BAGHDAD, 30 April 2007 — US pressure on Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki to speed up reconciliation among warring sects could backfire as Iraqi leaders don’t want to be seen as taking orders from an increasingly impatient Washington.

US commanders leading a Baghdad crackdown aimed at giving Maliki time to pass power-sharing laws refer to a Washington clock and a Baghdad clock ticking at different speeds.

Gen. David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, summed up the dilemma on Thursday when he spoke of an American clock “moving at a rapid rate of speed that reflects the frustration, impatience, disappointment, anger and a variety of other emotions” and a Baghdad clock “not moving as rapidly”.

With President George W. Bush under mounting pressure from Democrats to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops, Washington is tightening the screws on Maliki to deliver laws on sharing Iraq’s oil wealth and rolling back a ban on members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party from office by September.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has linked the passage of the laws with continued higher US troop levels. The laws have fallen hostage to the sectarian and ethnic infighting plaguing Maliki’s government.

But some politicians warned that pushing Maliki too hard could weaken his grip on power. His government has already been hit by the resignation this month of six Cabinet ministers loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.

“Americans need benchmarks because of their public opinion and Congress, but if you interfere too much and put too much pressure it could be counterproductive and create negative consequences,” Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker said.

“Iraq wants to have its sovereignty back and not see Washington telling them ‘do this and do that’. Maliki needs the support of Washington, but he can’t be seen in front of his people to be taking orders from the Americans so publicly.”

Ten weeks into the Baghdad crackdown, seen as a last effort to avert Iraq from sliding into civil war, there are few signs parliament will pass the laws before it recesses in July.

But Iraqi politicians complain that US domestic politics are dictating Iraq’s political progress and said many of the laws that Washington wants to see sail through parliament face deep mistrust among Shiites, Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds. “If a law is not acceptable to our constituents there may be a backlash. We have to do what we want, not what Washington wants,” said Haider Ibadi, a lawmaker from Maliki’s Dawa party.

Ibadi cited as an example a plan to allow thousands of former members of Saddam’s party to return to public life.

The plan is a longtime demand of once-dominant Sunni Arabs, now the backbone of the insurgency. A law to share Iraq’s oil wealth hit a major hurdle after oil-rich Kurdistan said it objected to its annexes as unconstitutional and threatened to pass its own measure.

Some politicians said the fresh pressure from Washington was an attempt to correct what they called “Bush’s mistakes”, namely the ban on Baathists and pushing for a 2005 poll on Iraq’s new constitution despite Sunni Arab misgivings.

Joost Hiltermann, from the International Crisis Group think-tank, said that while Washington’s clock and America’s impatience for quick results have always dictated political progress in Iraq, it must now strike a fine balance.