Juan Cole, Professor of History and author of Engaging the Muslim World, discusses the seeming triumph of Iranian-preferred candidate Nouri al-Maliki as Iraq’s Prime Minister, looming conflicts from planned Kurdish expansionism into Arab-majority regions, the short-term marginalization of Moqtada al-Sadr and how the Ayad Allawi walkout shows the disenfranchisement of Iraq’s Sunni minority.
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Alright, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
We're on ChaosRadioAustin.org, LRN.
FM, Liberty Radio Network, AntiWar.com/radio.
Right now I'm looking at JuanCole.com.
That's the blog of Dr. Juan Cole from the University of Michigan.
The blog is called Informed Comment.
Got that right.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks so much, Scott.
Well, I really appreciate having you here, and I really appreciate having this article to read because, man, oh, man, Iraqi politics get complicated sometimes.
It's Sunni Arabs Return to Parliament, but Shiite Kurdish Ascendancy Holds.
Ahmadinejad congratulates his candidate, al-Maliki.
That part is the headline in the viewpoint section right now at AntiWar.com.
So let's go ahead and start with that.
How is it that al-Maliki is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's candidate?
I thought al-Maliki was George Bush and Barack Obama's guy.
Well, yeah, you know, they could put up with al-Maliki, but I don't think after the last election that al-Maliki was America's favorite.
He has pretty good relations with Iran.
He's not in their back pocket or anything, but there's good relations there.
Well, now, he was a Dalah party guy from way back, but I think you taught me years ago that the Dalah party itself was split during the era when the Supreme Islamic Council and the Hakeem faction and many of the Dalah party people fled to Iran when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, that there was another faction of Dalah that had gone to Europe instead, and Maliki was sort of the less pro-Iranian faction of Dalah.
Isn't that right?
That's right.
Very good.
That's an excellent summary.
So that's right, it wouldn't be fair to see al-Maliki as just an Iranian puppet.
But what happened on March 7th, they had these parliamentary elections, and Ayatollah Ali, who's a secular person, he's an ex-Ba'athist from a Shiite background, his bloc won the largest number of seats.
They got 91 seats.
And he had been appointed by the Americans to be an interim prime minister back in 2004, and they like him a lot.
He's very anti-Iranian.
And as the United States draws down its military, a lot of people in Washington are afraid that the Iranians will step into the vacuum and kind of capture Iraq geopolitically.
So the ideal thing for Washington would be if they could have found a way to shoehorn Alawi into the prime minister post, or at least find a way to get him to be in control of security.
So that's what they've been working on, and a lot of the delay in forming a government has been because the Americans have been pushing for Alawi against Maliki.
Well, I guess I kind of got egg all over my face, because I thought Muqtada al-Sadr was going to get to decide this whole mess.
Well, you know, there's a real sense in which Muqtada al-Sadr did decide the mess.
How's that?
I mean, to read your blog, the best I understand it, it sounds like he's the odd man out in this coalition, if you can call it that, or can you call it that?
I mean, the problem was, you know, Maliki had 89 seats, Alawi had 91, you need 163 to form a government, and neither of them had been able to do that.
And the fundamentalist Shiites like Muqtada al-Sadr and the Supreme Council, the Iraqi Supreme Council, led by Ammar Hakim, they were, you know, trying out different things.
One day they'd announce for Maliki, the other day they'd announce for Alawi, they put forward their own Canada, and so on and so forth.
But in September, the Iranians came to Muqtada al-Sadr, and I don't know whether they threatened him or beguiled him or promised him something, but they got him to turn around and say that he was going to support Maliki for prime minister.
And that was a turning point, because at that point Maliki starts to have about 140, he only needs about 23 to put together a majority in parliament.
The Kurds are looking for who's, you know, the likely winner, and they swung around behind al-Maliki after Sadr did that.
So Sadr put, you know, al-Maliki ahead.
Well, and that's actually how Maliki got the job in the first place, right?
Yeah.
And they had supported him in 2006, although in between they had a lot of fights between each other, and he attacked them.
But it was Iran, you know, sort of twisting Muqtada's arm to get him to support al-Maliki that created a momentum for al-Maliki.
But the Americans, you know, were really upset at the idea of Sadr being powerful in this new Iraqi government that's being formed.
So I think they basically told al-Maliki that they'd only agree to him coming to power if he agreed that Muqtada al-Sadr would not get any security-related posts for his guys.
And they didn't want the Maathi army taking over the Ministry of Defense.
Well, it's already made up of the Bata Brigade, and in fact, I'm trying to remember, was it ...
I think it was Pepe Escobar on the show a few weeks back who explained that now the Supreme Islamic Council, now that Abdulaziz al-Hakim has died and his son is in charge, Omar al-Hakim, you said?
It's Ammar, A-M-M-A-R.
Oh, Ammar.
That Sadr is now dominant not just inside the Iraqi National Alliance, but he's now the dominant player inside the Supreme Islamic Council as well, is that right?
Well, I wouldn't go that far.
Muqtada al-Sadr is extremely influential and popular.
The Americans have always underestimated him.
