Iraqi coalition on brink of collapse as country descends towards civil war
Pastor Dale Morgan
Iraqi coalition on brink of collapse as country descends towards civil war*
Jonathan Steele in Irbil, Robert Tait in Tehran and Julian Borger Washington
Friday November 24, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Iraq’s precarious government was teetering today as a powerful Shia
militia leader threatened to withdraw support after sectarian killings
reached a new peak and the country lurched closer to all-out civil war.
The prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, was forced to choose between his US
protectors and an essential pillar of his coalition, when Moqtada
al-Sadr declared his intention to walk out, potentially bringing down
the government, if Mr Maliki went ahead with a meeting with President
George Bush in Jordan next week.
Mr Maliki, a moderate Shia, faced the dilemma as the cycle of killings
reached new levels of savagery. Today, there were reports that at least
60 Sunnis had died in revenge killings and suicide attacks, including
one episode in which Shia militiamen seized six Sunnis as they were
leaving a mosque, doused them with petrol and set them alight, while
soldiers reportedly stood by. In another attack, gunmen burned mosques
and killed more than 30 Sunnis in Baghdad’s Hurriya district before US
forces intervened.
The violence added new urgency to a regional summit in Tehran this
weekend on Iraq’s fate. Iraq’s neighbours, particularly Syria and Iran,
have been accused of pulling strings in the Iraqi chaos, and Iran’s
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is tomorrow due to play host to his
Iraqi counterpart, Jalal Talabani.
The Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, was invited but reports from
Damascus suggested he would not attend. Syria restored diplomatic
relations with Iraq this week after a 24-year gap.
In a reflection of the importance Iran attaches to the summit, Mr
Talabani is also expected to meet the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, who has the ultimate say on foreign policy.
Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, predicted that Mr
Talabani’s visit would produce “important agreements”. He described the
violence and the US-British occupying forces as “two sides of the same
coin” adding: “The two issues should be taken into consideration jointly
and a comprehensive solution found.”
Observers in Tehran said the government there hoped to use its summit as
an overture to Washington. “The Iranian leadership are trying to use Mr
Talabani, who has a special role inside Iraq and has never criticised
Iran, as a mediator between Tehran and Washington,” said Saeed Leylaz, a
political analyst. “Mr Ahmadinejad is hopeful that he can attract
America’s attention through Iraq.”
One unknown quantity at the summit will be how much sway the Ahmadinejad
government has over Mr Sadr, who visited Tehran last January and met
senior Iranian officials, including the country's chief nuclear
negotiator, Ali Larijani.
The broader question, growing more urgent each day, is whether anyone
can now control the cycle of violence. Yesterday was the most deadly day
for Iraqi civilians, and morgue statistics showed that the past month
has been the bloodiest since the 2003 invasion, according to the UN,
with 3,709 civilians killed.
Since taking office, Mr Maliki has been under constant US pressure to
disarm the Mahdi army and other Shia militias, while remaining beholden
to them to stay in power. The Sadr party demanded today that Mr Maliki
“specify the nature of its relations with the occupation forces”,
demanded a timetable for a US withdrawal, and issued its ultimatum over
the scheduled Bush-Maliki meeting in Jordan next Wednesday and Thursday.
“There is no reason to meet the criminal who is behind the terrorism,”
said Faleh Hassan Shansal, a Sadrist MP.
The White House appeared determined that the meeting should go ahead,
after President Bush attends a Nato summit in Latvia on Tuesday. “The
United States is committed to helping the Iraqis and President Bush and
prime minister Maliki will meet next week to discuss the security
situation in Iraq,” said Scott Stanzel, a deputy White House spokesman.
Mr Sadr’s people have six cabinet seats and 30 members in the 275-member
parliament. Their vote in the intra-Shia haggling helped to select Mr
Maliki as prime minister over other Shia rivals.
Mr Sadr used Friday prayers in the main mosque in Kufa, his headquarters
in the Shia heartland south of Baghdad, to focus on Sunni leaders. He
urged them to help end the slide into sectarian civil war.
Appealing directly to Harith al-Dari, the leader of the Association of
Muslim Scholars, a radical Sunni organisation which has always denounced
the US occupation, Mr Sadr told the congregation: “He has to release a
fatwa prohibiting the killing of Shias so as to preserve Muslim blood
and must prohibit membership of al-Qaida or any other organisation that
has made Shias their enemies.”