Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

Is Iraq's government falling apart?

16 - 22 August 2007

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki may be trying to salvage his fragile government, but Iraq's political crisis seems as deadlocked as ever.

Hoping to jump-start the stalled political rebuilding of their violence-torn nation, Iraq's leaders met several times this week in a fresh bid to resolve their differences.

In a last-ditch attempt to halt the disintegration of his government, Iraqi premier Nuri Al-Maliki last Sunday also called on leaders from the country's key political parties to meet in a crisis summit in the hope of forging a grand compromise among the warring factions.

However, the meeting, expected as early as Tuesday, did not materialise, apparently due to continuing differences.

Instead, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani hosted a luncheon meeting at his residence in Baghdad's Green Zone on Tuesday, pulling together some 50 members of various political groups for informal discussions about the nation's deepening political crisis.

However, this gathering too produced no results.

"We sat together, we laughed, and we ate", Talabani said later, while acknowledging that nothing political had been discussed.

Notable among the absentees from the meeting were Sunni Vice-President Tareq Al-Hashimi and former prime minister Iyad Allawi, both staunch critics of Al-Maliki's government and proponents of its replacement by what they describe as a more representative government.

Seventeen of Al-Maliki's 37 ministers have abandoned the government in recent weeks, many claiming the Shia prime minister has failed to build a national consensus, badly needed to end the country's four-and-a-half years of sectarian strife.

While many Shia accuse Al-Maliki of incompetence for his failure to end attacks by Sunni factions, especially by Al-Qaeda, Sunni groups blame him for failure to crackdown on Shia extremists, such as the Al-Mahdi militia, which is charged with torture, assassinations and execution-style slayings.

On Sunday, Adnan Al-Dulaimi, a senior Sunni politician, threatened to take the issue to the Sunni Arab world, warning of what he called an "unprecedented genocide campaign" by Shia militias.

Al-Dulaimi, whose Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni political bloc in parliament, has pulled its six ministers out from Al-Maliki's government, said the Shia were on the brink of taking total control of Baghdad and would soon threaten the Sunni Arab regimes which predominate in the wider Middle East.

As impatience with his government mounts, Al-Maliki faces the daunting challenge of achieving reconciliation between the country's different groups and of stopping the sectarian violence that is threatening to tear the country apart, if he wants to stay in power.

One of his main tasks will be to bring Sunni members back into his government, these having suspended their membership pending implementation of a long list of demands including a bigger role in decision-making and repealing the country's de-Baathification law.

Al-Maliki will also need to lure back six other ministers loyal to the Shia cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, and five ministers associated with Allawi, a secular Shia, who have also been boycotting cabinet meetings.

Nevertheless, Al-Maliki has thus far remained defiant and has not met the demands of the various groups who have pulled their ministers from his cabinet.

While he can outmanoeuvre Al-Sadr's and Allawi's supporters by counting on support from his own Shia United Iraqi Alliance, he has also issued a threat to isolate the Sunni political bloc who have boycotted his government, suggesting that they could be replaced by local Sunni tribal leaders who have recently joined US-led efforts against Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"We hope to end this crisis and that the ministers will return to their ministries," Al-Maliki said at a news conference.

"But if that does not happen, we will go to our other brothers who are offering their help and we will choose ministers from among them."

Al-Maliki could be right in his uncompromising attitude. Even before his threat on Sunday, elected Sunni leaders worried that they could be pushed out by leaders from the Al-Anbar Salvation Council and other Sunni Arab tribal groups that have allied with the American military in its fight against Sunni extremists.

In one possible sign of such a more, Al-Maliki met Al-Anbar tribal chiefs on Tuesday and later said that he was considering giving them government positions.

This move to push the leaders of warring sects together comes at a time of profound political tension in Baghdad.

The political crisis has now left the government without any Sunni Arab members, except the politically unaffiliated defence minister, and Iraq's minority Sunnis are expressing growing anger over perceptions of Al-Maliki as a biased and sectarian leader who has links to Iran.

