah or Hamas, which built popular support by augmenting their armed wings with social and political groups that ran schools and hospitals and handed out jobs.” Healy also reports that the group is vying for the governorship of Maysan province.
Update: P.M. Maliki appeared with Speaker Nujaifi at a press conference Monday evening in Baghdad to announce his list of cabinet officials according to the Associated Press. However, “nearly one-third of the nominees were only acting ministers, an attempt to buy time to work out disagreements with a key part of al-Maliki’s coalition — the hardline Shiite faction loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.”
Posted in Iraq, Islamist movements, Political Parties, Sectarianism | Comment »
Iraq: Allawi to Join Government
December 15th, 2010 by Jason
Steven Lee Myers reports that Ayad Allawi has agreed to join the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. “Mr. Allawi did so grudgingly and with conditions, warning that an agreement brokered by the United States to form a broad power-sharing coalition government under Mr. Maliki’s leadership could still unravel.” Meanwhile, Reidar Visser excoriated the U.S. for over-stating the political progress in Iraq at recent meeting of the United Nations Security Council. “They do not even seem to notice that the Iraqi parliament has yet to address the legal framework for the supposed cornerstone of the power-sharing ‘deal’, the national council for high policies, without which the whole ‘agreement’ is basically a spin-doctor masquerade.”
Posted in Iraq, Political Parties, Sectarianism, US foreign policy, United Nations | Comment »
Lebanon: Stability “Trumps” Justice
December 13th, 2010 by Jason
Roger Cohen, writing in The New York Times, describes Lebanon as a “gravity-defying…country with two armies, a ‘unity’ government too divided to meet, a wild real estate boom and a time bomb called the ‘international tribunal.’” Attitudes in Lebanon about the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) have changed significantly since its inception. This change is embodied by Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Druze community: “A recent meeting between Jumblatt and Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S. assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, did not go smoothly. ‘He told me I’m a national leader and should back the tribunal,’ Jumblatt said. ‘I said, no, I prefer to be a tribal leader, I’m downgrading! And I asked what the use of tribunal justice is if it leads to slaughter? It’s better to drop justice for stability.’” Jumblatt’s notion of stability over justice is echoed by Cohen. “Lebanese stability is precious and tenuous: It trumps justice delayed, flawed and foreign.”
Posted in Hezbollah, Lebanon, Political Parties, Sectarianism, US foreign policy | Comment »
POMED Notes: “Crisis in Lebanon: Sectarian Politics, Regional Dynamics, and the U.N. Special Tribunal”
December 8th, 2010 by Jason
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) held a panel discussion Wednesday titled “Crisis in Lebanon: Sectarian Politics, Regional Dynamics, and the U.N. Special Tribunal.” The speakers were Aram Nerguizian, a scholar with the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Randa Slim, an independent consultant and a board member of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue and the Project on Middle East Democracy, Andrew J. Tabler, a Next Generation Fellow in the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute, and Mona Yacoubian, head of the Lebanon Working Group at USIP and special adviser to USIP’s Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention.
(To read full notes, continue below the fold or click here for pdf.)
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Posted in Civil Society, DC Event Notes, Hezbollah, Israel, Judiciary, Lebanon, Military, Political Parties, Saudi Arabia, Sectarianism, Syria, US foreign policy, United Nations | Comment »
POMED Notes: “The Realities of Power Sharing in the Next Iraqi Government”
December 7th, 2010 by Jason
The Middle East Institute (MEI) held an event on Tuesday titled “The Realities of Power Sharing in the Next Iraqi Government” with Reidar Visser. The event was held to mark the release of Visser’s new book, “A Responsible End?: The United States and the Iraqi Transition, 2005-2010.” Visser was introduced by Kate Seelye, the Vice President of Programs and Communications at MEI.
(To read full notes, continue below the fold or click here for pdf.)
