No cost too high for control

In The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End, former United States ambassador Peter Galbraith tells a story about US president George W. Bush two months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

He claims that when Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis were mentioned to Bush, he replied: “I thought all the Iraqis were Muslims!'' Meaning, Bush failed to fully grasp how powerful in Iraq the Iranians would become once Saddam Hussain left the scene in Baghdad, given their patronage of Iraqi Shiites.

The post-Saddam order led to an overwhelming 2005 victory for the Iran-backed United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a coalition of Shiite parties that walked the tightrope between being pro-American and pro-Iranian simultaneously.

The coalition was supported by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, an Iranian-born cleric based in Najaf, one of the most respected men in the international Shiite community.

Sulking over the overthrow of Saddam and bent on challenging the new American order by force, the Sunnis boycotted the 2005 elections and rallied instead, in rank and file, behind the then-called Sunni insurgency.

It was composed of warriors from Al Qaida, Sunni tribesmen and former Baathists.

The UIA got 140 seats in Iraq's 275-seat National Assembly, which was music to the ears of the mullahs of Tehran.

Rising from the underground were parties such as Al Dawa, headed by Ebrahim Al Jaafary, a religiously driven Shiite politician, and Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), headed by Abdul Aziz Al Hakeem. Both had Iranian links.

Hakeem even commanded the Badr Brigade, an Iran-funded all-Shiite militia that fought alongside the Iranian army.

Hakeem's militia were legitimised when SIIC took control of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, using its police force to settle old scores with Iraqi Sunnis — blamed for having produced and supported Saddam.

Another armed group to emerge was the Mahdi Army, headed by the 32-year-old rebel leader Moqtada Al Sadr.

He too was vengeful of anything related to the Saddam years. Sadr supported the new Iraqi prime minister, Al Jaafary, who came to power in April 2005.

The slums — filled with young and poor Iraqi Shiites —pledged loyalty to the UIA and Jaafary, a man who had left Iraq in 1980 and returned in 2003.

An entire generation of young Shiites did not know him, yet offered him allegiance because he was affiliated to their popular boss, Moqtada Al Sadr.

Jaafari remained in power from April 2005 to May 2006. During his tenure, the infamous bombing of the Al Askari Mosque — a revered Shiite site — took place in the city of Samarra on February 22, 2006.

The Shiites rebelled in rage, blaming the attack on Iraqi Sunnis.

The Mahdi Army on one front and the Badr Brigade on another, began a systematic murder campaign against the Sunni community, killing whatever chances of reconciliation existed and further dividing the war-torn nation.

Jaafari was replaced in May 2006 by his protégé Nouri Al Maliki, another Shiite politician who at the time was a political nobody, having also spent many years exile, in Syria.

Al Maliki proved smarter than Jaafary, pledging to right the wrongs of the years 2003-2006.

In June 2006, the Americans legitimised him in the eyes of ordinary Iraqis by killing Abu Musaab Al Zarkawi, Al Qaida's No 2 man in Iraq, who had commanded the Sunni insurgency since 2003.

Al Maliki reached out to Sunni groups, allying himself with the Iraqi Accordance Front, giving it two posts as deputy prime minister, and the powerful portfolio of defence.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, another Sunni group, was given the job of vice-president through its veteran statesman Tarek Hashemi.

The Kurds got the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and SIIC got the post of Interior — again. Al Maliki even humoured the Kurds by sending signals that he wanted to transfer the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to Iraqi Kurdistan.

He pledged to carry out a referendum, stipulated in Article 140 of the new Iraqi Constitution, calling for a plebiscite in Kirkuk to see if its people wanted to stay with Iraq or join Kurdistan.

He oversaw the uprooting of Arab families from Kirkuk to increase its Kurdish population, claiming that they had been illegally brought there under Saddam for the opposite purpose.

Most striking in Al Maliki's 37-member cabinet were the Sadrists. Al Maliki struck an alliance with Moqtada Al Sadr, providing protection from the American dragnet in exchange for legitimacy in the Iraqi street.

Sadr commanded 30 seats in the new parliament and was given portfolios such as health, commerce and education.

While he tolerated the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army, his security forces aggressively struck at Sunni military groups, accusing them of terrorism.

In no time, however, the honeymoon with the Accordance Front fell apart. It grew disenchanted with the prime minister's bias towards Shiite groups and his refusal to respond to any of its demands, which included amendment to de-Baathification laws and a general amnesty to all those who had carried arms since 2003.

They stood in an increasingly difficult position when Saddam was executed in December 2006. On August 1, 2007, the Front withdrew from the Al Maliki Cabinet.

So did the Sadrists, who quarrelled with the prime minister when he refused to set a timetable for withdrawal of US troops.

Now in power, Al Maliki accused Al Sadr of being an outlaw and began implementing the Baghdad Security Plan, striking protected slums of Sadr City.

Al Maliki suffered another blow when two players in the UIA, the Iraqi National List of former prime minister Iyad Allawi and the Fadila Party, withdrew from his Cabinet.

To compensate, he cuddled up to SIIC and its leader Abdul Aziz Al Hakeem, nodding to the latter's suggestion that the Shiites be given autonomy in southern Iraq, similar to the one enjoyed by the Kurds in the north.

If implemented, it would have left the Sunnis in central Iraq with no oil — an idea that raised eyebrows.

Since 2006, Al Maliki has managed to put on a variety of masks. He rose to fame as a religion-driven politician close to Iran.

During his early months in power, he tried to distance himself from the Iranians.

More recently, he has put on the mask of a secular politician, campaigning for the 2009 provincial elections by speaking about what mattered to Iraqis: security, higher wages, better schools and hospitals.

The fact that he has survived for so long — 36 months and counting — means the US is pleased because it fears a post-Al Maliki Iraq, not knowing what to expect if Al Maliki is ejected and a weak politician comes prime minister.

The Iranians are pleased because he has managed to promote and protect Shiite interests in Iraq since 2006.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.'' That applies to the Shiites of Iraq and their Iranian patrons.

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.