In the eyes of Sunnis, Al-Maliki has failed to bring all sides together after taking office in May 2006 and promising a national unity government. Indeed, many Iraqis have grown so frustrated with the government's lack of progress that they are focussing their hopes on Al-Maliki's quitting and paving the way for a more competent leader to take over.

American officials have also been showing growing impatience with Al-Maliki and other Iraqi politicians, with President George W Bush's "surge" strategy in Iraq widely perceived as getting nowhere.

Leading figures in the US administration have been increasing pressure on Iraq's leaders to hammer out a grand compromise on several outstanding issues, from a new oil law to provincial elections.

Washington's impatience was also vividly expressed by Bush last week when he rebuked Iraq's prime minister for speaking too favourably about Iran. "My message [to him] is that when we catch you playing a non-constructive role there will be a price to pay," Bush said.

Nothing better illustrates the current frustration than the abduction of the deputy petroleum minister and four other officials from their offices on Tuesday.

Violence also continues as a suicide truck bomber struck a strategic bridge on a highway linking Baghdad with the northern provinces, and four suicide bomb attacks took place in Mosul that killed 200 members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect and wounded 200 others.

The attacks continued as US troops in Iraq launched two major assaults against Al-Qaeda-linked militants and Shia extremists.

Operations Phantom Strike and Lightning Hammer, the military announced, were being waged to build on successes during recent offensives in Baghdad and surrounding areas.

A statement by the US military did not give details but said US forces would increase pressure on Al-Qaeda and its Sunni militant allies, as well as on rogue Shia militiamen nationwide.

These operations are part of the "surge" strategy that has added 30,000 US troops to quell the insurgency.

President Bush faces a deadline to show progress from his strategy by September, when General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, will give Congress an assessment.

However, at some point both Bush and Al-Maliki will have to realise that a military solution is not forthcoming to end the deadlock.

With no stable government in Baghdad, and no strong security forces, military actions are unlikely to succeed.

Success will only come when Iraqi politicians are able to reach agreement on a number of key dividing issues and to set out policies to promote reconciliation between rival sectarian and political factions.

Al-Ahram Weekly | Front Page | Is Iraq's government falling apart?

Jockeying for power.

Things aren't what they appear: the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia are playing their cards carefully in Iraq.

16 - 22 August 2007

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's visit to Tehran last week was more than your run-of- the-mill state visit. Its significance went beyond the usual matters of protocol, shaking hands and smiling, and signing agreements before the TV cameras. It told us, contrary to the general impression conveyed by the media, that US-Iranian relations have made a breakthrough.

The security agreements that the Iraqi and Iranian leaders signed were pure form. Iran already possesses more than enough keys to restore security to Iraq without having to formalise them in protocols and the like. Al-Maliki was in Tehran for another purpose. He needed the blessing of the regional godfather in order to secure his tenure as the kindly representative of the Iraqi Shia. In giving this blessing, Iran effectively inaugurated the race of regional powers to select their local proxies in the forthcoming contest over shares in the ruling structures in Iraq that will arise in the wake of the US-Iranian understanding.

The US and Iran have long been engaged in a protracted game of chess over Iraq, using political, military and negotiating tactics. They have different strengths and weaknesses. Washington occupies Iraq militarily, but Tehran holds many of the political strings, which it can easily tweak to exacerbate the dilemma of the occupation forces. But both sides have come to realise that they cannot keep the situation under control without the help of the other.

Al-Maliki knows that he owes his success at staying in power in Baghdad to his deftness at playing upon common American and Iranian interests. He also knows that if US-Iranian negotiations succeed they will create a new reality in his country and that he needs to remain in Tehran's good graces in order to keep the edge over his potential Shia rivals (notably Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Amar Al-Hakim and Ibrahim Al-Jaafari) and retain his hold on the premiership the government that will emerge under that new reality.

