BAGHDAD: Major Iranian-backed groups announced a new alliance Monday but excluded the Iraqi prime minister in a rare display of disunity among the country’s majority community. The move puts pressure on Nuri Al-Maliki to strike a deal with Sunni parties if he hopes to keep his job after January’s parliamentary elections.
The realignment of parties is a major shift in the Iraqi political scene, breaking up a coalition that has dominated Iraq’s government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The new bloc, called the Iraqi National Alliance, will include the largest Shiite party, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, or SIIC, and anti-US preacher Moqtada Sadr’s bloc, both of which have close ties to Tehran, as well as some small Sunni and secular parties.
If the alliance does well in the Jan. 16 vote, Tehran could gain deeper influence in Iraq just as US forces begin to withdraw. The last American soldier is scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.
It is also likely to worry Sunnis who largely consider the Supreme Council as little more than an instrument of Iranian policy — exacerbating sectarian divisions at a time when violence that had waned is again on the rise.
Left outside of the alliance, Al-Maliki appears to be trying to cast himself as a Shiite leader who can draw in minority Sunnis and Kurds. Al-Maliki’s aides have said the prime minister is working to form a broad-based, national coalition in a bid to end sectarian politics.
Al-Maliki’s Dawa Party did not join the new alliance because its leaders would not guarantee that he would remain prime minister if the bloc dominated the election, lawmaker Reda Jawad Taqi told The Associated Press.
One of Al-Maliki’s advisers, Hassan Al-Sineid, said the prime minister and the leaders of the new alliance differed over “the mechanism of participation in the alliance and the need to open this alliance to include a broad range of political powers.” The realignment does not immediately threaten Al-Maliki’s position as prime minister, but points to stormy politics in the election campaign and beyond, as US troops prepare to withdraw.
The split between the rival Shiite camps is another setback for Al-Maliki’s election hopes after his effort to portray himself as a champion of security was battered by a series of devastating bombings in Baghdad, including attacks that struck the foreign and finance ministries, and in northern Iraq in recent weeks.
The prime minister was moving ahead with his efforts to build a more inclusive election coalition, holding talks with a prominent Sunni preacher whose followers include fighters who joined forces with the Americans against Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha said his representatives met with Al-Maliki’s advisers on Sunday to discuss forming “a national and nonsectarian alliance.” He praised Al-Maliki for cracking down on Shiite militias and supporting the Anbar Awakening Council, the anti-Al-Qaeda movement that has spread nationwide and is considered a key factor in a sharp decline in overall violence over the past two years.
