Political gamble in a polarised Iraq

Eyad Al Samarrai, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front bloc in Parliament, became the new speaker of the Iraqi Parliament on Sunday.

This puts an end to the ongoing tug-of-war to replace his predecessor, Mahmoud Al Mashhadani, who stepped down in Dec-ember 2008.

Al Samarrai is deputy secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni party in Iraq, headed by Vice-President Tarek Al Hashemi. A mechanical engineer by training, he was born in 1946 in an old Sunni neighbourhood of Baghdad.

He studied at Baghdad University and ventured into the underground Islamic movement in the mid-1960s. He worked in the civil service until 1980, leading a double-life in the underground with youth movements opposed to Saddam Hussain.

In 1995, Al Samarrai had to flee to neighbouring Jordan and then to Britain, where he stayed until the downfall of Saddam in 2003. During his long exile, he was elected secretary-general of the Islamic Party in the Diaspora, which is a branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In 2005, he was voted on an Islamic ticket as a deputy for Baghdad in the 275-seat Iraqi Parliament.

Iraqi Sunnis welcomed Al Samarrai's election with mixed emotions. Many were pleased, seeing him as a veteran figure with plenty of war medals from the days of his struggle against Saddam. Others argue that although seasoned, Al Samarrai is not a Sunni heavyweight and cannot compare to figures like Adnan Al Pachachi, or even his own boss Al Hashemi.

Some are indifferent, claiming that Al Samarrai alone cannot stand up to the might of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) that is in power, or its ally, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.

They argue that Al Samarrai will be nothing but a symbolic figurehead. For his part, Al Maliki has been trying lately to build bridges with Sunnis and he is pleased at Al Samarrai's election.

During the provincial elections that took place in early 2009, he tried appealing to Sunni voters by steering away from any religious rhetoric affiliated with his all-Shiite Dawa Party. Instead he spoke of issues that mattered to all Iraqis, like better hospitals, stronger security and higher wages.

In early April, Al Maliki sent National Dialogue Minister Akram Al Hakim to Cairo to meet with former Baathists and get them to join the political process. Two weeks ago, under his urging, Iraqi courts reduced the sentence of Muntazer Al Zaidi, the man who flung his shoes at former US president George W. Bush. Al Zaidi will now be released next December, one year after he attacked Bush.

Dialogue with exiled Baathists, however, or a symbolic gesture like the Al Zaidi one, actually cost the prime minister nothing, and yield immediate positive vibes in the Iraqi Sunni community.

What drowned the positive gestures going back and forth between the Al Maliki government and Iraqi Sunnis were the six deadly car bombs in Shiite districts, which triggered a series of reprisal attacks on Iraqi Sunnis, the worst the country has known in over 13 months.

Al Maliki actually wants influential Sunnis on his team because he is planning an all-out offensive against the Sunni-packed Awakening Councils (sahwa), created by the Bush administration to combat Al Qaida in Iraq.

He doesn't want this war to take on a sectarian colour, and is trying to bring as many Sunnis as possible into his orbit, to serve as an umbrella for his upcoming offensive.

Any clampdown on Sunnis would anger neighbouring countries, which Al Maliki cannot afford. On the contrary, he has warmed up to the Saudis and Syrians. He has welcomed his Syrian counterpart Mohammad Naji Otari, for the first visit by a senior Syrian official to Baghdad, since 2003.

Sunni demands vary: a general amnesty setting thousands of political prisoners free, greater say in the political process, and amendment of the de-Baathification laws. Many are calling for a strict state of law where all militias, including the Shiite Badr Brigade and the Mehdi Army, are disarmed.

Some have even greater ambitions, demanding adjustment to the division of power, which gives them the post of speaker of parliament. They seek the presidency, which is held by Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. Al Maliki's repeated promises to answer some of these demands have never materialised.

Al Maliki, however, wants to gain Sunni allies while giving them the least amount of concessions. He is not interested in real rapprochement, only a marriage of convenience to reach short-term results. One step in the right direction, he believes, is embracing Al Samarrai, because the latter had been very critical both of him and Iran.

Al Maliki has now realised that having Al Samarrai onboard the political process, shouldering blame for both success and failure, is better than keeping him on the offensive.

Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward magazine in Syria.