The US may have succeeded in toppling the Iraqi regime, but Iran succeeded in placing its allies in positions of power in Baghdad in the post-invasion phase. Iran won its influence in Baghdad not only through its political, sectarian, economic, military and intelligence presence in Iraq, but also through its skill at capitalising on the momentous bungling of the neo-conservative administration in Washington. In 15 years it reversed the outcome of the Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988). From near military defeat it has now scored almost total political victory. It is perhaps no coincidence, therefore, that Al-Maliki's visit was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Iraq-Iran war.

This anniversary also adds a poignant significance to the third round of US-Iranian negotiations over the future government in Iraq and which powers should have a say in how this government is shaped. As the situation stands, there are three primary players in the field: Washington, Tehran and Riyadh. These are expected to reach a pragmatic compromise that will consist of a greater stake for the Sunnis in government, a continued Shia majority say, and the redeployment of occupation forces outside the major cities. To bring this about, Saudi Arabia will attempt to persuade the Sunni parties to participate in the forthcoming government and to rally them to confront the Sunni militias and Al-Qaeda operatives in the Sunni triangle. Iran will pledge to neutralise the Shia anti-occupation forces, such as Muqtada Al-Sadr's militias, on the condition that other parties fulfil their obligations.

All three parties appear to be operating on a tacitly agreed-upon premise: a compromise solution will only work if each party does what it takes to ensure that the other parties' worst nightmares do not come true. Riyadh's nightmare is that Iran will succeed in securing a large base of operations in the area of southern Iraq adjacent to the Saudi Arabian borders, within a stone's throw of Saudi oil fields. Tehran fears the emergence of a central government in Baghdad which owes its primary allegiance to Washington and which could eventually build up a strong enough army to threaten Iran again in the future. Washington is cringing at the spectre of a forced withdrawal without face-saving agreements and, therefore, having to sustain the internal and external fallout from an unequivocal defeat while Tehran is left to crow over its political victory in Iraq.

One fairly sure sign that the "nightmare prevention" strategy is on the verge of completion is that securing American oil interests is also an integral part of the negotiations. Not that this is stated in so many words. Rather, the phraseology is more in the nature of "introducing mechanisms for the distribution of Iraqi oil wealth over the three parts of Iraq: the Kurdish north, the Sunni centre and the Shia south." Naturally, the agreement will also provide for joint control over the armed forces and intelligence agencies, both of which will expand in accordance with the provisions of the formula.

In anticipation of the agreement, players inside Iraq are busily manoeuvring behind the scenes, flexing their muscles or swearing allegiance to the regional godfather. After all, such are the dynamics of political section in the absence of a cohesive national project. Meanwhile, Washington and Tehran are upstairs, sitting face to face across the negotiating table behind closed doors. Harangues against the "Great Satan" and the "Axis of Evil" have been locked outside the room so they can knuckle down to work. Inside that room, a different logic is at play. In negotiations of this sort, evil is not taking advantage of available opportunities and the devil exists only in the small print.

Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | Jockeying for power

Four-way agreement without Iraqi Islamic party

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq Thursday , 16 /08 /2007 Time 10:49:16

Baghdad, Aug 16, (VOI) - Four major Iraqi political parties signed on Thursday an agreement, aired by al-Iraqiya satellite television, to revive the political process in Iraq.

The agreement was signed by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Islamic Daawa party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC).

The four parties were represented by President Jalal Talabani, President of Kurdistan region Massoud Barazani, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi.

President Talabani refused to use the word “quartet” or “moderates’ bloc,” noting that they had signed an initiative to revive the political process.
“We cannot call it a bloc, but rather an agreement between four parties committed to former agreements for reviving the political process,” Talabani said in a press conference attended by Nouri al-Maliki, Barazani and Abdul Mahdi.

“We tried to made contact with the Iraqi Islamic Party in an attempt to involve it in the agreement, but it said that the circumstances were not appropriate,” he added.

“The bloc consists of four parties now but it is open for all parties to take part in it,” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.

“We will try to revive the stagnant political process; we will not accept it to be hampered. The agreement is not a replacement of the political blocs, the door is open for all to participate,” the premier explained.

