Special forces teams and army tanks surrounded the Green Zone housing Iraq’s government as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fiercely clung to power Sunday, taking the stability of the country to the brink at a moment when it is already facing a lethal challenge from radical Islamist fighters.
In actions that had all the markings of a political coup, Maliki gave a defiant late-night speech in Baghdad saying he would lodge a legal case against the country’s president, who has resisted naming him as the candidate for another term as prime minister.
Tanks rumbled onto major bridges and roads in the capital as security forces were put on high alert, with militiamen also patrolling Shiite neighborhoods. The special forces teams surrounding the Green Zone were taking orders directly from the prime minister, security officials said.
Maliki’s critics blame him for overseeing the de facto fragmentation of the country, with extremists from the Sunni-dominated Islamic State marauding through territory in the north and west and threatening Baghdad. They say Maliki, a Shiite, has persecuted and alienated members of the Sunni minority, driving them into the arms of radical groups.
The United States began airstrikes in northern Iraq on Friday as the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State threatened previously stable Kurdish territory, sending thousands of minority Christians and Yazidis fleeing for their lives.
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After being stranded on the parched Mount Sinjar for almost a week and then walking 12 miles to seek refuge in Syria, some of the persecuted civilians were able to safely return to the Kurdish region of Iraq with the help of Syrian Kurdish forces.
Aug. 12, 2014 Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community gather for food at the Nowruz camp in Derike, Syria. Khalid Mohammed/AP
But President Obama has established limited goals in the air operation, linking further assistance to the formation of a new government in Baghdad that is more inclusive of the country’s Sunnis.
The U.S. government indicated Sunday evening that it had broken with Maliki. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement that “the United States fully supports President Fuad Masum in his role as guarantor of the Iraqi Constitution. We reaffirm our support for a process to select a Prime Minister who can represent the aspirations of the Iraqi people by building a national consensus and governing in an inclusive manner. We reject any effort to achieve outcomes through coercion or manipulation of the constitutional or judicial process.”
The latest crisis came on a day when Kurdish forces expelled Islamic State extremists from two northern Iraqi towns, in the first signs of a turnaround for the embattled Kurds after a week of stunning losses to the militants. Their success came in the wake of U.S. airstrikes on the towns.
But the political standoff raised the prospect of deeper turmoil and potentially new violence in Iraq, where Shiite militias that had battled U.S. troops during the war have reestablished themselves in recent months.
Maliki’s political rivals, the country’s religious authorities and even parts of his political bloc have tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to step aside. But over his eight years in office, the prime minister has consolidated enormous power in his hands. He is commander in chief of the armed forces, and he holds the Defense and Interior ministry portfolios.
The prime minister’s political bloc won the largest share of seats in April’s parliamentary elections, but not a majority. In his speech, he charged that Iraq’s president, Fouad Massoum, had violated the constitution by not asking Maliki’s political bloc to put forward its candidate before a deadline last week.
“This act represented a coup against the constitution and the constitutional process,” Maliki said. Violation of the constitution could have serious and dangerous consequences, he said, taking the political process into a “dark tunnel.”
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Special forces also surrounded the presidential palace Sunday, in what appeared to be an act of intimidation.
A boost for the Kurds
Maliki’s surprise move came at the end of a day that had offered some hope for parts of the country besieged by Islamic State warriors.
For the third day, U.S. jets and drones swooped over the militants, launching five strikes near Irbil, the Kurdish capital, that damaged and destroyed the group’s vehicles and a mortar position, according to the U.S. military.
The airstrikes have given a morale boost to beleaguered Kurdish forces in the semi-autonomous north. They have been battling Islamic State militants for two months with outdated weapons, limited ammunition and no salaries. The Kurds’ losses in recent days have included the strategically important Mosul Dam and ancient settlements inhabited by Christians and other minorities.
Still, the region’s president, Massoud Barzani, warned Sunday that the militants’ firepower and determination should not be underestimated.
“We are not only fighting a terrorist group, we are fighting a terrorist state,” he said. “We would never ask our friends to send their sons to fight on our behalf; this is our war. What we are asking our friends to do is to provide support and to cooperate with us in providing the necessary weapons.”
The U.S. government relocated a “limited number” of staff members from its consulate in Irbil to the southern Iraqi city of Basra and to the Jordanian capital, Amman, the State Department said Sunday.
