Resurgence In The Shi'ite World - Part 46 - Iraqi Moderate Ba'th Lures Maleki.

PM Nuri al-Maleki is being lured by moderate former members of the Arab Ba'th Socialist Party which ruled under Saddam's Sunni/Ba'thist dictatorship. These moderates, consisting of Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs, are secular and mostly well educated with many of them efficient technocrats. The Shi'ite Arab PM, having recently formed a broad coalition called State of the Law (SoL), now is in fierce competition with a Shi'ite-led Iraqi National Alliance (INA) formed in late August and mostly engineered by Iran's ruling Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Maleki's bold move to include former Ba'thists in his SoL camp deepens suspicions in Iran's militarised regime. That regime is weakened by its crisis in the wake of a June 12 presidential vote which the opponents of re-elected Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad charge was rigged by the IRGC. Iran's influence in Iraq has declined considerably since the post-June 12 drama, with Iraq's Ja'fari Shi'ite religious authorities in Najaf questioning the legitimacy of the Tehran theocracy's Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei (see rim2IrqIRGC-Aug17-09).

Likewise, Maleki's move escalates the Iraq-Syria crisis which he himself sparked off in the wake of massive Aug. 19 bombings in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone which killed 135 people and wounded about 600 others and hit the Foreign and Finance Ministries. But the influence of Syria's Alawite/Ba'thist regime of Bashar al-Assad in Iraq has declined in recent months. US military commanders in Iraq now say the tactical Iranian-Syrian alliance with the Neo-Salafi network al-Qaeda is no longer posing a major threat to Iraq.

Maleki is balancing his approach to former Ba'thist moderates with his insistence on the Assad regime handing over to Baghdad Syria-based Iraqi Ba'thists and Neo-Salafi insurgents who, he claims, have been involved in the Aug. 19 bombings and other attacks. Baghdad is also demanding a UNSC-backed court to try these insurgents and probe the Assad regime's role in harbouring them.

In an Aug. 24 ceremony, the IRGC-guided INA said its aim was to build in Iraq a "state of justice" - with the Ja'faris' "Hidden Imam" al-Mahdi awaited to rule the world in justice. The INA excludes Maleki's faction of al-Da'wa al-Islamiya movement but includes all the major Iran-backed Shi'ite Arab parties, such as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), the Sadrist movement, the Da'wa faction of former PM Ibrahim al-Ja'fari, the Iraqi National Congress (INC)_of Ahmad Chalabi, al-Fadhila al-Islamiya, etc. To give it a non-sectarian image, the INA includes small Sunni Arab parties and a Turkoman group. It also includes branches of predominantly Sunni Arab confederations of tribes such as the Shammar. Chalabi projects his INC and himself as secular (see Part 45 in rim3IrqShi'aBlc&SyrSep7-09).

Maleki is working hard to keep his job after Jan. 16 parliamentary elections. Until Aug. 19, all he had to do was to hold steady until voting day. With violence down, his rivals in disarray and his image as a non-sectarian leader taking root, he was virtually assured of another four years at the helm. But the Aug 19 attack dealt a major blow to confidence in his security forces. Called "Black Wednesday", the bombings followed several high-profile attacks after the June 30 withdrawal of US forces from urban areas and eroded the PM's biggest asset - improved security.

The US sees Maleki as a reliable if somewhat too nationalist and independent-minded ally, who has friends in Iran but keeps Tehran at a distance. Leaders of the INA say Maleki stayed out because he wanted but failed to lead it. But in parallel with his escalation of the Baghdad-Damascus row, Maleki is quietly working on an alliance with Kurdistan President Mas'oud Barzani who now is leading a campaign against the Assad regime's alleged "suppression" of Syria's Kurdish activists.

This developing "secret alliance" is reflected by the role of Iraq's Kurdish Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, in keeping the row with Damascus hot. A close relative of Barzani and key member of the latter's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Zebari on Oct. 14 said Iraq will no longer participate in any meeting of Iraq's neighbours in which Syria and other states harbouring anti-Baghdad insurgents are involved. In the latter part of his statement he was mainly referring to Iran, which harbours al-Qaeda and other Neo-Salafi groups.

Zebari's statement, saying he saw no possibility of dialogue with Syria as long as Assad kept harbouring insurgents, came as a conference of Baghdad's neighbouring states at Egypt's Sinai resort of Sharm el-Shaikh ended. The meeting was attended by the interior ministers of the six states, plus others; and the senior participant, Saudi 2nd Deputy PM and Interior Minister Prince Nayef who now is the most powerful man in the Wahhabi royal regime next to King Abdullah (his half-brother) stressed that Baghdad's neighbouring states were primarily responsible for Iraq's security.

Prince Nayef made that point mainly in reference to Iran because, from the Saudi stand-point, Damascus and Tehran were no longer in harmony over Iraq's future - one example of complicated GME politics (see news16SyrSauOct19-09).