Aswat Aliraq

Islamic party expresses reservation over new alliance

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq Thursday , 16 /08 /2007 Time 10:49:16

Baghdad, Aug 16, (VOI)- A leading figure from the Sunni Islamic Party expressed on Thursday reservation over a new Kurdish-Shiite alliance that announced earlier today in Baghdad, warning of setting up what he described as "counter coalitions."

"We, the Islamic Party, express our reservation on the new alliance and we see that it is too early to confirm whether it will work out or not," Omar Abdul Sattar told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) by telephone.

The politician said "yesterday (Wednesday) we had a meeting with the two Kurdish parties (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdistan Democratic Party) to discuss the political situation and the possible means to rescue the country from the current impasse and we told them the time is premature to form such an alliance."

The leading figure whose party is a main component of the Sunni Accordance Front said "We were in need of many steps to take and more common visions to share before we could reach the compromise of a six-way alliance that would also include (former Iraqi PM) Allawi's Iraqi National List and the Islamic party, but the differences caused the alliance to be announced by four components only."

"The new alliance may lead to the formation of new counter-coalitions, which I expect will cause more deterioration in the country," said Abdul Sattar noting that "we could not correct a mistake by committing another one."
Abdul Sattar, who declined to reply to a question by VOI as to whether the new alliance was meant to declare a parliamentary majority's government if Accordance ministers who quit the cabinet refused to return, commented "it is a step towards prolonging the life of al-Maliki's government."

Earlier on Thursday, four major Iraqi political parties signed an agreement to revive the political process in Iraq.

The agreement was signed by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Shiite Islamic Daawa party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC).

The four parties were represented by President Jalal Talabani, President of Kurdistan region Massoud Barazani, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi.

President Talabani refused to use the word “quartet” or “moderates’ bloc,” noting that they had signed an initiative to revive the political process.
“We cannot call it a bloc, but rather an agreement between four parties committed to former agreements for reviving the political process,” Talabani said in a press conference attended by Nouri al-Maliki, Barazani and Abdul Mahdi.

“We tried to made contact with the Iraqi Islamic Party in an attempt to involve it in the agreement, but it said that the circumstances were not appropriate,” he added.

“The bloc consists of four parties now but it is open for all parties to take part in it,” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.

“We will try to revive the stagnant political process; we will not accept it to be hampered. The agreement is not a replacement of the political blocs, the door is open for all to participate,” the premier explained.
SK

Aswat Aliraq

Saudi analysts urge UN not to monopolize decisions in Iraq

National - Voices of Iraq Thursday , 16 /08 /2007 Time 8:26:18

A number of Saudi analysts and academics called on the United Nations to open channels of dialogue with Iraq's neighboring countries, which they said are essential elements for solving the Iraqi crisis, and not to monopolize the decision-making process in war-torn Iraq.

Describing the UN Security Council's resolution to give the international organization a wider mandate in Iraq as a "positive step towards establishing security and stability in the country," Saudi analysts urged the UN not to marginalize any Iraqi faction from the political process.

The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously approved a US and British-backed resolution calling for a greater UN role in Iraq. The UN has had a low-key presence in Iraq since a truck bomb devastated its Baghdad headquarters in August 2003 and killed its top envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 others.

Under the resolution, the UN is authorized to advise in the review of the Iraqi constitution and help settle disputed internal boundaries. The UN mission will also be asked to promote human rights and help the Iraqi government achieve economic, political, judicial and legal reform.

In a statement to the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI), Majid al-Harbi, a political analyst, said the UN should have taken earlier steps in Iraq. He also called for an international conference under UN supervision to discuss ways of bringing Iraq out of its current crisis. According to al-Harbi, ending bloodshed, promoting national reconciliation and including representatives from all segments of Iraqi society in constructive dialogue should be the main themes of the conference.

Meanwhile Motlaq al-Matiri, a political observer, demanded the international community, particularly Arab countries, to play a more decisive role and to make every effort to end the agony of the Iraqi people. "Iraqis' suffering must come to an end. Everyone has to move quickly to prevent the daily bloodbath there. The UN's expanded mission in Iraq is a significant step, though overdue," al-Matiri explained.