The move underscored the deterioration in the security situation in Irbil since two months ago, when the United States relocated staffers from its embassy in Baghdad to the north.
The Obama administration has said the airstrikes have a limited mission: to protect U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in Irbil, to prevent the massacre of religious minorities, and to safeguard critical infrastructure. On Sunday, thousands of Yazidis, members of a tiny religious sect, fled a barren mountain where they had been trapped for a week, surrounded by the extremist fighters. Some Yazidis said the American airstrikes had helped their escape.
The Kurds’ reconquest of the two northern towns, Makhmour and Gweir, about 30 miles southwest of Irbil, came two days after the towns were targeted by American airstrikes.
Rudaw, a Kurdish television channel, showed live footage Sunday of security forces advancing in Makhmour, where the Kurds had exchanged fire with the extremists a day earlier. The Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, crowded around a government building in the town, where the region’s flag was raised once more.
The oil-rich district of Makhmour was a valuable target for the militants, who have been pressing to seize resources to fund their self-proclaimed Islamist state.
“It’s thanks to the [American] strikes that we have been able to move forward,” said Mahmood Haji, an official in the Kurdish Interior Ministry. The Kurdish advances help shore up the first lines of defense for Irbil, he said.
Help for stranded sect
An international effort to aid the Yazidis stranded on Mount Sinjar in the country’s northwest picked up steam Sunday. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius visited Baghdad and Irbil to oversee the delivery of aid. Britain’s air force dropped tents and water filters overnight Saturday, joining the United States in parachuting in supplies.
The U.S. military conducted a fourth airdrop of food and water for thousands of Iraqis on Sunday night, U.S. Central Command said in a news release.
Followers of a secretive sect with roots in Zoroastrianism, the minority is particularly vulnerable to the Sunni extremists, who have forced Yazidis to convert or have executed them.
Thousands fled Sinjar when the Islamic State swept into the town a week ago, and many have had little food or water since then.
Also Sunday, several prominent Republican lawmakers called for an escalation in U.S. involvement in Iraq.
“We need to go on offense,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said on “Fox News Sunday.” “There is no force within the Mideast that can neutralize or contain or destroy ISIS without at least American air power.” The Islamic State was formerly called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
But Maliki’s latest moves made it seem unlikely that the Obama administration would change course anytime soon.
Maliki has made enemies across the political spectrum — even Iraq’s Shiite leaders have turned against him. The country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has also repeatedly called for a new, inclusive government, hinting that politicians should not “cling to their positions.”
“Sistani is deeply concerned about the situation,” said Sheik Haider al Taie, one of the cleric’s representatives.
Iran’s ayatollahs came out in public support of Sistani, a sign that Iranian support for Maliki has also slipped away. As the odds began to stack against the prime minister, his party indicated that it was prepared to cut him loose last month.
“There are self-serving people who are trying to get rid of him,” said Kadhim al-Sayadi, a parliamentarian close to the president. He said security forces had been called out to prevent people from “taking advantage” of the situation.
Come one Maliki, even the fucking zealots are laughing! And they think laughter is a sin! Unless it's chuckling at a beheading.
For fuck's sake even that motherfucker Kerry is telling you to go.
The Iraqi Parliament tells him to take a hike.
With deflections from Maliki's own party and even Iran throwing him under bus... He's sitting on a iceberg in the middle of a red sea.Iraq’s president on Monday asked a veteran Shiite politician, Haider al-Abadi, to form a new government, setting the stage for a vicious political showdown in a country already struggling to contain an Islamist extremist insurgency.
As his already limited political support crumbled, the incumbent prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, dug in for a fight. He argued that the appointment of the 62-year-old Abadi as prime minister-designate was legally invalid.
The clash has raised deep concerns at home and abroad about Iraq’s teetering stability. Ominously, Maliki reminded the country in a televised address Monday of his position as head of the armed forces and assured soldiers that the “error” will be rectified.
For a second day, blue-and-white armored personnel carriers belonging to security forces that answer directly to Maliki were stationed around the Green Zone. A hulking tank sat at one of the entrances to the secured zone, which houses government buildings. The armed forces remained on high alert, officials said, though Saad Maan, a spokesman for the Baghdad Operations Command, maintained that the deployment was routine.
“We are entering a potential clash,” said an Iraqi official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. “On the ground, [there are] tanks and armored vehicles. It’s a very complicated situation with the army.”
