Its rather a disgrace for the Arabs that the only two presidents to visit Iraq since 2003 are George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian leader, who just visited Baghdad, is worried - very worried - about the future of Iraqi Shiites.
After all, the Iran-brokered "truce" between the two Shiite heavyweights in Iraqi politics, the Mahdi Army and the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), is now history. Iran had engineered the truce between the two historically hostile groups, to prevent the shedding of Shiite blood back in August 2007.
The mullahs of Tehran have now talked Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani into renewing Nouri Al Maliki's tenure as prime minister. There was no reason whatsoever for Al Maliki to survive.
A total of 17 ministers abandoned him since mid-summer 2007. Sectarian violence is on the rise. Al Qaida is alive and kicking in Iraq. And militias - which he promised to disarm - are still patrolling the streets of Baghdad.
But that doesn't really matter for Ahmadinejad. What matters is that all indicators point to the seriousness of an upcoming US offensive on Tehran. That becomes all the more dangerous when the destroyer USS Cole approaches Lebanese waters, threatening Iran's ally Hezbollah.
Ahmadinejad needs to hold on to his Shiite allies in the Arab World. He knows that Al Maliki is mediocre, when measured by leadership standards, yet he convinced Al Sistani to give him another try as prime minister. The deal to call him in for another round at the premiership had Iran's fingerprints all over it.
The Iranians are worried that sometime in the near future, they might lose their Hezbollah ally in Lebanon. If Hezbollah is sidelined, or incapacitated either through civil war in Lebanon or an upcoming confrontation with Israel (or America), the Iranians need a Plan B for the spread of their influence to the Arab world.
All countries that have a significant Shiite population, like Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, are off-limits for the Iranians because they would be too difficult to penetrate. Iraq is ripe, however, for another Hezbollah. This explains why Moqtada Al Sadr has been "freezing" the activities of the Mahdi Army since late 2007.
It's not goodwill - it's with the purpose of re-arming, re-structuring, filtering uncontrollable or unreliable elements, and re-vamping his army's image, in anticipation of making it another Hezbollah.
The man supposedly charged with arming and training the Mahdi Army was Hezbollah commander Imad Mughnieh, who was assassinated in Damascus on February 12. His demise is a heavy blow for Hezbollah in Lebanon and for the Iranians in Iraq. It explains why a worried Ahmadinejad changed his travel plans right after the assassination.
He was planning to visit Baghdad on March 28. That trip was pushed up to March 2 and its schedule included a historic visit to Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani in Najaf. Giving political cover to the entire Mahdi Army re-vamp would be Al Al Maliki, under Ahmadinejad's supervision.
The Iranian President (the first to visit Iraq since 1979) needs to make sure that Al Maliki succeeds in pulling through with another cabinet, guaranteeing protection of the Mahdi Army.
What he needs to do
Earlier, Al Maliki promised to disarm both Sunnis and Shiite militias. He only cracked down on Sunni militias, angering their patrons who accused him of being biased towards the Shiites. This is one of the reasons why the Accordance Front abandoned him in 2007.
He needs a more even-handed policy today when it comes to the illegal possession of arms, by either Shiites or Sunnis. In the discussions that preceded him assuming the premiership in 2006, Sunni parties were demanding that he break the monopoly of power practised by Shiite politicians and militias on the Ministry of Interior.
The ministry had been controlled by the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) and its military wing, the Badr Brigade. They used the police force to arrest Sunni activists, terrorise Sunni neighbourhoods, and in some cases, torture - or kill - Sunni politicians in the basements of the ministry. Al Maliki promised to change that but then appointed none other than Jawad Boulani (a former Sadrist) as minister.
Many wondered how someone like Boulani, who had worked with the Mahdi Army in 2004, could disarm the same army in 2006? The misdoings of the Interior Ministry continued in 2006-2008. Step One in reform would be to dismiss Boulani and replace him with someone who is affiliated with neither of the religious blocs in Iraq.
Other sectors once controlled by the Sadrists will also be a problem for the prime minister. They used to control the ministry of health. That gave them open and unlimited access hospitals and clinics, medicine, along with a network of medical services - and charity - to grassroot Iraqi Shiites.
Al Sadr will not hear of it going to one of his opponents, either from the secular Iraqi National List of Eyad Allawi, the Kurds, or the Accordance Front. Controlling it is vital for the Sadrists.
The same applies to the ministry of education, where the Sadrists taught their brand of Islam to schoolchildren through thousands of like-minded teachers that they appointed in the schools and kindergartens of Iraq.
Also, if Al Maliki wants anybody to take him seriously he has to get rid of Abdul-Qadir Obeidi, a Sunni from Ramadi who aroused equal controversy when appointed minister of defence in 2006. Both he and Boulani are grand proof that sectarianism still reigns in the political and security establishments of the Al Maliki regime.
Sacking Boulani would anger the Sadrists, who might walk out - again - on the prime minister. Sacking Obeidi might upset the Sunnis, who only just agreed to cooperate with Al Maliki.
The prime minister appeased them by pushing through with a general amnesty and in turn, the Accordance Front accepted a small government of 23 ministers. If the Accordance Front returns, Al Maliki will regain a majority in Parliament, because they have 44 seats.
Those seats, along with the two Kurdish parties that already support Al Maliki, and the Shiite bloc of Sadr and SIIC, would make Al Maliki's supporters a total of 156, re-gaining a majority. The man to thank for all of this is Ahmadinejad.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