Sulaiman al-Qaraawi, a professor at King Faisal University in al-Hasa, welcomed the UN's resolution to expand its role in Iraq and called on the organization to move decisively on national reconciliation and reconstruction projects. "A halt to violence will be the beginning of stability in the country," al-Qaraawi said, indicating that economic development and reconstruction projects should be given priority in the economically shattered Iraq.

Aswat Aliraq

Full Text: The New Shi'a-Kurdish Alliance

The Four-Party Agreement in Translation

Posted 5 hr. 2 min. ago

Four ruling Iraqi parties have agreed to a "new" political alliance and set of principles after intense deliberation. As reported earlier, the Shi'a Islamic Da'wa Party and Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council have signed an agreement with the two principal Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Notably absent from the "new" agreement are any Sunni Arab political forces. The Iraqi Islamic Party of Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi left the negotiations. Also absent are any other opposition groups, including the secular Iraqi National List of former Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, and the Shi'a groups that have most harshly criticized the government of the Islamic Da'wa Party's PM Nuri al-Maliki, namely the Sadrist bloc and the Fadhila Party.

Indeed, the four signatory Shi'a and Kurdish parties already share power, and represent, respectively, the major pro-government constituents of the Shi'a and Kurdish blocs that entered into alliance to form the parliamentary majority after the December 2005 elections.

Full text of the agreement appears in translation below, as reported in Arabic by the Iraqi agency al-Malaf Press:

In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate

The National Principals for the Agreement of the Political Forces, and the Working Mechanisms

Based on the depth of the historical and comradely relationships between the Iraqi political forces that struggled and strove in their opposition to the defunct Saddamist system until its overthrow, and for the sake of supporting the pioneering democratic experiment of the Iraqi people to realize its ambitions and its welfare by building a secure and stable Iraq, in control of its sovereignty over all of its territory, some of the fundamental political forces on the Iraqi scene have initiated a discussion of the current conditions in the country and the terrorist onslaught by the takfiris and Saddamists in their effort to abort the gains of our people and to move the country backwards, and the need to confront these criminal gangs with a deeper national unity. After deliberations, (these political forces) reached an agreement to unify their ranks for the sake of realizing national accord and reconciliation, and guiding the government and making it succeed, in light of the following basic national principles:

In the political aspect:

1) The need for unity and cooperation for the sake of making the political process – which cannot be dismembered geographically – succeed, and pushing it in the direction of absorbing representatives of all the components and forces on the Iraqi political scene with transparency and openness between the different parties in confronting the political, security, and economic challenges.

2) The agreement of the political partners who participate in the political process to the following principles:

a) Commitment to the political process and to the bases of the democratic, federal system in place in Iraq.

b) Real participation in power of all the political partners and avoiding the politics of exclusion or isolation.

c) The political partners bear responsibility for building the state and the country in the interests of the homeland and its citizens, and commitment to the programs of the declared government.

3) The treatment of problems inherited from the past era that reflected negatively on the relations between the different Iraqi groups.

4) The unification of the national position in regional and international cooperation in a way that enhances the sovereignty of Iraq and guarantees the reconciliation of its people and protects the democratic experiment and thwarts the criminal plans that intend to push (Iraq) backwards.

In the aspects of the (Iraqi) state:

5) The strengthening of the constitutional institutions and the commitment to them, and increasing the effectiveness of the Council of Deputies to accomplish their legislative and regulatory responsibilities, and (strengthening) cooperation between the parliamentary blocs.

6) Supporting the Iraqi government to succeed in its political, economic, security, and service program in order to provide the best services to the Iraqi people.

7) Speedy completion of the stages of application of article 140 of the constitution and the activation and support of the committees concerned with its application, and the attempt to adhere to the timetable in the matter concerned, in the two paragraphs related to the settlement of matters in Kirkuk, and the disputed areas along the borders of the governorates, according to the constitution.

8) Deepening the cooperation and coordination between the federal government and the government of the Kurdistan region in the security and military area and in combating terrorism.

