U.S. calls the shots in the "new" Iraq
socialistworker: So much for the "progress of democracy" in Iraq. At the beginning of April, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw traveled to Iraq to strong-arm Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari into stepping aside--in favor of a U.S.-backed candidate and a Washington-approved "national unity government."
The visit came a week after U.S. forces and their Iraqi sidekicks raided a Shiite Muslim mosque controlled by followers of Moktada al-Sadr, whose support for Jaafari gave him the edge to remain as prime minister in the incoming government.
The U.S. attack--which reportedly killed dozens of civilians--will only increase the sectarian tensions that have led to an estimated 2,000 killings in Iraq since the Shiite golden mosque in Samarra was blown up last month.
Little more than a year ago, U.S. politicians were eager to promote the symbol of fingers colored purple with ink--the method used to identify Iraqis who voted in an election for a national assembly.
But the two elections since then--a constitutional referendum and a parliamentary election--didn't give the U.S. the result it wanted, and Iraq is on the brink of a civil war based on ethnic and religious sectarian rivalries. Instead of a U.S. stooge like former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in charge, as Washington had hoped, a coalition of Shiite Muslim parties more or less aligned with Iran is dominant.
Now comes the latest scheme: confront Sadr militarily to make the price of his inclusion in the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance too high for Ayatollah al-Sistani--and split Jaafari's al-Dawa party from its main coalition partner, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
While both SCIRI and Dawa are longstanding allies with Iran, SCIRI is seen by Washington as somewhat more acceptable. Jaafari, in the U.S. view, has become unreliable--not only because of his deal with Sadr, but because of a recent trip to Turkey, which enraged Washington's Iraqi Kurdish allies wary of Turkey's historic role in repressing Kurdish nationalism. Read more
The visit came a week after U.S. forces and their Iraqi sidekicks raided a Shiite Muslim mosque controlled by followers of Moktada al-Sadr, whose support for Jaafari gave him the edge to remain as prime minister in the incoming government.
The U.S. attack--which reportedly killed dozens of civilians--will only increase the sectarian tensions that have led to an estimated 2,000 killings in Iraq since the Shiite golden mosque in Samarra was blown up last month.
Little more than a year ago, U.S. politicians were eager to promote the symbol of fingers colored purple with ink--the method used to identify Iraqis who voted in an election for a national assembly.
But the two elections since then--a constitutional referendum and a parliamentary election--didn't give the U.S. the result it wanted, and Iraq is on the brink of a civil war based on ethnic and religious sectarian rivalries. Instead of a U.S. stooge like former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in charge, as Washington had hoped, a coalition of Shiite Muslim parties more or less aligned with Iran is dominant.
Now comes the latest scheme: confront Sadr militarily to make the price of his inclusion in the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance too high for Ayatollah al-Sistani--and split Jaafari's al-Dawa party from its main coalition partner, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
While both SCIRI and Dawa are longstanding allies with Iran, SCIRI is seen by Washington as somewhat more acceptable. Jaafari, in the U.S. view, has become unreliable--not only because of his deal with Sadr, but because of a recent trip to Turkey, which enraged Washington's Iraqi Kurdish allies wary of Turkey's historic role in repressing Kurdish nationalism. Read more
posted by exoplanet at 11:20 PM
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