Less than a month after being inaugurated as Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed
Shia Al Sudani is already reneging on promises he made to secure his governing
coalition. The longer these pledges go unmet, the longer Iraq’s destabilizing
political polarization will persist.
اضافة اعلان
To elect a
president and form a Cabinet, Sudani’s pro-Iran Shiite political bloc, the
Coordination Framework, needed support from the country’s Sunnis.
Sunnis traded
their support for a promise that, once in power, the new prime minister would
withdraw pro-Iran Shiite militias, known as Popular Mobilization Units (PMU),
from Sunni-dominated provinces in the northwest. Sudani agreed, and also vowed
to issue a general pardon that would open the door for the rehabilitation of
the mostly-Sunni Daesh fighters.
Neither of these
promises have been kept. Pro-Iran Shiite lawmakers have obstructed measures
that would undermine the PMUs without disbanding them. Meanwhile, proposed
legislation to reinstate a compulsory military draft, introduced as a way to
deplete the pool of unemployed young men for pro-Iran militias to recruit from,
has been blocked by pro-Iran Shiite politicians.
Along similar
lines, Interior Minister Abdul Amir Al Shammari, a Shiite who ascended the
military ranks (and who once ordered government forces to storm the
headquarters of the biggest pro-Iran Shiite militia, Kataeb Hezbollah) proposed
the demilitarization of the country’s biggest cities and recommended that
security be handed over to local and federal police.
Ejecting militias
from cities would force them to shut down their offices, which are used to
dispense favors to the local population, recruit fighters, and disseminate
pro-Iran regime propaganda. Again, while Sudani feigned support for such a plan
before his appointment, execution has fizzled since.
While Sudani has
given the impression that he plans to empower the Iraqi state, his actions have
so far avoided antagonizing pro-Iran Shiite militias, whose very existence
undermine the state itself.
As in Lebanon,
Iraq’s pro-Iran militias are skilled political manipulators and use politics to
secure their fate. These militias maneuver to force the election of an
executive branch that bestows legitimacy on their existence — without ever
questioning their armament or corruption.
Sudani has
depicted himself as a prime minister busy combating corruption and building an
economy that works for all Iraqis. But the governing model he has employed is
doing just the opposite. Akin to the Iranian regime’s approach, Iraq’s
government is concerned only with the economy and has ceded nearly everything
else, especially security, to pro-Iran militias.
… Iraq has been raking in $10 billion a month since the beginning of this year, yet the Iraqi dinar has been losing value. The culprit is Iran, which uses small Iraqi banks and exchange shops to syphon foreign currency into the Iranian treasury
After the
assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, pro-Iran
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah called for partnership with the opposition
bloc — with caveats.
“You handle
reconstruction, and we handle resistance,” he said, explaining how Hezbollah
would dictate Lebanon’s security and foreign policies. It is a similar calculus
in Iraq today.
Sudani’s effort to
combat corruption has so far looked half-hearted and vengeful. The new Cabinet
did slaughter some sacred cows and arrest senior officers accused of running
the “largest oil smuggling network” in the country. But it has yet to go after
the political titans known for embezzling public funds and extending protection
to corrupt civil servants and military personnel.
No one knows what
Sudani is waiting for — if he is waiting for anything at all. The man got his
call only because Iraq’s pro-Iran bloc, whose lawmakers lost the election,
replaced the Sadrist bloc after its 73 MPs committed the blunder of resigning.
Sudani has tried
to depict himself as an independent nonpartisan who stands at equal distance
from everyone. So far, however, he has not looked as impartial as claimed. On
the contrary, he proved to be extremely biased toward the policies of the Iran
regime in Iraq.
Sudani has yet to
show willingness to defend Iraq’s basic interests. For example, Iraq has been
raking in $10 billion a month since the beginning of this year, yet the Iraqi
dinar has been losing value. The culprit is Iran, which uses small Iraqi banks
and exchange shops to syphon foreign currency into the Iranian treasury.
Sudani’s tenure
has not even reached the 30-day mark, but judging by his performance so far,
there is little that can be described as success (or even the hint of it).
Unless something changes, Iraqis are facing three more years of empty words and
politics as usual.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research
institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Syndication Bureau.
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