Coup

UPDATE: change of venue to www.julescrittenden.com. Come check out the new site.



If they aren't talking about it, they should be.

It is increasingly clear that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will continue to obstruct U.S. efforts to take down the greatest threat to stability in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. At present, the U.S. military is in fact strengthening al-Sadr in Baghdad with attacks on Sunni insurgents in the Haifa Street area. Nothing wrong with taking down Sunni insurgents, but not if al-Sadr and his militia are allowed to survive and benefit from it.

The current US military leadership under Gen. Casey, now handing off to Gen. Petraeus, is operating in Baghdad with its hands reportedly tied by a joint command by committee of US and Iraqi forces, in which US officers say al-Maliki and his generals are obstructing US plans for the surge.

If that command structure is allowed to continue under Petraeus, it has to be brought under control. Perhaps by the expedient of smile, nod and ignore, while US forces proceed with actions to provoke al-Sadr and compromise al-Maliki.

Because al-Maliki, like al-Sadr, has shown he is part of the problem. He has chosen to align himself with a murderous, destabilizing, Iranian-backed criminal element. He is not acting in the interest of the Iraqi people, he is acting in the interest of a violent faction. If Iraq is to have any chance at security, al-Maliki has to be removed from power.

Late last year, there was a lot of talk about forming a new moderate governing coalition, described in news reports as a parliamentary coup that would sideline al-Maliki and al-Sadr. Pro-US Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, an al-Sadr rival, was the power behind the scenes of this effort. It failed and dropped out of the news in December.

We can only assume the CIA, the State Department and the US military are actively exploring parliamentary coup options, and with the surge, trying to set favorable terms for such a coup to take place.

The administration's democratic ideals and objectives prevent direct involvement in a military coup, or any overt links to one. It is unclear how much support there might be within the Iraqi forces, actively controlled by al-Maliki. Probably none within the police, some within the army. It could provoke open civil war, but that might not be the worst thing, if it gave the US military the opportunity it needs to destroy al-Sadr's militia.

Baghdad has been rotten with coup rumors ever since Iraq's new government took over. Speculation now is that the Bush administration's aggressive new strategy, in addition to targeting the Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents, also targets al-Maliki.

When Bush announced his strategy last week, the NYT's John Burns added at the end of his Iraqi reaction article:

A Shiite political leader who has worked closely with the Americans in the past said the Bush benchmarks appeared to have been drawn up in the expectation that Mr. Maliki would not meet them. “He cannot deliver the disarming of the militias,” the politician said, asking that he not be named because he did not want to be seen as publicly criticizing the prime minister. “He cannot deliver a good program for the economy and reconstruction. He cannot deliver on services. This is a matter of fact. There is a common understanding on the American side and the Iraqi side.”

Views such as these — increasingly common among the political class in Baghdad — are often accompanied by predictions that Mr. Maliki will be forced out as the crisis over the militias builds. The Shiite politician who described him as incapable of disarming militias suggested he might resign; others have pointed to an American effort in recent weeks to line up a “moderate front” of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political leaders outside the government, and said that the front might be a vehicle for mounting a parliamentary coup against Mr. Maliki, with behind-the-scenes American support.

Munir Chalabi, a London-based Iraqi analyst associated with Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation, citing the ISG's call to end de-Baathification, says the US and British are planning a "Baathist coup." He predict the dissolution or suspension of the Iraqi parliament in the first three to six months of this year. Chalabi's article has a strong air of conspiracy theory paranoia around it and would require the Bush administration to entirely and public abandon its democracy project.

But among the big questions that remain to be answered are, is the Bush administration willing to do that, and accept yet another massive public relations blow that could have severe political consequences? Or can a change of leadership in Iraq be handled in a manner that avoids an Iraqi constitutional crisis, whether by parliamentary coup or a suspension of elected government that does not abandon it? In either case, who will step into power, with what public legitimacy and what degree of reliability? What then is the path to democracy in the Middle East, or is that agenda abandoned? What are the risks and benefits? Open civil war has its benefits -- freedom of military action -- as well as its drawbacks in greater potential for innocent bloodshed and uncertain outcomes. Does the United States have sufficient forces to deal with a generalized conflict in relatively short order and bring stability that might make up for a lack of democratic niceties?

It is a highly volatile situation, but that is nothing new Iraq. It was highly volatile before we got there. And we've already established, from the invasion to last week's announcement of the new strategy, that it is not US policy to handle it gingerly. But unless there is a dramatic change soon in the behavior of Nouri al-Maliki, he has to go.