9) Increased cooperation between the federal government and the regional governments and the governments of the provinces not organized into regions, in the security, economic, political, and social fields, and in all other fields in what strengthens the federal government on the one hand, and what strengthens the local governments on the other, according to the constitution.

10) Agreement on the timetables for achieving the political, legal, security, and economic accomplishments.

11) Activation of Iraqi diplomacy to defend Iraq and its democratic experiment.

12) Support of the security plan to protect the security of the citizens, and the review of this plan in order to enhance it to remove its deficiencies and gaps.

13) Working to complete the process of building, training, equipping, and forming the military and security apparatus.

14) Adoption of a unified position on the presence of foreign forces to promote the sovereignty and independence of Iraq.

In the economic and services aspects:

15) Improvement of the standard of living for the citizens and the provision of services, (achieving) this by review of the economic plan and enhancing the oversight of the implementing agencies to guarantee the provision of basic services to the citizens, and to raise the economic level (of the citizens), especially of the disadvantaged classes and the families of martyrs, and those victimized in the time of the previous regime.

16) Diagnosis of the difficulties and obstacles that stand as a barrier to the activation of the various agencies of the state (and which prevent them) from undertaking their duties with regards to the citizens, and combating administrative and financial corruption.

17) Preservation of the national wealth and developing it in order that it be returned to the benefit and welfare of all sons of the Iraqi people.

Working Mechanisms:

1) Agreement on the periodic meetings of political leaders and that these meetings be meetings of decision making.

2) Agreement on the agenda of policies and goals that are to be achieved in the next stage.

3) A mechanism for implementing decisions through the activation of the role of official institutions and cooperation between the political blocs.

4) The formation of a general secretariat to undertake the role of following and coordination and develop an internal system (among the parties to this agreement).

5) Agreement on coordination of media agencies among the political powers.

6) Continuing to work with other parties, especially the Sunni Arabs in order to consolidate the internal front (among the signatory parties) and to enhance participation in power.

7) This agreement represents the first stage, and remains open to all those who wish to work to support the political process.

8) The agreement on the joint mechanism and a unified position in cooperation on the regional and international axis over the success of the political project from the Iraqi viewpoint.

9) Activation of weekly or periodical meetings between the presidency and the prime minister’s office, in order to handle issues concerning the government’s achievements in compliance with the constitutional powers of the presidency, in recognition of its role in assuring the implementation of the constitution, and (in recognition of) the constitutional powers of the of the prime minister’s office, considering that it is the direct implementing authority, as well as the general commander of the armed forces and the powers of the Council of Ministers and the ministries, according to the terms and powers specified in by constitution.

10) The parties intend to agree on a unified position, and in the case of differences, the parties commit not to oppose these positions set out in this agreement, and not to weaken one another.

(Signatories)

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan

The Islamic Da'wa Party

The Kurdistan Democratic Party

The Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council

Baghdad, August 16, 2007

IraqSlogger: Full Text: The New Shi'a-Kurdish Alliance

Shia, Kurdish Parties Form Political Alliance

New Coalition Creates Governing Majority That Excludes Sunnis

Posted 14 hr. 12 min. ago


Mohammed Sawaf/AFP/Getty
BAGHDAD, IRAQ - AUGUST 16: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, second from left, and President Jalal Talabani, second from right, are flanked by the leader of the northern autonomous Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, left, shaking hands with Shiite Vice
Four major Iraqi political parties unveiled an new governing coalition of moderate Shia and Kurdish parties on Tuesday.

The deal formalized an alliance between Maliki's Dawa Party, Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi's Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Massud Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party (PDK), giving the four parties a parliamentary majority. If the alliance remains intact, they will be positioned to push through legislative initiatives.

One of their goals, according to Prime Minister Maliki, would be to address charges that his government is biased against Sunnis, which could prove a difficult task as the new governing coalition doesn't include any Sunnis.

The Sunni parties of the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) recently commenced a boycott of the government, withdrawing their 44-seats.

According to VOI, Talabani said they had contacted the largest Sunni party of the bloc, the Iraqi Islamic Party, in an attempt to involve it in the agreement, but it responded "that the circumstances were not appropriate."

