Sofa nod elevates Al Maliki to position of power

Baghdad: Parliament's approval of a security pact with the US has propelled Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki into a position of strength unsurpassed among Iraqi political leaders since the fall of Saddam Hussain.

Furious dealmaking preceded the vote on Thursday, compelling Al Maliki to make a wide range of concessions to Sunni lawmakers in exchange for their support to Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa).

As a result, he emerged with his main goal intact: a historic agreement in which the last American soldier would leave Iraq by January 1, 2012, and restore the country's full national sovereignty.

Coming on top of a string of military and political successes this year, the agreement has given Al Maliki the aura of a national leader who rises above Iraq's chronic sectarian and ethnic divisions to pursue the greater interest.

However, experts are divided on how long the prime minister's political dominance will last.

"The prime minister is involved in political struggles that have only just begun, and it is far from clear how well he can survive the power struggles and elections to come," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon analyst now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"The insurgency is still there, Arab-Kurdish rivalries are growing, Shiite-Sunni tensions are still critical, and no one can predict the future power struggle within each key ethnic and sectarian faction," Cordesman said.

Al Maliki risked his future on the agreement with the United States, which many Iraqis see as an occupying power. Failure to win approval might have forced him to step down.

"Some thought they could use the agreement to weaken the prime minister," said Haidar Al Ibadi, a senior Shiite lawmaker and a close Al Maliki aide. "Frankly, they were playing with fire."

Realising the stakes, a group of mostly Sunni lawmakers sought concessions from Al Maliki in exchange for their support. Al Maliki said that amounted to blackmail but, in the end, he met most of their demands in a three-page "Charter of Political Reform".