By Musa Keilani
Tareq Al Hashemi, vice-president of Iraq,left Jordan after a three-day stay during which he shared with some media people his ideas about the future of his country, as well as his interpretation of the general pulse of the man in the Baghdad street. Hashemi’s Islamic background gave an extra colour to his understanding of events.
Iraq is too unstable for the US military to withdraw from that country and the situation will remain the same even six months from now, the deadline set by President Barack Obama for the last American soldier to leave. This is the argument put forth by senior Obama administration officials to persuade the Iraqi government to formally request an extension of the US military presence in Iraq, as the newly designated defence secretary hopes for.
Clearly, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, for reasons of their own, want the US forces to stay on. Talabani, a Kurd who has been closely aligned with the US since the end of the 1991 war that ended Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait, knows that there will be a violent flare-up between Kurdish forces and Arabs in Kurdistan when the US forces depart from Iraq.
In any event, he would not, and could not, say no to the US when it says it would be for everyone’s good if its military stayed in the country for some decades more.
As far as Maliki is concerned, he knows that the stability of his government depends on continued American military backing (and diplomatic support as well). Ideally, he would like the US military to stay on until his term runs out; he has already announced that he would not be seeking another term as prime minister.
Insisting for months that he wants the US military to leave as scheduled, Maliki switched track now, saying he would take a decision only after consulting his coalition partners. It is known that at least one component of the Maliki coalition, the party led by Moqtada Sadr, who is closely aligned with the Iranian regime, would fight tooth and nail against the US military presence continuing beyond December 31, 2011.
It goes without saying that Sadr, who has even threatened to mobilise his Mehdi Army to fight the American forces if they stay on, could quit the coalition and bring down the Maliki government. So much for Maliki’s ambition to complete his term as prime minister.