It was the April 2010 national election and its
tortured aftermath that sewed the seeds of today’s crisis in Iraq.
Beforehand, U.S. state and military officials had prepared for any
scenario, including the possibility that Maliki might refuse to leave
office for another Shiite Islamist candidate. No one imagined that the
secular Iraqiya list, backed by Sunni Arabs, would win the largest
number of seats in parliament. Suddenly the Sunnis’ candidate, secular
Shiite Ayad Allawi, was poised to be prime minister. But Maliki refused
and dug in.
And it is here where America found its standing wounded. Anxious about
midterm elections in November and worried about the status of U.S.
forces slated to be drawn down to 50,000 by August, the
White House decided to pick winners. According to multiple officials in
Baghdad at time, Vice President Joseph Biden and then-Ambassador Chris
Hill decided in July 2010 to support Maliki for prime minister, but
Maliki had to bring the Sunnis and Allawi onboard. Hill and his staff
then made America’s support for Maliki clear in meetings with Iraqi
political figures.
The stalemate would drag on for months, and in the end both the United
States and its arch-foe Iran proved would take credit for forming the
government. But Washington would be damaged in the process. It would be
forever linked with endorsing Maliki. One U.S. Embassy official I spoke
with just months before the government was formed privately expressed
regret at how the Americans had played kingmaker.
-- Ned Parker, "
Who Lost Iraq?" (
POLITICO).