In a sign of U.S. concern, President Obama on Monday publicly announced his backing for Abadi, saying that his nomination was “a promising step forward.” Both he and Vice President Biden called Abadi to express their support.
Abadi now has 30 days to form a government, and during that time Maliki will remain the caretaker prime minister.
The U.S. government has said it will significantly expand aid to Iraq in its battle with al-Qaeda-inspired militants only if it forms a government that embraces the country’s different religious and ethnic groups.
“The only lasting solution is for Iraqis to come together and form an inclusive government,” Obama told reporters in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., where he is vacationing.
In his eight years as premier, Maliki has consolidated power in his office, ruling in an authoritarian style that has chipped away at his support among minority Sunnis, as well as his fellow Shiites. He is widely blamed for fostering an environment that has allowed Sunni extremists from the Islamic State to seize control of huge chunks of Iraqi territory.
But in the face of a chorus of calls for him to leave — from the country’s religious authorities, his political rivals and even members of his own bloc — Maliki has stubbornly refused. Pressure to form a new government has mounted amid fears that Islamist extremists will exploit any vacuum. Maliki maintains, however, that since his bloc won the most seats in parliament in national elections this spring, he should be the one leading the next government.
Hours after Iraqi President Fouad Massoum asked Abadi to form a government, the enraged outgoing premier made a televised address lambasting the move and declaring that he personified the governing State of Law coalition.
“I am Nouri al-Maliki, and I am the head of State of Law, and I am the head of Dawa [party], and no one has the right to deal under our name without my approval,” he said, in a speech that suggested his desperation.
But his State of Law coalition has crumbled, with 38 of its 96 parliamentarians signing a letter to the president declaring their support for Abadi. They were among 127 Shiite politicians who supported Abadi’s bid in the 328-seat parliament. Abadi will probably be able to form a majority with support from Kurdish and Sunni factions, analysts said.
Indeed, a late-night show of force Sunday — when Maliki announced that he would sue the president rather than acquiesce to the naming of a new prime minister and deployed security forces to strategic points in the capital — appeared to have galvanized efforts to oust him.
“It has backfired and was unwise,” said Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd who served as foreign minister in the Maliki government. “We have passed the stage of military coups and taking power by force.”
The army indicated Monday that its loyalties do not lie with Maliki.
“We are the army of Iraq, not of Maliki,” the armed forces said on its official Twitter account. “We will continue to fulfill our promises, and for our nation we shall be defenders.”
But Iraq’s security forces are fragmented and in disarray after a partial collapse of the army in June.
Maliki has also built up a support base in Iraq’s militias, most notably the notorious Asaib Ahl al-Haq, whose fighters were out in force for a second night Monday. However, analysts argue that Asaib and others are ultimately loyal to Iran, which has also withdrawn its backing for Maliki.
The Obama administration has deployed its top officials to encourage a smooth transition to a government led by Abadi, a seasoned member of Maliki’s party.
In a phone call Monday morning with Massoum, Biden commended the Iraqi president for nominating the prime minister and emphasized Obama’s “desire to boost coordination with a new Iraqi government and Iraqi Security Forces to roll back gains” by the Islamic State, according to a statement. So far, a U.S. air campaign against the insurgents has largely been contained to the country’s mostly Kurdish north.
In his speech Sunday night, Maliki accused the United States of supporting a breach in the Iraqi constitution.
Maliki on Monday filed a letter with Iraq’s Supreme Court arguing that Abadi’s appointment is null and void. His argument centers on a technicality: that his State of Law bloc, rather than a wider Shiite coalition, should have been allowed to nominate the president and that he is the only one who can speak for it. Human rights organizations have in the past complained that he controls the judiciary.
“They stabbed us in the back,” Jumaa al-Adwani, a member of the State of Law coalition who is sticking by Maliki, said Monday, calling the move a coup.
Iraqi and U.S. officials hope that a new leader will help bridge the country’s rifts and bring Iraq’s disaffected Sunni minority back into the political process, eroding support for the Sunni extremists.
Abadi, a British-educated engineer who hails from the capital, Baghdad, still faces an uphill battle.
“He’s a fresh face in a sense,” said Kirk Sowell, a political risk analyst and publisher of the newsletter Inside Iraqi Politics, who also described Abadi as a “gray suit kind of guy.” “But this isn’t a radical change, it’s a modest change.”
Abadi, a former communications minister, told state television that his first task as prime minister would be to curb the influence of the Islamic State.
