While insisting they support the Arab Spring and giving empty lip service to the concept of human rights, the White House is still backing up Nouri al-Maliki, a thug who it seems is exposed each year for running secret prisons in Iraq where dissidents are tortured. Each time he's caught, Nouri claims it was somehow unknown (even though the secret prison was under his command) and promises that it will never, ever happen again.
But it always happens.
Know what else seems to always happen? Since February, if you protest for a better Iraq, you stand a good chance of being beaten up, tortured, and kidnapped in public. Most recently, the Great Iraqi Revolution reports, that was activist Sanaa Aldulaimi.
While the White House publicly lectured other countries about not oppressing dissent, they never said a word as Nouri ordered protesters attacked, as Nouri ordered journalists covering protests attacked, as Nouri let his thug flag fly.
They were more than okay with it.
Why is Nouri al-Maliki prime minister?
That's the question the world should be asking.
Following the 2005 parliamentary elections, Iraq's MPs were told, by the US government, that Nouri was the only one they (the US government) would agree to. So in April of 2006, he was declared prime minister-designate. He ignored the Constitution (Article 140 was supposed to be implemented by the end of 2007), he ignored the Parliament (at the end of 2006, he extended the UN occupation mandate without consulting them but he promised it wouldn't happen again; at the end of 2007, he did the exact same thing) and he ignored the will of the people and lied to them (in 2008, he promoted the continuation of the occupation and war by backing the Status Of Forces Agreement and then lied to the people of Iraq swearing that, by the summer of 2009, there would be a referendum on the SOFA and the Iraqi people would decide).
The US is how he became prime minister in 2006.
How did he become it in 2010?
As the 2009 provincial elections indicated, Iraqis were moving away from sectarian rule. Nouri saw the way the winds were blowing and used the Justice and Accountability Commission (a commission that was supposed to have expired) to label opponents Ba'athists and push them out of the 2010 elections. He pulled a lot of stunts but, March 2010, Iraqis went to the poll and despite some in the press (Quil Lawrence of NPR, for one) predicting he would win by a huge majority and despite somein the press (Quil again) declaring that he was the clear winner by a wide margin (Quil delivered that 'news' while votes were still being counted and would continue to be counted for days and days), Nouri's political slate (State of Law) didn't come out on top.
Even after Nouri stomped and threatened and got the Electoral Commission to toss him some more votes, his political slate still wasn't the winner.
The winner was Iraqiya. The head of Iraqiya is Ayad Allawi and, per the Constitution, Allawi had first crack at forming a Cabinet and being prime minister-designate.
Nouri wasn't having it and instituted Political Stalemate I, bringing the government to a standstill for months and months and months.
What ended Political Stalemate I?
The US brokering an agreement (the Erbil Agreement) with the political blocs. The Kurds would get (among other things) Article 140 of the Constitution followed (which determines the fate of oil rich Kirkuk). They would also get to retain the post of president (Jalal Talabani). State of Law would get the post of prime minister. The winner? Iraqiya? They'd get the Speaker of Parliament post (Osama al-Nujaifi) and Ayad Allawi would head a newly created commission on national security.
This was agreed to and signed off on by all the political blocs.
And Nouri became prime minister-designate and moved on to prime minister and Iraq entered Political Stalemate II as Nouri then disregarded the Erbil Agreement.
Nine months later, the Kurds and Iraqiya are up in arms. Sometimes Moqtada al-Sadr is up in arms. (Last week, he referred to Nouri al-Maliki's attack on a Member of Parliament as the sort of behavior one expects from a dictator.)
And supposedly the political blocs are going to iron it out.
But, uh-oh, turns out the US is going to oversee that. Which means "Iraqiya and the Kurds on the verge of being screwed over again."
It's past time Iraqis told the US to butt the hell out. Not just in terms of pulling ALL US forces out of Iraq but also in terms of forever attempting to rescue their installed-puppet Nouri.
