No Unity Pony In Iraq

By Ron Beasley

Now we have all seen that al-Malaki is unable to bring unity to Iraq but Juan Cole reports that he can't even hold his own political party together.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Da'wa (Islamic Mission) Party has decisively split. It is the party of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The new branch, Da'wa- National Reform, has been formed by former PM Ibrahim Jaafari, and the local leadership of Islamic Mission political offices in many cities, including in Najaf, has defected to it. Al-Maliki's faction vows to regain control of those offices. Al-Hayat estimated that at least 10 members of parliament have also defected to the new party led by Jaafari.

Those 10 members of Da'wa- National Reform in parliament have joined a new political bloc consisting of the Sadrists (30 MPs), the Iraqi List (24), National Dialogue (11), Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) (15). These 90 MPs oppose the soft partition of Iraq and generally have a strong Iraqi nationalist orientation. Several have expressed opposition to the US-Iraqi security agreement now being negotiated.

So, al-Maliki is not only not making a lot of progress in attaining national reconciliation, his own party is collapsing underneath him. It is really quite remarkable that a sitting prime minister should preside over a schism in his own party, despite his control of billions of dollars in patronage.

Apparently, al-Maliki has been maneuvered by the Bush administration into a position where he has virtually no popular or party support, and is left with Washington has his only anchor.

I suspect much of the problem is the US/Iraq security agreement that the Bush administration is trying to shove down al-Malaki's throat.  A majority of Iraqi lawmakers are opposed to it as is the vast majority of the Iraqi population.  If the administration continues down this path it's going to blow up in their face big time - just in time for the November election.