I think there are still a lot of Supreme Council people who are loyal to the al-Hakim family.
But in any case, the Supreme Council did so badly in these elections that it really only has like 12 seats in Parliament or something, so it's not that big a player.
I see.
And now, was it Talabani?
He's been president this whole time and he's staying president, is that right?
Right.
Well, he wasn't the first post-Adham president.
No, I'm sorry.
Tell the people who he is.
Pardon me.
So, Jalal Talabani is an old-time Kurdish politician from northern Iraq based in Sulaymaniyah, and he is one of two major Kurdish leaders that most Kurds look to for leadership.
And he was elected president in 2005, and he indicated that of all the possible prime ministerial candidates, that he liked Al-Maliki the best.
The Kurds, you know, want... they're expansionists.
They've got three provinces of northern Iraq that they've kind of erased the provincial boundaries and made it into a super-province of Kurdistan.
But they're not satisfied with that.
They'd like to have at least parts of other provinces and whole other provinces where they can get them.
And since there are a lot of Arabs who live in those provinces who don't want to be annexed to Kurdistan, there's a lot of trouble over this Kurdish expansionism.
Well, and you know, during the whole civil war between, I guess mostly to oversimplify it, but between the Sunni and Shia factions over who's going to rule Baghdad for the long term and all that, there was sort of this less publicized and, I guess, less violent, although pretty brutal, kind of slow-motion war going on over Kirkuk, right, with the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from that city to make sure the Kurdish leaders that seem to want to make sure that there was a majority, by far, I guess, a majority Kurdish population there so that they can have that city itself be part of Kurdistan.
And many commentators over the years have said that, you know, maybe not yet, but this is going to be a major flashpoint.
In fact, I think Gareth Porter was saying on the show last week that he could see a situation where the alliance has changed and it becomes the Sunni and Shia Arabs together in a war against the Kurds over Kirkuk.
And I guess, actually, I'll ask you to hold it there.
I'm sorry, the music's playing.
We've got to take this break.
But when we get back, I'll ask you more about the conflict between the Kurds and the Arabs and how bad it doesn't have to be, hopefully.
So Juan Cole from informedcomment.com.
Nope, juancole.com.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
This is anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Juan Cole.juancole.com is the correct website for the informed comment blog.
He's a professor of history at the University of Michigan.
He wrote a book called Engaging the Muslim World.
And we're talking about Iraqi politics now.
So Talabani is still the president, Juan, you're saying, according to the latest parliamentary deal thing, they're working out over there.
But then there was the question about Kirkuk and whether, well, I guess the Arab side says it's an Arab city and the Kurdish side says it's a Kurdish city, and that's old world politics for you.
So what do you think's going to happen there?
Well, I don't know.
The Kurds want to have a referendum in Kirkuk.
And if a referendum were held, the Kurds would almost certainly win.
But that might cause a lot of trouble with the Arabs, as you say.
But, you know, the Kurds don't just want Kirkuk province, which is an oil province, but they also would very much like to have Nineveh province, where there are a lot of Kurds and where the major city of Mosul is, although Mosul is overwhelmingly Sunni Arab.
And they'd like to have parts of Diyala province or the whole thing, if they could get it and so on and so forth.
So, yeah, as you say, the conflict between Arab nationalism and Kurdish nationalism in northern Iraq is the other shoe waiting to drop.
And, you know, maybe they'll muddle through, but it could get violent.
Well, I guess the question is whether, you know, the whole thing about the surge works, supposedly.
In 2007, the claim was, OK, we're going to basically help the Shia finish winning the civil war in Baghdad, and then we'll call that desolation peace.
But then the point of that peace is so that political reconciliation can take place in Baghdad in a secure security situation.
Sorry for the redundancy there.
But and then that way, we won't have to have wars about whether the Sunnis can have jobs working for the government or whether who controls Kirkuk or whatever, because we'll just handle all these things through the democratic process instead of Peshmerga and Wolf Brigades going to war against each other.
Right.
Well, that didn't happen.
You mean the surge didn't work, like in the slogan?
Yeah, unfortunately.
But I got that slogan memorized.
You're telling me it's not true?
Yes, I was informed by Steve Colbert once that the surge worked.
But, you know, the thing about the current political juncture is that presumably al-Maliki is promising the Kurds something that they've swung around and supported him.
So you've got a situation where the leading Shiite candidate, who has now an alliance with the fundamentalist Shiites, may be throwing the Sunnis of Kirkuk under the bus.
So what's going to happen now?
Are they going to?
I guess it'll be a while before those kind of flashpoints come about.
Is there any chance that they could work things out?
Like, say, for example, the Sunni awakening thing, where Petraeus said, look, we'll let you patrol your own neighborhoods and we'll buy you a bunch of AK-47s.
Just stop warring against us for a while.
You know, fight al-Qaeda dudes that you're sick and tired of and have been fighting anyway.
And we'll give you jobs.
We'll make sure that Nuri al-Maliki will bring you into the army.
We'll bring you into the government that, you know, will have some kind of power sharing.
And they bought it, right?
