Notes from the Underground: The Rise of Nouri al-Maliki and the New Islamists

Ned Parker and Raheem Salman

AGHDAD—It was December B2010, and Nouri Kamal al-Maliki sat in a faux palace, erected by , on the Feast of Sacrifice, one of the most sacred days in the Muslim Calendar. The politician, who had just secured his second term as after an eight- month stalemate, sat in a gilded, thronelike chair, surrounded by members of his Shiite religious Dawa Party. Former enemies walked into the hall to congratulate him, and Maliki rose to embrace them. To his left was a founder of his party, the oldest sur- viving Dawa member, who had been tortured under Hussein and was now spending his golden years in quiet retirement

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near the Shiite shrine of Imam Khadim in upon him and Dawa members under Hus- western . There were others like sein—arresting and torturing political en- him, who basked in the pageantry like a emies and turning a blind eye to his allies’ balm for the jail, death, and humiliating corruption and criminal acts. exile they endured. Their grip on power, But this was the price of his victory a feverish dream during decades abroad in Iraq. Maliki, disparaged by others as putting out tracts and plotting, now a Nixonian paranoid, given to rages and seemed permanent. delusional displays of grandiosity, had Hussein had once presented himself persevered, tacking left and right on the on television receiving obsequious visitors touchstones of nationalism and his Shiite and inspecting his forces, and now Maliki character—both coming naturally to did the same. The irony of the moment was him—in the name of survival. not lost. But after years in the wilderness, At his moment of triumph, celebrated the prime minister understood, as did his by friends and rivals, he could hardly opponents who wished to replace him, the imagine that he would soon be tested as importance of strength and ruthlessness. never before. Despite his iron-fisted rule, Without it, you would perish. Sunni areas harbored a resilient insurgency There had been moments when Maliki that would endure after the Americans’ recoiled from such displays, uncomfortable departure. In contested lands in the north, with the parallels. Once, he shuddered in the answered him with their own anger when a Western official commented hard-headedness, wooing Turkey as a pro- on the photos of him meeting dignitaries tector and landing large foreign oil corpo- lining his walls. Maliki was disgusted. This rations to drill for oil in disputed northern was Hussein’s behavior, and the pictures territories. Each step promised to bring were removed. But in the winter of 2010, the Kurds closer to a declaration of inde- in the sunset of the American presence in pendence from Baghdad. Iraq, Maliki was comfortable projecting Eventually, a popular revolt inside power, and his aides deferred to him as they Syria would push Maliki into a deeper would a great man. He was confident he embrace of , convinced he needed his would dictate the makeup of the govern- Shiite neighbor’s treacherous involvement ment and how power would be apportioned as a check on Sunni competitors in Iraq to his rivals. Those in the Shiite ranks who and their supporters in Saudi Arabia and had conspired against him greeted him now Turkey. In short, the reign of Maliki is as a conquering hero. If their smiles were an object lesson to other nascent Islamist false, their scheming was dead for the mo- leaders across the Middle East of how to ment. The methods he had used to consoli- consolidate one’s rule from the rubble of a date power were as cruel as those inflicted toppled state.

Ned Parker, a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reported from Baghdad for seven years and has contributed to World Policy Journal. Raheem Salman covered the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the post-Saddam era for the Los Angeles Times from 2003 to 2011. He is currently a Baghdad-based Reuters correspondent.

