It was a moment for which Iraqis had yearned for generations: Parliamentary approval of a government with a mandate won at the ballot box. For Shiites, especially, last Thursday's vote was a moment in history: For generations, going back to the Ottoman imperial rule that ended with World War I, Shiites, accounting for 60 percent of the population, have been a political underclass. Until US troops toppled former president Saddam Hussein two years ago, political power rested with the Sunni minority, accounting for no more than 15 percent to 20 percent of the country's 25 million people.
The moment found its expression in the new prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, a 58-year-old physician and a devout Shiite, who fled into exile in 1980 on the day an arrest warrant was issued that would probably have sent him to the gallows. Among many Shiites, that has made him and the party he leads, Dawa, totems of repression under Saddam, especially of religious groups, that led to scores of mass graves.
But Jaafari and his Cabinet, who are expected to be sworn in this week, face daunting challenges. One reading of Thursday's events was that they marked the start of the most difficult passage yet in the US enterprise in Iraq: An eight-month period, up to fresh elections for a full, five-year government in December, in which issues basic to Iraq's future and its prospects of emerging as a stable democracy -- at worst, of avoiding a civil war among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- can no longer be papered over. That, in effect, is what occurred during the 15 months of US occupation to last June, and under Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's interim government, appointed by the US, which will cede now to Jaafari's.
Allawi, also a Shiite, will retreat to the sidelines and hope for a comeback for his brand of secular politics after Iraqis have had a taste of being ruled, also for the first time, by a government headed by men rooted in Shiite religious politics. The new government, with 17 ministries headed by Shiites, eight by Kurds, six by Sunni Arabs, and one by a Christian, faces a deadline of Aug. 15 to win parliamentary approval for a permanent constitution. That leaves 15 weeks -- not much longer than the 12 weeks it took to form the Jaafari government -- to settle issues on which Arabs and Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, religious politicians and secularists have potentially polarizing views.
Principally, these issues include the role of Islam in the new state, and whether future Shiite-led governments should be free, under the constitution, to adopt Shariah law and other elements of conservative Islam; the division of powers and oil revenues between central and regional governments; and the geographical boundaries -- especially the potentially explosive issue of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, claimed by Sunnis and Kurds alike -- to be granted to the proud and wary Kurds.
Overshadowing these issues is the insurgency, and the particular challenges it poses for the Shiites who will dominate the government. The war has been driven by diehard Saddam loyalists, unreconciled Baathists and Islamic militants, all Sunnis, for whom a Shiite majority government is anathema. Even US officials concede that the accession of the Jaafari government, rather than encouraging hard-core militants to negotiate, may harden their resolve to fight on.
The fact that almost a third of the 274 assembly members were absent from the vote on the new government spoke for the insurgents' power.
Last Wednesday, rebel death threats against the legislators culminated in the killing of Sheikha Lameah Khaddouri, a legislator for Allawi's party, who was shot repeatedly in the face and chest. One of 89 women in the parliament, she was its first member to die.
For the 150,000 US troops in Iraq, the new government brings reassurance in the statements by Jaafari and other Shiite leaders about the US' role. The Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, were fiercely anti-American during their exile years under Saddam, and Dawa was implicated by US intelligence in terrorist acts across the Middle East, including a 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Kuwait.
But Jaafari and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the SCIRI leader, have said Iraq will need US forces until its new army and paramilitary police can take over the war. Many in the new government admit that this could take until well into the mandate of the permanent government due to take office early next year, even longer. Accordingly, Iraqi politicians say, the new government's emphasis is likely to lie on the need for an agreement with Washington that will give Baghdad legal authority when the UN mandate for the US military presence expires at the end of the year.
US concerns focus on the demand by the Shiite religious parties, SCIRI in particular, for a purge of high-ranking Baathists from command-level positions in the army, police and intelligence. The US$5.7-billion US drive to rebuild the Iraqi forces in the past year has involved a wholesale retreat from the "de-Baathification" rules set after the invasion, and the recruitment of scores of Sunnis who served under Saddam.
US diplomats say they played only a broker's role in the formation of the new government, concentrating on overcoming the political in-fighting that delayed agreement so long that a new wave of popular disenchantment -- and a fresh upsurge in insurgent attacks -- began to dissipate the political momentum fostered when 8.5 million Iraqis defied insurgent threats to vote in January.
But the diplomats say they have been emphatic that there should be no purge of the Iraqi security forces just as Iraqi troops have begun to make their weight felt in the war.
The US has said that only Baathists implicated in Saddam's atrocities should be barred. But they got a blunt rebuttal at Thursday's parliamentary session, dominated not by the quiet, apologetic Jaafari, but by the charismatic Hakim. The SCIRI leader, in the black turban and cloak of a devout Shiite, has stayed out of the new government. But signaling the powerful behind-the-scenes role he is expected to claim, he denounced any move to "hand over the country's assets to our enemies," and insisted the new government "de-Baathify Saddam's terrorists from all state institutions."
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
The inter-Korean relationship, long defined by national division, offers the clearest mirror within East Asia for cross-strait relations. Yet even there, reunification language is breaking down. The South Korean government disclosed on Wednesday last week that North Korea’s constitutional revision in March had deleted references to reunification and added a territorial clause defining its border with South Korea. South Korea is also seriously debating whether national reunification with North Korea is still necessary. On April 27, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung marked the eighth anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration, the 2018 inter-Korean agreement in which the two Koreas pledged to
I wrote this before US President Donald Trump embarked on his uneventful state visit to China on Thursday. So, I shall confine my observations to the joint US-Philippine military exercise of April 20 through May 8, known collectively as “Balikatan 2026.” This year’s Balikatan was notable for its “firsts.” First, it was conducted primarily with Taiwan in mind, not the Philippines or even the South China Sea. It also showed that in the Pacific, America’s alliance network is still robust. Allies are enthusiastic about America’s renewed leadership in the region. Nine decades ago, in 1936, America had neither military strength
RSS