BAGHDAD — Parliament’s approval of a security pact with the U.S. has propelled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki into a position of strength unsurpassed among Iraqi political leaders since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Furious dealmaking preceded the vote Thursday, compelling al-Maliki to make a wide range of concessions to Sunni lawmakers in exchange for their support. As a result, he emerged with his main goal intact: a historic agreement in which the last American soldier would leave Iraq by Jan. 1, 2012, and that would restore the country’s full national sovereignty.
Coming on top of a string of military and political successes this year, the agreement has given al-Maliki the aura of a national leader who rises above Iraq’s chronic sectarian and ethnic divisions to pursue the greater interest.
Experts are divided on how long the prime minister’s political dominance will last.
“The prime minister is involved in political struggles that have only just begun, and it is far from clear how well he can survive the power struggles and elections to come,” said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“The insurgency is still there, Arab-Kurdish rivalries are growing, Shiite-Sunni tensions are still critical, and no one can predict the future power struggle within each key ethnic and sectarian faction,” Cordesman said.
Al-Maliki risked his future on the agreement with the United States, which many Iraqis see as an occupying power. Failure to win approval might have forced him to step down.
“Some thought they could use the agreement to weaken the prime minister,” said Haidar al-Ibadi, a senior Shiite lawmaker and a close al-Maliki aide. “Frankly, they were playing with fire.”
Realizing the stakes, a group of mostly Sunni lawmakers sought concessions from al-Maliki in exchange for their support. Al-Maliki said that amounted to blackmail, but, in the end, he met most of their demands in a three-page “Charter of Political Reform.”
The Sunnis had long been alone in publicly accusing al-Maliki of monopolizing power. Recently, however, some Kurds have started to repeat the allegation. The Kurds complained that the prime minister was violating the constitution by creating tribal “support councils” across Iraq ostensibly as a backup for security forces.
Critics see the councils as a move to undercut rival political parties and gain patronage in the Shiite south of the country. The quarrel came to a head earlier this month, when the country’s three-member Presidential Council publicly berated al-Maliki and ordered him to disband the councils or find legal coverage for them.
That blow to al-Maliki raised doubt about whether he could muster enough support to retain his office after the 2009 general election. However, his winning the security pact appears to put him back on a strong path.
