In a country divided on an ethnic, sectarian and confessional basis, rulers who contributed to this division are forced, in the name of democracy, to preserve their own share and their own group's share of power, and thus resort to maneuvering at times and to confrontation at other times. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has thus found himself, after the US withdrawal, forced to wage a war on two separate, yet at the same time connected, fronts: the first is a domestic one, confronting parties that enjoy an exceptional position within his coalition, represented by the Sadrist Movement, in addition to the Secularists and the representatives of the Sunnis in the government and in parliament; while at the foreign level he faces a hostile Arab environment which considers him to be sectarian and loyal to Iran, and which demands that he stop “helping the Syrian regime”. In order to manage such a struggle, Maliki is working on finding a balance within his own coalition, trying to dwarf Sadr, who enjoys broad popularity, by attracting those who have split off from his party, especially Asa'ib Ahl Al-Haq (AAH) led by Qais Khazali, who returned from Iran to Najaf, announcing that he had abandoned the use of arms and decided to engage in political work, and that he excluded returning under the umbrella of Muqtada Al-Sadr, who launched a fierce attack against him and described him as a “murderer”. The fact of the matter is that this confrontation with Sadr is not the first. Maliki had in the past waged a battle against the supporters of this Shiite leader in 2007, when he drove the Mahdi Army militia out of Basra by force of arms. Yet he stopped at that, as he needed Sadr in his struggle against others, and thus the young leader left to Iran for religious studies, in order to become a Marja' like his uncle and his father before him. The radicals of the Mahdi Army then split off from his party, headed by Khazali, who in turn left for Iran, after his militias had applied themselves to killing Iraqis under the pretext of resisting the occupation. And there he is today returning to be a card in Maliki's hand in the renewed struggle between the two sides. Maliki had not stopped at attempting to dwarf his rivals within the National Coalition, but has also purposely attracted groups of Sunnis to confront his “partners” in power, especially after the latter took have stood against his foreign policy and have leaned towards their Arab neighborhood in its stance on Iran and Syria, issuing a judicial arrest warrant against Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi. He has also continued to delay the appointment of the Ministers of Defense and National Security, as they are of the share of his rivals in the Iraqiya List, thus killing two birds with one stone: getting rid of a strong rival like Hashimi, and striking a blow against a Shiite rival like Ayad Allawi, who has become too weak to head a list of which most of the members are Sunni. This is at the domestic level. At the foreign level, on the other hand, Maliki is biased towards the side opposed to the United States. This appeared clearly in his categorical refusal to grant American trainers immunity against legal prosecution in Iraq, as well as in the press conference he held with President Barack Obama in the White House, when the latter declared that the two men were in disagreement over their stance on the Syrian regime. In addition to this, Iraq is considered to be the gateway linking Damascus to Tehran, which stretches to Beirut and Palestine, and Maliki is unwilling to meet the demands of the Arabs and the Americans to seal off such a gateway. He is also concerned with helping the Syrian regime in different ways, among them his refusal to implement the sanctions ratified by the Arab League, and opening markets to Syrian merchandise. Maliki's “maverick” stance alone is certain to bring Al-Qaeda back to its past course of bombings and assassinations in Iraq, which is what we are witnessing today, and which is likely to escalate over the coming weeks, especially as the United States has begun to strengthen sanctions against Iran, and is headed towards reconciliation with the Taliban movement, the latter having opened an office in Doha in preparation for its return to power in Afghanistan and participation in besieging Tehran. The Iraqi interior is unlikely to witness stability, due to sectarian and confessional bickering, and foreign powers will not hesitate to use any means to drive it away from Iran and Syria, whoever its rulers are.