It seemed like David Petraeus made him a pretty big promise.
Is he able to keep it at all?
Is Maliki...
I guess he's got this alliance with Alawi.
Is that an indicator that maybe that conflict can be put to rest, at least?
No, al-Maliki refused to pick up most of those Sunni sons of Iraq or awakening councils for...
The concerned local citizens.
That was my favorite.
Right.
Well, in any case, they didn't get hired in large numbers by the Iraqi government.
Certainly not in security-related posts, which made them sitting ducks for the extremists.
And many of them have kind of been picked off and assassinated as reprisals for their siding with the Americans.
And, of course, once you're no longer formally a security force, you're more likely to be just taken out and shot.
And then only a small number have actually been given employment in the Iraqi government.
And some of them were actually arrested and prosecuted by al-Maliki.
He didn't agree with the Americans giving them amnesty, because some of them were pretty bad guys and had done things to the Shiites before they turned.
So, you know, it's a mess.
And al-Maliki seems to have more or less closed out the Sunni Arabs again.
The Americans were trying to set things up so that it's a national unity government.
The Sunnis have a place at the table.
They're mollified.
But they gradually realized through last Thursday that they just weren't going to get very much out of this deal.
And that's why Ayatollah Ali and two-thirds of the Sunni representatives walked out of Parliament.
They came back on Saturday, but it's still not clear that they're going to get anything.
So the Shiites and the Kurds are going to be the predominant force in that government.
And this is why I say Iran won.
The Americans didn't get what they wanted.
They'd like to see Alawi, the secular candidate who's anti-Iranian, have this position in the security realm.
But that has to be legislated by Parliament, which is dominated by Shiites and Kurds.
And I don't think it's going to happen.
So I think that Alawi gets bupkis.
And the Sunni Arabs, 80% of them, voted for Alawi.
So, you know, it's not as if their votes made a big difference in the end.
Yeah.
They're done out.
Well, so from the point of view of a bunch of generals, it seems like all of this is, you know, fertile ground for continuing a long war inside Iraq.
And I think it's been pretty clear that the Pentagon has leaked.
You know, I think you probably remember this.
Right before Obama gave his Camp Lejeune speech in, I think, the beginning of February 2009, saying that we're going to go with the Status of Forces Agreement that Bush signed and we'll be out by the end of 2011.
Right before that, I mean, right before the speech began, NBC's Jim Michalczewski, their longtime Pentagon reporter, said, well, I don't know what the President's talking about.
I'm reading his advanced copy of the speech here.
What a joke.
The word in the halls here, we're staying for 20 years minimum.
And there's no way, after stealing this country fair and square, that the Pentagon is going to give it back.
Just last week, Robert Gates says, oh, yeah, 2011, well, you know, we'd love to renegotiate that, were we to be invited to stay longer.
McClatchy's running stories about Hillary Clinton wants to build up a giant private State Department army.
Gareth Porter's got a new article, something along those lines, on antiwar.com today.
And I wonder whether you think, it seems like all the hope that this war would ever end would be basically hanging on the idea that the pro-Iranian factions that America has installed in power there don't really need us, and that eventually they'll kick us out and mean it when they kick us out.
That was what Patrick Coburn said was, oh, no, the war's lost.
Iran won, and Sauter and his buddies on the Shiite side are going to stick with the SOFA agreement and force the United States out.
What do you think's going to happen there?
Do you even agree with my premise that the Pentagon wants to stay?
I don't mean to put those words in your mouth either.
Right, well, you know, there are people in the Pentagon who would very much like to keep a toll in Iraq, maybe half a division or something, 15,000 men, under some rubric.
And there is a provision in the Status of Forces Agreement that the Iraqi parliament signed with Bush that would allow the Iraqi government to invite the U.S. to stay longer.
It's not clear who the Iraqi government would be in that case.
The parliament would have to be an active parliament for the deadline to be extended.
Some people have suggested that the prime minister could do it as a kind of executive order, but I think that would cause a lot of trouble.
And I don't think the parliament would extend it for any significant number of U.S. infantry.
I think, realistically speaking, Iraq has no air force, and it's not going to have an air force for a long time.
It's ordered just by...
Which means the U.S. is their air force.
The U.S. is their air force, and it's going to be that way, I would estimate, until about 2018, at the very latest.
I mean, at the very earliest.
So there are going to be U.S. military personnel in Iraq for a long time.
And the Iraqi military, if it gets into trouble, if it comes into conflict with local militia, it may need close air support, and they don't have it.
So the U.S. is going to be the one that provides that.
Well, now, Sauder was always the most adamant about America leaving.
Do you think it's possible he'll change his mind and realize he needs us now that he's in government?
No.
No, he's absolutely against us staying.
And if we try to stay, there'll be more truck bombs in marine barracks.
All right.
Hey, listen, thanks very much for your time on the show today, Juan.
I learned a lot, as I always do.
Thanks so much for having me on, Scott.
Everybody, that's Professor Juan Cole from the University of Michigan.
JuanCole.com for the Informed Comment blog.
He's got a piece on AntiWar.com today.
