How Iraq's Leadership Is Selling Out To Iran

Another great article from Family Security Matters that delves deep into Iraqi politics and reveals the horror that in trying to set up the new government in Iraq, the leaders have basically sold their souls to the mullahs and such in Tehran, Iran.

From the article:

Last week, he concluded an accord with the Sadrist bloc -- whose leader, firebrand mullah Muqtada Sadr, has been living in the Iranian holy city of Qom since 2008. The two men pretend to have forgotten, if not forgiven, the bloody battle for Basra that broke Sadr's Mahdi Army (trained and led by Iran's Revolutionary Guard).

To clinch the deal, Maliki has dropped his "Iraq first" rhetoric in favor of a pan-Shiite approach. He has agreed to stop legal proceedings against the fugitive mullah, who's wanted in Najaf on a charge of murder. Maliki even has dropped hints that the remnants of the Mahdi Army, which fled to Iran, would be allowed to return with impunity.

Yet the Sadrists demand more: key posts, such as ministers for oil, the interior, defence and education. If they succeed, the key policies of Iraq's government could be made in Tehran.

Now, we all know how much Iran wants Iraq as its own...and they are willing to influence it and rule it from afar but one thing the Iranians seem to have forgotten is the Sunnis in Iraq. Let's face some facts here...while the sectarian violence and civil war were mostly over-inflated during the Iraq War that America won, it's not to say that civil war will never happen. There are a lot of powerful Sunnis in Iraq who simply will not put up with rule from Tehran and throw in also, the fact that nearby neighbors are probably more than willing to assist in their resistance - meaning Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

We have to remember that Iraq holds a good deal of significance in islam and the likes of al Qaeda have made it their top priority for years. There is no way in hell that the Iranians are gonna get some influence in the new Iraqi government and then just take over - if they try it, it is going to be bloody, real bloody.

Iraq: Letting Iran Call the Shots



When he first became prime minister of Iraq,Nouri al-Malikiacted the reluctant debutante. "I wish they would let me retire to attend my literary interests," he told me with a tinge of sincerity.

Almost five years later, Maliki seems set to strike a Faustian bargain to cling to power: He is ready to dine with the devil -- and not even using a long spoon.

No one has built a majority coalition in the months since the parliamentary elections in March, allowing him to remain as prime minister. But he now he appears on the verge of finally forming a government.

Last week, he concluded an accord with the Sadrist bloc -- whose leader, firebrand mullah Muqtada Sadr, has been living in the Iranian holy city of Qom since 2008. The two men pretend to have forgotten, if not forgiven, the bloody battle for Basra that broke Sadr's Mahdi Army (trained and led by Iran's Revolutionary Guard).

To clinch the deal, Maliki has dropped his "Iraq first" rhetoric in favor of a pan-Shiite approach. He has agreed to stop legal proceedings against the fugitive mullah, who's wanted in Najaf on a charge of murder. Maliki even has dropped hints that the remnants of the Mahdi Army, which fled to Iran, would be allowed to return with impunity.

Yet the Sadrists demand more: key posts, such as ministers for oil, the interior, defence and education. If they succeed, the key policies of Iraq's government could be made in Tehran.

Tehran helped the deal by ordering its oldest Shiite clients, the so-called Supreme Islamic Assembly of Iraq (and its armed wing, the Badr Brigades), to back Maliki. Another Iran-sponsored Shiite group, under ex-Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, has also thrown the little weight it has behind Maliki.

Even then, the math doesn't work. Maliki's bloc, The State of Law, won 89 seats in the 325-seat National Assembly. Adding the Sadrists, the Badrists and the Jaafarists yields 156 -- still seven short of a majority. But Maliki's advisers claim that he can seduce enough independents to secure a bare majority.

Forming such a government would be bad for Iraq and the region -- and for Maliki's place in history. It would be based on less than 40 percent of the votes in the election. And more than 90 percent of those votes came from only nine out of Iraq's 18 provinces.

An estimated 30 percent of Shiites didn't vote for the four parties in the proposed coalition. In five provinces, the coalition parties didn't draw even 1 percent.

No government in Baghdad would be able to run Iraq without the support of the secular bloc of Sunnis and Shiites led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, which came first with 91 seats. And any new government must also win over the Kurds, some 20 percent of the population.

The three Kurdish parties, with 60 seats, could give Maliki a strong majority. But their price is too steep. They want a third of the Cabinet and insist that no key decision be taken without their approval.

They also want a free hand to exploit oil resources in their three autonomous provinces -- and to annex oil-rich Kirkuk, where Kurds are 40 percent of the population.

Maliki's advisers tell me that he decided to turn to pro-Tehran groups because he believes the Obama administration has no overarching strategy in the Middle East, let alone in Iraq. By constantly apologizing for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and talking of leaving Iraq (and the region), President Obama risks reducing the United States to irrelevance in a complex power game that could decide the future of the Middle East.

Vice President Joe Biden's public appeal to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to intervene in the formation of a new government showed the administration's failure to understand the desire of most Iraqis, including Maliki's supporters, to keep the mullahs out of politics -- a desire shared by Sistani himself.

Maliki's ability to hang on is not limitless. By the end of this year, as the term of the annual budget ends, his government could run out of money. His accord with the Sadrists suggests that he'll announce a new government before then. Such a government, however, might prove unstable, making a political crisis, leading to fresh general elections, a possibility.

The Obama administration appears to have no plans to deal with the situation -- even though, for all the talk of leaving, America still has 55,000 troops and perhaps as many civilian workers in Iraq.