Meet The New Boss…Same As The Old Boss

Iraqi Shiites have chosen a new candidate to replace embattled Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. The new face of Iraq will now be the Islamist hardliner Jawad al-Maliki. The world has breathed a collective sigh of relief at this news.

The impasse over the Premiership is now finally broken and both the Sunnis and the Kurds appear ready to accept this new choice for Prime Minister. The American Ambassador to Iraq sounds downright giddy at the prospect of al-Maliki becoming the Prime Minister. The Washington Post reports:

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the choice of Maliki was "a good step in the right direction. He’s an Iraqi patriot. He’s a strong leader."

Lost in all the euphoria at seeing progress in Iraq is whether or not this is progress in the right direction for Iraq or the United States. I had written in an earlier article that the likely replacement for al-Jaafari would either come from his own Dawa party or from the SCIRI. I had also suggested that neither outcome would be a positive outcome. We now have our answer. Ibrahim al-Jaafari has been replaced by another Dawa party member albeit one that is more hard-line. In fact while Ibrahim al-Jaafari has been the titular head of the Shiite alliance, al-Maliki has done all the heavy lifting. It is no surprise then that he would ascend to the Premiership.

Jawad al-Maliki has been the spokesman for the Dawa party and the Shiite alliance. He was involved in the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution and more significantly was a member of the de-Baathification committee set up by the United States. He has been a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and has close ties with the Shiite militias, especially the Mahdi Army.

After the recent raid by the U.S. military on a mosque in Sadr City, al-Maliki referred to the American Military operation as a "criminal" act. Responding to the raid, al-Maliki urged the United States to hand over security operations to Iraqis:

Jawad al-Maliki, a senior spokesman of the Shia Islamist Alliance and ally of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, said: "The alliance calls for a rapid restoration of security matters to the Iraqi government."

al-Maliki apparently wants the Interior Ministry, which is controlled by Shiite militias, to be in charge of security in Iraq. This would allow the militias to continue their brutal ethnic cleansing operations with impunity.

After pushing hard for al-Jaafari’s ouster, the United States has gotten a more pro-Iranian Dawa party member. We have certainly come full circle in the Middle East. We have put in power in Iraq a person Saddam Hussein had sentenced to death. We have put in power a person who was involved in terrorist activities against not only Iraq but also Western and American targets in the Middle East. We have put in power a party, the Dawa party, that invented the modern suicide car bombing – a party that was involved in bombing the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait and in the killing of 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut.

We have brought democracy to the Middle East. We have handed over Iraq to an Iranian nurtured and funded Islamist alliance (Dawa and SCIRI). I do not believe this is what the American people bargained for when we embarked on the invasion of Iraq. If we are holding out the hope that these Islamist parties whose stated goal is to bring about an Islamist revolution in Iraq will somehow smell the sweet scent of Democracy and become torchbearers of freedom and liberty, we are likely to be as disappointed as Dick Cheney was when we were not greeted as liberators. This is a far cry from the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction and the defeat of al Qaeda.