Maliki consults with Iran over second term

IRAQI PRIME minister Nuri al-Maliki consulted with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and senior Iranian officials yesterday with the aim of clinching a second term.

While this was Mr Maliki’s first visit to Tehran since Iraq’s parliamentary election in March, leading members of his State of Law bloc, which came in second, have travelled to Iran frequently.

Mr Maliki’s prospects of clinching the post improved this month when the bloc headed by radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr declared its backing for him. According to the Guardian, an array of influential Shia figures met Mr Sadr in the Iranian holy city of Qom, where he lives, to convince him to drop his opposition to Mr Maliki.

Among these personalities were Mr Sadr’s spiritual mentor, Grand Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri and a key commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen Qassem Suleimani.

Mr Sadr, who harbours deep animus for Mr Maliki, did not capitulate outright. Instead, Mr Sadr called for the formation of a unity cabinet including Mr Maliki’s chief rival Ayad Allawi, whose Iraqiya bloc won the largest number of seats.

Mr Allawi – who enjoys the backing of the US, Turkey, Jordan, the Gulf states and Egypt – said Iran should “not impose or support one [Iraqi] faction over the other” and accused Iran of wreaking “havoc in the region” by arming and financing Hizbullah and Hamas.

To counter the Maliki-Sadr coalition, Mr Allawi, a secular Shia, has swung behind the candidacy of Adel Abdel Mahdi of the Shia sectarian Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), a faction originally founded and funded by Tehran. The SIIC formed a post-election alliance with Mr Maliki’s bloc but refuses to back his bid for the premiership.

He has the edge in numbers. His bloc has 89 seats and the Sadrists 40. Shia allies Ahmad Chalabi and Ibrahim Jaafari have two, giving Mr Maliki 131.

Mr Allawi’s bloc has 91 seats, SIIC and two smaller Shia factions 26, a total of 117 if all SIIC deputies remain loyal. It is likely that he would also enjoy the support of two Sunni parties which have 10 seats, a maximum of 127.

The Kurds, with 57 seats, could provide either of the competing coalitions with a comfortable majority and become kingmakers.

However, the Kurds have drafted a list of 19 demands, some of which are impossible for either bloc to satisfy. The main demands are annexation by the Kurdish region of oil-rich Kirkuk and the right to negotiate independent deals over the development of oil resources in the Kurdish region.

Granting these demands could lead to the dismemberment of Iraq and precipitate civil conflict between the 85 per cent Arab majority and the Kurdish minority.

This being the case, the US has tried and failed to convince the rivals to share power under a deal which would make Mr Maliki premier and Mr Allawi head of a national security council wielding a veto over policy.

Such a deal would exclude the vehemently anti-US Sadrists, the SIIC, and the Kurds with their extortionate demands.