Iraq ‘doomed’ if PM fails to address warring sects

Iraq risks being torn apart by warring sects unless Haider al-Abadi, the new prime minister, can gather the country’s estranged factions behind him and form a government, senior Iraqi politicians said yesterday.

“This is all or nothing,” said one senior Iraqi official who is hoping for a senior ministry within the new cabinet. “None of us are sure that he can do it. And if he can’t, we are doomed.”

Nouri al-Maliki, Abadi’s predecessor, announced he was stepping down late on Thursday having previously rejected repeated calls for his resignation. Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Nations and the US were united in welcoming the move. “Today, Iraqis took another major step forward in uniting their country,” said Susan Rice, the US national security adviser.

But while Abadi has won broad international and regional support, he faced the formidable task of convincing Iraqi citizens that they retained a stake within the state’s current borders, regional observers said.

Under Maliki, the central government’s authority has been so compromised that many Iraqis have lost faith in any leader’s ability to reunite the country two months after an extremist insurgency overran the west and north.

Jay Garner, a retired US army general who served as Washington’s first occupation chief in Iraq, said the best the US could hope for was “a confederation, a federal system of Sunnis, Kurds, Shia”. “I think Iraq is now partitioned and we ought to accept that. The Iraq that we knew no longer exists,” he said.

Ali Khedery, a US official who worked for five ambassadors in Baghdad and three US central command leaders, said Abadi, a long-serving member of the Shia Islamic Dawa party, brought to the job a pragmatism and a work ethic that were rare in Iraqi public life.

Ability to compromise 
"He always impressed me and other senior American diplomats with his self-effacing humour, his humility, his willingness to listen, and his ability to compromise – precisely the characteristics that are needed to help heal the deep wounds Iraqis sustained under Mr Hussein and Mr Maliki," said Mr Khedery

. “But he has a near-impossible challenge in overcoming Dawa’s inherently secretive, sectarian, exclusionary, Iranian-sympathising culture.”

Abadi, who once repaired lifts at the BBC in London, has found himself cast as a national saviour, a role that his years as a steady, though unheralded, backroom man in the Dawa party and years in exile do not appear to have groomed him for.

However, early reaction to his nomination has encouraged his supporters. A faction of Sunni tribes, who will be essential to any reconciliation efforts, said yesterday they would join Abadi’s government if they were presented with the right terms.

Over the past three years, the tribes had grown increasingly hostile to Maliki – and were suspicious of the US- backed leader for even longer. Their statement has been seen as both an attempt to win favours from the new leader and a possible move to reset relations with Iraq’s Shia majority. Disenfranchised since power was handed to the Shias by the US-led invasion, some Iraqi Sunnis had been seduced by the Islamic State (Isis) manifesto to reassert the sect’s influence in Iraq.

Other Shia groups have also welcomed Abadi’s appointment. The Sadrist bloc of firebrand Shia leader Muqtadr al-Sadr said it was encouraged by the new leadership. “We are more optimistic since Abadi took charge and I think there is a chance for change in Iraq,” said Saleh al-Obaidi. “But only if Abadi changes the way that Maliki used to operate and doesn’t follow in his footsteps.”

Optimistic
Issan al-Shimary, a Baghdad-based political analyst, said: "Iraqis are optimistic about al-Abadi but they are worried that the new government will use the same policy of allocating ministries to political parties and based on ethnicities. If this happens again, it will sap the last bit of hope of changing to a better Iraq."

Iraq’s Kurds – now battling Isis on their southern frontier – have cautiously endorsed Abadi’s appointment. Officials in the Kurdish capital, Irbil, say if bilateral oil and budgetary issues are addressed, the new government could reboot their strained relations with Baghdad.

Abadi has told followers his first job as prime minister will be to convince those Sunnis who have endorsed Isis in its attempt to establish a caliphate across Syria and Iraq that an Iraqi nation within its current borders remains a better option.

Regional and Iraqi officials have encouraged Abadi to start by revitalising the national military and overhauling state institutions that have been co-opted by warlords and political blocs over the past decade. Many barely function.

Abadi also aims to revive relations with Sunni Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, which boycotted Maliki’s government for close to seven years. Maliki, in turn, had accused Riyadh of bankrolling extremism in Iraq.

“He was such a divisive, polarising figure,” said one senior Saudi official of the ousted leader. “A new start was essential to even beginning to sort out this mess.”

Inclusive central government
US officials have indicated that an inclusive central government would make it easier to provide the same sort of military support to Baghdad they have given to the Kurds in recent weeks.

While quick to respond to Kurdish requests for support, Barack Obama has so far ignored pleas from Baghdad for military assistance, insisting political unity must be established first.

The US and France have both delivered weapons to Irbil, in a robust sign of support for a key regional ally. Britain has also pledged to arm the Kurds.

The European Union failed to reach an agreement yesterday to do likewise, but welcomed the fact that several member states had done so on their own initiative. – (Guardian service)