The AP reports Iraq's Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, and his moderate Iraqi Islamic party refused to join de****e assurances from the country's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, that the door was "always open".

A representative of the party said it had only received the invitation to join the coalition yesterday. "We said we are not ready to join this alliance at the current time," he added.

President Talabani refused to use the word “quartet” or “moderates’ bloc” to describe the new alliance, “We cannot call it a bloc, but rather an agreement between four parties committed to former agreements for reviving the political process."

“The bloc consists of four parties now but it is open for all parties to take part in it,” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.

“We will try to revive the stagnant political process; we will not accept it to be hampered. The agreement is not a replacement of the political blocs, the door is open for all to participate,” the premier explained.

IraqSlogger: Shia, Kurdish Parties Form Political Alliance

Official Spokesman Denies What was Reported by an American Radio about Iraqi Prime Minister's Visit to Syria

Damascus, 17 August 2007 (SANA)

Vice President , Farouk alShara Press Office Spokesman, denied on Thursday what was reported by an America, SAWA radio ,that alShara, during his meeting with journalists two days ago, had put conditional formula for Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki's visit to Damascus.

The official spokesman said in a statement that alMaliki is welcome to visit his second homeland Syria.

He added that contrary to what had been reported by the American radio, alShara underlined in his statements the mutual points whereby such a visit will be successful for the interests of the two brotherly countries and for their security and stability in the region.

Official Spokesman Denies What was Reported by an American Radio about Iraqi Prime Minister's Visit to Syria | Iraq Updates

Iraq: Signs of a New Horizon

17 August 2007 (Asharq Alawsat)

Are we witnessing an all-round change of attitude towards Iraq?

Consider the following.

Several Arab powers that had tried to shun new Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 have announced a change of policy, including plans to open their embassies in Baghdad. At least four of them have issued invitations to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for official visits, reversing a policy under which the Iraqi leader was treated as a pariah.

When combined, the two events could indicate the realisation in Arab capitals of the impossibility of replacing Maliki with a man of their choice.

For its part, the Islamic Republic in Tehran has unrolled the red carpet for Maliki, ending the chill that had marked the mullah's attitude since they failed to impose their candidate as prime minister in Baghdad.

Some Iraqi politicians have criticised Maliki’s visit to Tehran. But anyone who claims that Iraq can ignore Iran, regardless of who rules in Tehran, is delusional. Some 90 per cent of Iraq’s population live in areas only 60 miles from the Iranian border. Leaving aside the trade linked to the US-led coalition’s presence in Iraq, almost half of Iraq’s commercial exchanges today are with Iran.

To be sure, the Islamic Republic will do all it can to make the Americans bleed in Iraq. But I doubt that the mullahs want the US-led coalition to cut and run before Iraq is stabilised.

This is one of those deadly ambiguities that have always marked international politics.

Two of Iraq’s neighbours, Turkey and Syria have also indicated what could amount to significant changes in their hitherto negative postures on new Iraq.

Turkey has feted Maliki with great pomp and publicly abandoned its threat of military intervention against Turkish-Kurdish terrorists based in northern Iraq. Turkish Premier Recep Tayyib Erdogan has gone out of his way to throw his support behind Maliki and promise joint action against terrorism.

Erdogan knows that stability in Baghdad would deprive his most vocal opponents within the Turkish military of their favourite nationalistic theme of intervention against terrorists in northern Iraq.

Even more surprising is what looks like a change of attitude by Syria.

For the first time, the Syrian authorities have acknowledged that Islamist terrorists fighting in Iraq have a presence in Syrian authority. The Syrians have even admitted that last week their forces were trapped in an ambush by the terrorists. Six Syrian soldiers died and 11 others were injured. The message is clear: the terrorists killing the Iraqis every day could easily expand the killing fields to Syria and beyond.

The fact that the so-called “security committee”, consisting of Iraq’s neighbours plus the United Sates and Britain appears to have become operational is also significant news.

