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The Iraqi Situation: President Talabani's Package |
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Monday, 01 May 2006 |
For more than four months, the failure of the new political leadership to create the three major institutions of the state, namely the three members presidential council, the speaker of the parliament and his two deputies and the selection of a candidate for the prime minister's job, was very suddenly but partially resolved by what was called by president Talibani a package. The package included all three and was delivered by the recently elected parliament in less than three hours. This achievement was received inside the country and by President Bush by an audible sigh of relief; it has rekindled the Iraqis’ hope that there was still some light at the end of the tunnel. President Bush is hoping that an improvement in the Iraqi mess will improve his deteriorating situation at home and the chances for a win for his party in next fall's midterm elections. President Bush described the package as historical, and very important for the security of the United States itself. For all these reasons I have decided to delay finishing my last week’s piece on the current violence in Iraq, which I have promised to do this week and talk instead about president Talabani's package.
A few hours after the start of the balloting in the December 15th general elections the electoral commission which has been supervising the exercise said that the final results of these elections will be confirmed in about two weeks. The commission itself unexpectedly announced on the 20th that the preliminary results of the voting pointed to a clear victory of the Shiite group in a statement that sounded like it was declaring the final results. That’s when hell broke loose with the others shouting rigged and fraudulent and questioning the neutrality of the commission and started bombarding it with dozens of complaints describing incidents of threats and intimidation to the voters during election day and the days that preceded it and demanded the annulment of the results and a re-run of the elections. Most of the complaints centered on the role the Iranians were playing in the process, but the Shiites' stuck to their guns and started to talk about the formation of the new government and named two of its members as candidates to the job of prime minister, and were wooing the Kurds who have swept the north. These attempts were totally opposed by the others who coalesced into an alignment of about 40 political parties and groupings and independent personalities and were threatening civil disobedience and the boycotting of the newly elected parliament, the situation has become highly inflamed and polarized, the situation has degenerated into a serious crisis.
At this juncture the British foreign secretary intervened with a statement in which he stressed that this was a very important step in the democratization of Iraq and that all parties should accept the results which have been looked into by the judiciary and have been approved by an independent international committee of three and that everybody should concentrate now on the formation of a national unity government which has to include all the elements in the Iraqi society. The statement was tailored in very diplomatic terms, but the message was very clear, after which all the adversaries were talking about understanding and compromises and the need to resolve the crisis, but the omens were not very good, the differences and suspicions were deep rooted and have permeated even the individual groups themselves. The Shiites who have been haggling amongst themselves over the choice of their candidate for the last two months were only able to select their candidate for the prime minister’s job after a bitter and a very divisive secret ballot which took place on February 16 the results of which were settled with a one vote majority in favor of Dr. Jaafari after the dramatic and very decisive interference of Muqtada al-Sadr. It was very clear that Dr. Jaafari could not have been selected without the young cleric's support.
What should have happened next is that the president according to normal parliamentary traditions should have invited Dr. Jaafari to form a cabinet within a specified period. As the candidate of the block which holds the largest number of seats in the newly elected assembly and the Shiite coalition were the largest block and they chose Dr. Jaafari and that he should take his cabinet back to the parliament for a vote of confidence and if he gets it he has to begin the job he was assigned with his cabinet if he and his cabinet were not accepted then the president has to go back to the person who heads or is nominated by the second largest parliamentary lock. But nothing like that happened, the nomination of Dr. Jaafari was received with a storm of protests and was rejected by practically all the players who accused him and his cabinet of failing solve even partially the pressing problems which were facing the country and that they have actually became worse and more serious during the six months he was in charge. The other reasons for rejecting him were the accusations that he was unduly influenced by Iran and that he has reneged on some previous arrangements with the Kurds regarding the status of Kirkuk and some other reasons so the other players insisted that his nomination should be withdrawn. He and his backers refused to budge and what followed was another two months of skirmishes and musical chair dancing with the country and its problem in limbo waiting for the long delayed national unity government which was expected to start working soon after the elections on the country's mess which has deteriorated very badly and was threatening a civil war
For almost two months the two sides on the Jaafari debacle stuck very stubbornly to their positions never compromising encouraging the terrible situation at home to get even worse. The serious sectarian clashes following the criminal attack on the revered Shiite shrine in Samara that threatened to plunge the country in a full blown civil war with an unimaginable risk to the country's future, but suddenly it looked like there was still a bit of common sense and serious interest in the people problems and the country's future. The parliament which has been elected four months ago was called into session under the direction of Dr. Pachachi in his capacity as the oldest member of the parliament and went into a session during which its members were sworn in and then it adjourned. The temporary speaker said that the session will resume in few days time, and then the reconvening was postponed once and then was postponed again but finally on April 20 president Talabani accompanied by Dr Pachachi and some other dignitaries held a press conference and affirmed that the adjourned parliament will resume its session when we are going to give you a package and by that he implied that they have reached a consensus and the package will include the seven most senior positions in the country. The president and two deputies a parliamentary speaker and two deputies and a nominee for the prime minister's job, the session was duly reconvened and the package was delivered with Mr. Talabani himself [a Kurd] and Dr. Mashadani [a Sunni] as speaker and Jawad Maliki [a Shiite] as prime minister, Dr. Jaafari has finally declined and opened the way for the delivery of the Talabani's package.
President Talabani's package was a promising development at a very crucial time in a long tedious process which was very often on the brink of throwing the country into a very dangerous abyss. Unfortunately, it was still less than a complete package. It provided a nominee for the prime minister job, but today ten days after his nomination Mr. Maliki has not yet finished assembling his cabinet, he is still struggling with the various factions over their demands for their shares of piece of the ministerial cake, and seems it necessitated the intervention of Condoleezza Rice and Mr. Rumsfield who arrived separately and unexpectedly to expedite the process. The real challenge is to create a cabinet which is composed of efficient, determined and clean individuals who are expected to work as a homogenous team which is up to the challenges the country's mess is presenting. Failure this time like that of their predecessors will be catastrophic and would almost certainly plunge the country into an all out civil war or encourage the emergence of a new Saddam like dictatorship.
Najeeb Hanoudi
Monday, May 1, 2006
Amman/Jordan
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