Shi’ite militias issue death threat to Baghdad Kurds: Maliki Government must go

By Mufid Abdulla:

It is the ninth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. In those days of the American invasion all our thoughts were on bringing down the 35-year dictatorship that had inflicted genocide on the Kurds. In those days we never thought that Saddam’s successors would dare show such hostility and ill-will towards the Kurdish nation as we are now seeing from the Maliki administration.

In the dispute between Baghdad and Erbil over the oil law, Baghdad’s main accusation is that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is smuggling oil to Iran. But you might expect Maliki to first make sure his own house is in order! The whole of Iraq knows that Basra’s oil revenues are shared out by so many ministers and never go into the government coffers. And can the Iraqi state not ask itself: why can they only provide electricity to Baghdad for four hours a day? Why can’t whoever is in charge in Baghdad find out who is behind the terrible recent violence in the capital and the south that has left hundreds injured and dead?

Trust between the Iraqi state and the KRG has been wafer-thin since the promulgation of Iraq’s new constitution in 2005. Baghdad has made no concessions to Kurdish concerns. This is not a government that wants to win friends. It is a government of power-hungry people seeking to capture the state for themselves. No doubt Maliki thinks: What is the point of being in office if you don’t take a few risks? His government has traded popularity for a policy that, he believes, will boost the long-term Arab chauvinist-nationalist cause and his prospects of establishing a dictatorship. That is Maliki’s gamble.

What our President did recently was absolutely correct, although overdue. The President of Kurdistan accused Maliki of dictatorial intent, of wanting to stay in power forever, of taking personal control of defense, oil, finance, etc. Indeed, taking a firm stand to defend the nation is what good leadership is ultimately about, isn’t it?

But Maliki must know that, without the Kurds, Iraq cannot be re-built and will be ruined. There is mayhem inside Maliki’s own party. Recent events reveal the hollowness of his pledges to clamp down on corruption and restore security. To my mind, Maliki’s government will have to stay within the ‘Green Zone’ forever, because he cannot do proper business with any of his rivals.

Article 140 for the normalization of Kirkuk was supposed to be implemented in 2007 as well as the law for Kurdistan’s oil and gas. There is something deeply rotten at the heart of the political system in Baghdad. The problem is that the people who have found their way to the heart of government lack the will and ability to pursue peaceful solutions.

At a press conference last week, Iraqi oil minister Shahristani made his accusations against the KRG. I believe this approach is profoundly unethical and overall I believe the claims are, at best, exaggerated. But the key question here is, why does Baghdad’s oil minister act in this way? Why doesn’t he offer solutions to the dispute over the KRG’s oil and gas? The speeches of Maliki’s ministers threaten the basis of democracy and the constitution and further damage the fragile relationship between Baghdad and Erbil. It all proves that the rulers in Baghdad are rotten to the core.

The Maliki government has no positive answers for the KRG. Instead I believe there is a real danger that Maliki will ignite a regional war between Kurds and Arabs. Today Shi’ite militias in Baghdad issued a deadly warning to the many Kurds who live there, saying they must leave the city in a week or be killed. In addition, there have been attacks on the PUK and KDP offices in Babil city and Baghdad. These are very worrying signs. For the good of everyone in Iraq, the Maliki government must be replaced. It is not up to the challenge and has proved incapable of effectively governing a modern Iraq.