Add to this what looks like a change of attitude by the United Nations and the new picture becomes clearer. For more than four years, the UN tried to keep its involvement in Iraq to the lowest level decently possible. Former UN secretary-General Kofi Annan always believed that he had made a deal with Saddam Hussein and that the Us and its allies were wrong in toppling the dictator. At the same time, the UN was traumatised by the murder of Sergio de Mello, its charismatic first envoy to new Iraq.

The UN’s new secretary-general, the Korean Ban Ki-moon does not suffer from Annan’s personal hang-ups about Iraq, including the involvement of his son and several of his senior UN aides in the oil-for-food scam ran by Saddam Hussein. Secretary Ban has renewed the UN’s commitment to Iraq, especially on the issue of urgently needed humanitarian assistance.

According to the best sources at least half of Iraq’s population still needs humanitarian relief along the lines established by the UN in the late 1990s.

The UN is also beginning to change its nonchalant attitude towards the Iraqi refugee problem.

No one quite knows how many Iraqis have become refuges as a result of the current violence. Jordan claims to host over a million Iraqis. But when we checked last April he Jordanians had registered no more than 18,000 Iraqi refugees. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis in Jordan regarded themselves as temporary residents and, engaged in business, largely paid their own way.

For its part, Syria claims to have received 750,000 refugees from Iraq. But there, too, the figures do not tally. In Syria, the United Nations’ High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered some 40,000 “displaced persons” from Iraq. These include at least 25,000 of Palestinian origin plus an unknown number of Egyptians and Sudanese who had been brought to Iraq under Saddam Hussein as part of his plan to change the sectarian balance there.

At the same time some 1.5 million Iraqis who had been refugees in Turkey and Iran for many years have returned home since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

On balance, therefore, Iraq seems to have generated some half a million refugees since 2003. These new refugees include large numbers of Christians who have had to flee their homes under pressure from both Shiite and Sunni terrorists. There are also large numbers of educated Iraqis, precisely the type of peoples that new Iraq needs to build a viable state and society.

The Maliki government has not paid enough attention to the refugee problem and the more pressing problem of displaced persons inside Iraq itself. (They number over a million people, according to the most conservative estimates.) The $25 million package that Maliki has allocated for the purpose is pitiful, to say the least. (The latest annual national budget presented by Maliki amounts to $44 billion, an all time record for the country).

As we move towards the heart of the summer it seems as if a general consensus is developing that stabilising Iraq under its new system is in everyone’s interest. For all that, however, Iraq is not yet out of the woods. Many people remained committed to destroying Iraq, and quite a few powers still wish to hedge their bets. The struggle for Iraq is far from over.

Iraq: Signs of a New Horizon | Iraq Updates

Iraq Unveils New Ruling Coalition

Thursday August 16, 2007

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Political leaders unveiled a new governing coalition between moderate Shia Muslims and Kurds after intensive negotiations in Baghdad.

The prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said he hoped the alliance, which commands a parliamentary majority, would address charges that his government was biased towards Shias and had been ineffective at clamping down on terrorism.

However, the coalition is unlikely to heal Iraq's key religious fault line because it excludes even moderate Sunni Muslims.

Iraq's Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, and his moderate Iraqi Islamic party refused to join de****e assurances from the country's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, that the door was "always open".

Mr Talabani, Mr Maliki and Massoud Barzani, the leader of the northern autonomous Kurdish region, along with Adel Abdul-Mahdi, the Shia vice-president, announced the deal at a news conference today.

It guarantees them a majority in the 275-seat parliament, enabling the coalition to push through legislation demanded by the US, including a law on the distribution of oil wealth.

The deal was announced after the Sunni Accordance Front - which includes Mr Hashemi's party - resigned from the government.

Seventeen government ministers, almost half of the cabinet, have either suspended work or left this year.

"We have relegated efforts to topple the government to the past," a spokesman for the prime minister said. "We are now in a new stage."

A representative of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic party said it had only received the invitation to join the coalition yesterday. "We said we are not ready to join this alliance at the current time," he added.

Iraq bombs death toll rises to 400 | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited