The Kingmaker

By Serge Truffaut Le Devoir
Tuesday 14 February 2006

The day after the Iraqi legislative elections, it was expected that the Prime Minister post would go to Abdel Mahdi, one of the leaders of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI). A certainty for a significant number of MPs was that there was no way that Ibrahim al-Jaafari would return to that function. As far as all the Kurdish and Sunni MPs were concerned, as well as all the secular Shiites, al-Jaafari's time in office had demonstrated his incompetence in every respect, and the watchword was anybody but he. Surprise! It's Jaafari who was chosen.

This sudden dramatic turn of events, because that's exactly what it is, bears the fingerprints of the Americans' worst enemy apart from Moussab Zarkawi: Moqtada al-Sadr, the young cleric very popular with the deprived masses and with all those who desire the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Iraq. Powered by the 32-vote delegation he controls in the Parliament - which makes him the party leader with the largest bloc of Shiite deputies within the Unified Iraqi Alliance (UIA) - Sadr has played kingmaker. For his own advantage, obviously.

In exchange for his support, Sadr has obtained the following guarantees: besides defending certain planks of his platform, Jaafari has committed to reserving four or five ministries for Sadr's collaborators. Imposition of sharia? Sadr can sleep tight. A conservative cleric, Jaafari has never hidden his intention of merging everything that deals with marriage, divorce, and inheritance into the commandments of Islamic law.

This alliance between Sadr and Jaafari has aroused intense reactions that presage a chaotic, even violent, period. Iraq President Jalal Talabani forcefully criticized the exclusion of Iyad Allawi's National Party of Iraq, which brought together all those who oppose the establishment of an Islamic republic. He is so furious that he promises to block the official formation of the government. He holds enough votes to do that.

For the Sunni, the emergence of a Jaafari-Sadr coalition is proving a waking nightmare. They are terrified that once in power, the Jaafari-Sadr tandem will impose its regionalization program, which, if put into effect, would allow the Kurds and Shiites to profit as never before from oil revenues.

But, for the immediate future, the Sunni fear for their lives. On more than one occasion, they have accused Jaafari of covering up crimes committed against them. They also fear that Sadr will abuse his position to command his Mahdi Army to hunt down Sunnis. Given all that, Sunni leaders also intend to join up with Allawi and a third party to achieve the same objective as the Kurds: to block the nomination of the government.

Following this new distribution of the cards, we observe that the country is dividing up more clearly than ever between a homogeneous Shiite bloc and a much less homogeneous bloc: that is the one presently comprising the secular, the Kurds, and the Sunni. It is fated that the latter last no longer than springtime. In short, the Shiites are there for the long haul. And to whose satisfaction? Iran's.

Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.

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