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Posted in Civil Society, DC Event Notes, Elections, Iran, Iraq, Kurds, Political Parties, Sectarianism, US foreign policy | Comment »
Iraq: Inclusive Government May Lead to Gridlock
December 6th, 2010 by Jason
Kenneth M. Pollack, writing in The National Interest, argues that the new Iraqi government may be too inclusive: “The Iraqis went for an all-inclusive government because they could not sort out their political divisions. But forming one simply means bringing all of those differences inside the government, where they are likely to prevent it from actually governing.” Pollack goes on to say that “Iraq’s fragmented and immature political systems,” will be prone to gridlock due to the inability of the parliament to act as credible check on the power of the prime minister.
Reidar Visser, in an article supporting the idea that there are difficult times ahead, writes that a ruling by the Iraqi federal supreme court will give the newly elected speaker of the parliament, Usama al-Nujayfi of Iraqiyya, “preeminence” as the speaker, rather than an equal role within a “three-man presidency of the parliament” that has existed since 2006. However, Visser notes that it would be “prudent of them (Iraqiyya) to be aware that their logic of an orthodox reading of the constitution will probably apply with equal force to another institution that is much debated these days: the national council for strategic policies […] which is not even mentioned in the constitution precisely like the ‘[collective] presidency of the parliament’ which Iraqiyya complained about to the supreme court.”
Posted in Civil Society, Iraq, Judiciary, Political Parties, Sectarianism | Comment »
Iraq: Constitution Stands in Way of Power-Sharing Deal
December 3rd, 2010 by Jason
Reidar Visser writes in Foreign Affairs that the current power-sharing deal in Iraq is “disconcertingly lacking in substance.” Visser details the various machinations that have been put forward to tempt Iraqiya, led by Ayad Allawi, into forming a coalition government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law and the Kurdish parties. Visser identifies the core of the problem: “public talk of councils, and even signed agreements by the country’s biggest political blocs, cannot override the demands of Iraq’s constitution and laws.” In fact, he says, the “main responsibility for the fragile character of Iraq’s ‘power-sharing deal,’ however, rests with the Obama administration. Washington continues to spend more energy pursuing its own, idiosyncratic exegesis of Iraqi politics than it does engaging with the real world.”
Posted in Iraq, Political Parties, Sectarianism, US foreign policy | Comment »
POMED Notes: “Unfinished Business: An American Strategy for Iraq Moving Forward”
December 2nd, 2010 by Jason
The Brookings Institution held an event on Thursday to mark the release of the analysis paper “Unfinished Business: An American Strategy for Iraq Moving Forward.” The event’s participants were all co-authors of the paper and included Kenneth M. Pollack, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, J. Scott Carpenter, the Keston Family Fellow at the Washington Institute and director of Project Fikra, and Sean Kane, a program officer with the United States Institute of Peace’s Iraq Programs.
(To read full notes, continue below the fold or click here for pdf.)
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Posted in DC Event Notes, Elections, Foreign Aid, Iraq, Kurds, Military, Political Parties, Reform, Sectarianism, US foreign policy | Comment »
Iraq: Nujeifi Profiled, Powers of the Presidency Constrained
December 1st, 2010 by Jason
Marina Ottaway and Danial Kaysi profile the new speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Osama Nujeifi of Iraqiya. They call the choice of Nujeifi for speaker “not surprising” due to his strong showing in the elections earlier this year. However, the choice of Nujeifi may “prove controversial among Kurds,” because “[h]e and his brother Atheel Nujeifi, the governor of Nineveh province, are considered Arab nationalists and have long rejected Kurdish claims over Kirkuk and parts of Nineveh.”
In the wake Jalal Talabani’s election as president, Reidar Visser declares that the “powerful presidency council is now dead.” The council, a product of the interim government of 2005, included two vice or “deputy” presidents and allowed the president to veto legislation. The new “ceremonial” presidency will have no veto power and the number of vice or “deputy” presidents, as Visser says, “might as well be twenty-four since these deputies will not have any power anyway.”
Posted in Elections, Iraq, Political Parties, Sectarianism | Comment »
Iraq: Maliki Formally Charged With Forming New Government
November 26th, 2010 by Jason
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was formally charged with forming a new government on Thursday by President Jalal Talabani. However, Reider Visser contends that “President Jalal Talabani today repeated exactly what he did on 11 November: He charged Nuri al-Maliki with forming the next government. […] Everyone knows that the real reason Talabani did this was to give Maliki more time to form the next government, ostensibly 30 days, but everyone knows that that deadline, in turn, will be violated too.”
In the Los Angeles Times, Ned Parker looks at the Sadrist Movement and its leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and the gains they have made since the March elections. “In recent months, Maliki’s government has freed hundreds of controversial members of the Shiite Muslim cleric’s Mahdi Army and handed security positions to veteran commanders of the militia.” Members of the Sadrist Movement have also assumed high level positions in the Interior Ministry as well as winning the deputy speakership of the parliament.
Posted in Elections, Iraq, Political Parties, Sectarianism | Comment »
Lebanon: STL Indictments are “Precursor to Strife”
November 26th, 2010 by Jason
According to a report in the Daily Star, MP Hussein Moussawi, from Hibzullah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc, said that “the impending indictment by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) probing the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was a precursor to strife in the country.” Another MP, Walid Jumblatt (an influential leader in Lebanon’s Druze community), said the Tribunal “‘is aimed at destabilizing Lebanon rather than rendering justice,’” and that “‘[i]t is clear that this probe is being used for political purposes […] It is clear that the investigators are leaking information and are working for countries that have accounts to settle.’” Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri voiced support for the STL saying “‘We have to put dialogue ahead of tension. No strife will happen and no one will drag us into strife.’”
Posted in Civil Society, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Sectarianism | Comment »
Afghanistan: Final Election Results Wednesday, 21 Candidates Disqualified
November 23rd, 2010 by Jason
The final results of the September elections for the Wolesi Jirga (lower house of parliament) will be announced by the Independent Election Commission on Wednesday. The announcement will come on the heels of 21 candidates who “earned a winning number of votes in their distric,” being disqualified “‘[d]ue to irregularities, usage of fake votes and the influence of provincial officials, which created electoral fraud,’” according to Ahmad Zia Rafat, a member of the five-person Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) panel.
Warren P. Strobel and Habib Zohori, in an article for McClatchey, focus on the results in Ghazni province, where Hazara candidates (an ethnic minority) were able to take all 11 provincial seats. “What happened in Ghazni is in dispute. While Pashtun candidates say their votes were stolen, there’s little doubt that polls in the province were among the messiest of a very messy campaign.”
Posted in Afghanistan, Elections, Political Parties, Sectarianism | Comment »
Iraq: Will the Power-Sharing Agreement Hold?
November 16th, 2010 by Jason
In a new article, Marina Ottaway and Danial Kaysi describe the current state of government formation in Iraq as, “at best extremely fragile.” The power-sharing agreement that would have Nouri al-Maliki remain prime minister “reaffirms the confessional character of the Iraqi political system.” According to the authors, the biggest obstacle to the implementation of the agreement is that it “does not really appear to be legally enforceable,” instead relying on the “good will of all major political factions.” The authors conclude that if Maliki continues to accrue power unchecked and the “two main conditions” of the agreement, the foundation of the National Council on Higher Strategic Policies (originally meant to be headed by Ayad Allawi) and the reinstatement of three banned Sunni politicians, are not met “the implementation of the agreement is likely dead.”
Larry Kaplow, writing at Foreign Policy, warns that “Iraq is not democratic in a reliable or deep sense, where people can expect equal rights, legal protections, or access to their leaders.” He lists various offenses against journalists perpetrated by the Iraqi government under Maliki, including that the government “has started requiring that news agencies register their staff and equipment.” Rule of Law remains “an abstract concept,” with people buying their way out of trouble and bribing government officials, according to Kaplow.
