Daunting challenges face new Iraqi leaders

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | Newsday Middle East Correspondent

April 24, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Iraq's political deadlock might be over, but the road toward stability is long and treacherous.

Jawad al-Maliki, the Shia politician who was named prime minister Saturday, faces some daunting challenges: He must contain a raging insurgency, disarm entrenched militias and overcome decades of mistrust among the country's Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities.

Al-Maliki's first test comes May 22, the deadline by which he must form a cabinet and win approval from the Iraqi parliament. In creating a new government, he has to appease competing factions that want control of the interior, defense and oil ministries. He also must crack down on rampant corruption, restore a crumbling infrastructure and restart a flagging economy.

"There is a long, severe list of problems facing the new government," said Zuheir Jazairy, an Iraqi writer and analyst. "And this government is already at a disadvantage because Iraqis are tired of all the political squabbling."

It took more than four months after the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections for Iraqi leaders to break the impasse over who would be named prime minister, with Ibrahim al-Jaafari fighting hard to keep his post.

As the political stalemate unfolded, the country drifted further into chaos. In recent months, the warning signs of sectarian warfare could be seen everywhere in Iraq: clerics assassinated outside their mosques, dozens of execution victims turning up in ditches and car bombers inflicting heavy casualties on the country's Shia majority.

While attacks on Shia institutions and leaders mounted, Shias seethed and senior clerics had a difficult time restraining the community's anger. When insurgents destroyed a Shia shrine in the northern city of Samarra on Feb. 22, the anger boiled over and Shia militias unleashed a wave of violence against Sunnis.

The insurgents are a mix of Islamic militants from neighboring countries and Iraqi Sunnis, who formed the backbone of Saddam Hussein's regime. The Shia militias have infiltrated Iraq's security forces and are accused of running death squads from the Interior Ministry.

Al-Maliki's every move will be fraught with political peril, especially in deciding the fate of these Shia militias. In his first declaration after being named premier, he pledged that militia members would be absorbed into the Iraqi army and police. "Arms should be only in the hand of the government," al-Maliki said, citing a law adopted last year that required merging militias into the armed forces.

But the militias make up a large part of al-Maliki's power base. One such force is the militia loyal to renegade Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which fought battles twice in 2004 with U.S. forces. Al-Sadr's militia has surrendered some of its weapons to the Iraqi government, but its members still are difficult to control. Al-Sadr, who controls 30 seats in the 275-member parliament, was a key backer of al-Maliki's bid for prime minister.

Al-Maliki also faces a showdown over the country's constitution, which was approved by voters last year despite Sunnis voting en masse against it. Sunnis argued that the charter would pave the way for Iraq's eventual breakup. Negotiations were deadlocked for months over three key issues: the role of Islam in civil law; the desire of Kurds in the north and Shias in the south to establish semi-independent regions under a federal system with a weak central government; and the paramount question of how to distribute Iraq's oil revenues.

Under intense U.S. pressure, the constitution's drafters allowed a four-month window for changes once a new government is in place. That means Sunnis could reopen negotiations over the most divisive issues, polarizing Iraq even further.