Notwithstanding his brutal rule, Saddam Hussain was a diehard Arab nationalist, a man whose Iraqi and Arab identities were well known. Though he oscillated between his tribal roots and, in times of need, his religious affiliation, and while his power was nurtured by leading western powers — ranging from key European countries, including Russia and its predecessor, to the US — Saddam never placed in doubt his allegiance towards his land. His was a determined even if reckless adventure that overstretched into unnecessary confrontations. Even if history books three centuries hence will correctly chastise him for affronting patronising global powers that demanded subservience, they will also identify sharp differences between Saddam and his successors, especially embattled Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.
Six years after his election, Al Maliki stood as the epitome of misplaced nationalism, a leader who failed to protect and defend the interests of the Iraqi people — all of the Iraqi people. Rather, the outgoing premier preferred to remain beholden to Iran, whose predilections to transform Iraq into a satrapy were fully documented. Why was Al Maliki so feeble?
Admittedly, this is a difficult question to answer although two sets of concerns may elucidate what motivated Al Maliki, even if his overall direction — holding onto power — was no mystery.
The first series of issues that inspired the outgoing premier were similar to what propelled Saddam, which is to say, accession to power and holding onto it at all costs. If Saddam purged his institutions, emasculated the military, launched into suicidal wars, challenged global powers that seldom allowed freelancers to continue their operations, and otherwise condemned a suffering nation into subservience, Al Maliki mimicked the fallen dictator. He toyed with the nascent democratising body — parliament — as if it were a decoration, failed to empower the army and internal security forces to defend Iraqis from external as well as internal foes, blatantly supported the Damascus Baath regime’s self-inflicted civil war, dismissed his principal sponsors — western countries — as little more than distant nuisances, and otherwise neglected to defend Iraq’s vital minority populations.
Obligations towards Iran
The second series of concerns that motivated Al Maliki hovered around his obligations towards Iran. Supported by Iran as he lingered in Tehran for years on end when Saddam ruled Iraq with an iron-fist, few doubted his preferences, even if no one fathomed that Al Maliki would allow Iran to abscond Iraqi authority in the aftermath of the US-led War that toppled the Saddam regime. In the event, Al Maliki maintained very close ties with General Qassem Sulaimani, the commander of the Quds Force that was a division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and whose writ included special operations outside Iran. It was Sulaimani, for all practical purposes, who managed Iraq that, without exaggeration, partially explained the most recent sectarian penchants observed throughout the country.
Yet, and by following obscurantist policies instead of earning the Iraqi population’s confidence and the respect of the international community, Al Maliki opted to ignore his constituents and defied Washington after President Barack Obama and his advisers concluded that he no longer was able to govern Iraq properly.
That view was certainly recent because US officials who dealt with the prime minister appreciated Al Maliki’s early determination. Former president George W. Bush even flew to Baghdad in 2006 to meet him and, apparently, “sensed an inner toughness” although it was important to recall that such a superficial assessment could only occur when Bush concluded that he needed a better manager than Ebrahim Al Jaafari. At the time, Bush sought someone who could reign in loose militias and restore a semblance of order to the security chaos that descended on the country, and the largely unknown Al Maliki promised to fit that bill. He recorded limited successes before his sectarian penchants emerged as he quickly opted to target Sunni militias. Whether this was his own doing or whether such a scheme was telegraphed from Tehran was not easy to decipher as Shiite militias were left free to roam the land and impose their own edicts under Baghdad’s watchful eyes.
Gradually, Iraq drifted into a full-fledged Lebanonisation process, which guaranteed a civil war. Inevitably, and notwithstanding conspiracy theories that fuelled beliefs this was a cleverly devised western plot to divide Iraq, what proved inevitable was that Washington and Al Maliki would soon part ways.
Among Al Maliki’s more egregious doings were his selective uses of force to quell growing opposition elements, although, and in fairness, others were to blame just as much as he was. In fact, Washington, that is to say Vice-President Joe Biden given Obama’s lack of interest in foreign affairs, failed to persuade Al Maliki to delegate and share power. When in may 2012, he ordered the arrest of his Sunni vice-president, Tarek Al Hashemi, few reminded him that one of the consequences of such gamesmanship was more sectarianism. Regrettably, the prime minister proved to be a poor student of politics, and no one bothered to remind him that Iraq was no longer a dictatorship. His sole selling point was an alleged ability to maintain order though Washington should have seen the light at the end of the tunnel when he tolerated the free flow of extremists in and out of Syria.
Confronted by epochal challenges from Islamists anxious to restore a caliphate, the new Iraqi President, Fouad Masoum, understood that unity mattered. That was the reason why the Kurdish head-of-state nominated Haider Al Abadi, the Shiite deputy speaker who hailed from the same party as the outgoing premier, but who shared with Masoum a belief in a functioning federal state. Both men were pragmatic enough to realise that while Iraq is a predominantly Shiite society, others had equal political rights, which meant that power-sharing was now a must. Both wisely concluded that Al Maliki was no longer a unifying figure and that his orderly departure from the political scene was a must. Simply stated, both underscored that those who failed to place the interests of Iraq above all else, could not possibly continue to rule.
Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of the forthcoming ‘Iffat Al Thunayan: An Arabian Queen’, London: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.