Posted in Elections, Iraq, Sectarianism | Comment »
Iraq: Walkout Threatens Tenuous Unity Government
November 12th, 2010 by Evan
Just hours into a parliamentary session on Thursday to approve Iraq’s new unity government, members of Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiya coalition staged a walkout. Washington Post reporter Leila Fadel writes that while the walkout did not immediately scuttle the agreement, it is indicative of the “deep divisions and distrust that dominate the country’s political system.” The New York Times’ Steven Lee Myers adds that the incident is a foreshadowing of the serious difficulties Iraqi politicians will face in the coming months: “The government — if it holds together — will be fractured and unwieldy, rife with suspicion, hobbled by a shaky grasp of the rule of law and prone to collapse, or at least chaos.”
Posted in Iraq, Legislation, Political Parties, Sectarianism | Comment »
Iraq: The Next Lebanon?
November 9th, 2010 by Jason
An editorial in The Daily Star contends that the “bazaar-style haggling” over the “booty of the state” in Iraq could result in “a cabinet that will exhibit near-total paralysis instead of acting to improve the conditions of the state and its citizens.” The authors argue that the reliance on outside powers to help negotiate the formation of a government will lead to a “state of dependence” on those same powers. Using their own country as an unhappy example, the authors conclude that “[i]f the Iraqi leaders need a cautionary tale that might scare them into acting responsibly, they need only look at Lebanon, a country so deeply reliant on others to manage its crises that its independence exists merely as a hollow holiday in the calendar.”
Posted in Iraq, Lebanon, Sectarianism | Comment »
POMED Notes: “Iraq’s Development Challenges”
November 2nd, 2010 by Jason
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) held a roundtable discussion Tuesday titled “Iraq’s Development Challenges.” The discussants were Christine McNab, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General & UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, John Desrocher, Director, Office of Iraq Affairs, US Department of State, and Leslie Campbell, Regional Director for the Middle East & North Africa, National Democratic Institute (NDI). The discussion was moderated by Frederick Tipson, Director of UNDP/Washington.
(To read full notes, continue below the fold or click here for pdf.) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Civil Society, DC Event Notes, Elections, Foreign Aid, Freedom, Iraq, Political Parties, Public Opinion, Reform, Sectarianism, US foreign policy | Comment »
Lebanon: Reform Needed in Elections and Political System
October 28th, 2010 by Anna
Lebanon’s Daily Star reports today that Osama Safa, secretary general of the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE), warned yesterday that the government has six months to implement a series of electoral law reforms. Among the reforms are giving soldiers the right to vote, lowering the voting age to 18, setting a quota for women candidates, and having independent oversight of electoral lists. Last November, the parliament stated that it would finish a draft law on election issues within 18 months. LADE and other organizations have called for changes to Lebanon’s “archaic” election laws, according to the Star, pointing to various types of irregularities in recent elections. Safa called on the government to prioritize electoral reform, saying: “The electoral law is considered the right gateway to any other reform.”
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern yesterday over rising political tensions in Lebanon. In a report on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004),which calls for free and fair presidential elections in the country, he said: “Lebanon is currently experiencing a domestic climate of uncertainty and fragility” and called on leaders to work on strengthening institutions and to “transcend sectarian and individual interests and to genuinely promote the future and the interests of the nation.”
Posted in Elections, Lebanon, Legislation, Political Parties, Reform, Sectarianism | Comment »
Iraq: “Hopes Rest on Reconciliation”
October 27th, 2010 by Jason
At a recent policy forum luncheon held by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, three members of the Institute gave their perspectives on the current political situation in Iraq. Ahmed Ali said that Prime Minister Maliki is “known to be close with Iraqi president and leading Kurdish figure Jalal Talabani,” but that Maliki also brought Minister of Planning Ali Baban along on his recent visit to Turkey, signaling to the Turks that he was not “yielding to Kurdish demands.” Michael Knights focused on the security situation saying that “[s]ecurity metrics are degrading in quality as the U.S. military draws down […] confirm[ing] that stabilization is slowing overall and even regressing in some places.” Michael Eisenstadt reflected on the challenges facing the US and Iraq in the future. “Going forward, hopes rest on reconciliation through politics, with the formation of a broad-based governing coalition that gives elements from every community a stake in political order.”
Posted in Civil Society, Freedom, Iraq, Kurds, Political Parties, Sectarianism, US foreign policy | Comment »