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To understand Maliki—this century’s ORIGINS: 1950-1979 first Arab leader elected through a genu- Nouri al-Maliki’s home village of Janaga inely democratic process, which prefig- lies along the Euphrates. Wandering the ured the Arab Spring and came out of the family’s date groves as a child, the leg- extraordinary circumstances of the 2003 end of his grandfather, Mohammed Abu American invasion of Iraq—one needs to Mahesin, surrounded him. Tall, with an explore where Iraq’s prime minister comes owlish face, Abu Mahesin wrote poetry from, his early days as an ambitious young about his homeland and revolution—in- revolutionary, and his defining decades of cendiary verses recited at mosques and hardship and punishing exile. This is a public gatherings, urging people to fight man swept up by the spirit of Islamic rev- for Iraq’s freedom against the British. He olution, who lost his home and family in represented the Shi- the name of an idea, and then plotted for ite clergy and led 23 years devoting himself to incremental his tribesmen in the maliki did guerrilla violence. All the while, his back- 1920 armed uprising his best not ers and allies betrayed him as he bought against the British time, studied them, and drew strength occupation. Maliki to attract from every blow until one day he was would memorize his attention, stronger and tougher than them all. He grandfather’s poems, unlike his understood what it was to lose everything, imbued with their be betrayed, and then surprise your enemy love of Iraq and revo- friends who by outlasting him. lution. His father, didn’t shave His past provides insight into wheth- Kamel, kept Abu er he will be able to transform Iraq into Mahesin’s political and refused a freer society or perpetuate the country’s traditions alive, pur- to shake a recent history of violence, corruption, and suing a career as an woman’s hand. authoritarian rule. His experiences—his ardent Arab nation- successes and failures—are likely to pro- alist, inspired by Egypt’s President Gamal vide their own critical lessons to Egypt, Abdul Nasser. In 1963, when the Baath Libya, and Tunisia, states that have re- Party and military officers violently over- cently cast off authoritarian rulers. Their threw the Iraqi government, Kamel sided citizens, now grappling with long-sup- with the military in forcing out the Baath. pressed, volatile questions of ethnic, reli- When the Baath plotted their own suc- gious, tribal, and national identity, may cessful coup in 1968, they briefly detained look to the course taken by Maliki and Kamel, having not forgotten his loyalties Iraq as a cautionary tale. His story sug- five years earlier. Maliki’s father exited jail gests the dangerous ways secular and Is- with a black eye. lamist parties, shaped and defined by an The son watched the failure of his authoritarian and conspiratorial political father and elders to build an Arab state culture, are poised to mirror the very op- equal in strength to the West and Israel. pressors they cast off. His efforts to govern The humbling loss to Israel in the 1967 show how difficult it is to lead a trans- war proved decisive, so Maliki turned formation to , while ending a back to the Islamic values of his grandfa- period of vendettas. ther to revive Iraq and the Arab world—

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embracing the then clandestine Dawa who didn’t shave and refused to shake a Party and its spiritual guide the late Aya- woman’s hand. Yet already, he was under tollah Mohammed Baqr Sadr. Even now, scrutiny for having gone to an Islamic col- Maliki proudly displays the ring the Sadr lege in Baghdad and had not been made wore at the time of his execution by Hus- a teacher, because the government viewed sein’s security appa- him warily. He sought to win over the ratus in April 1980. Hilla education department’s party mem- maliki Sadr, who earned a bers. “The senior Baath Party member in confessed an reputation in Shi- our department fell under the impression ite Islamist circles that I was a Baathist,” he recalled. infatuation as a child prodigy, By Maliki’s final year in Hilla, how- with the joined in founding ever, the noose had tightened. Inspired by iranian the Dawa Party at the February 1979 Islamic revolution in a secret meeting in Iran, Dawa had become bolder, with pil- revolution in the late 1950s. Seek- grimages to to declare their loyalty its first bloom. ing a religious an- to Sadr. These marches encouraged Husse- swer to the Middle in to multiply his arrests and executions of East’s emerging secular nationalism and members of underground Shiite religious Western encroachments, Maliki joined the groups and silence the moderate voices in party in a mosque in Hindaya, the larger his government. Maliki continued trav- town that bordered Janaga. The party took eling by bus to work every day but now hold of his life, and when other young sounded angry and nervous. He criticized men chose Baghdad University, consid- a visit by Hussein to a village in the south ered liberal and urbane, Dawa members where the dictator handed out presents, asked him to attend a religious college as- calling it shameless. At work, the mood sociated with Sadr. was tense after masked men stormed their The work of a young party member in building and beat Maliki’s friend, who was the late 1960s focused on promoting Shi- suspected of being Islamist. In his final ite Islam through producing magazines weeks at work in Hilla, Maliki and a col- and organizing events at mosques and on league, Kareem, were summoned by secu- religious holidays. To be a member was to rity officials for questioning on suspicion belong to a secret society. The very name of being Dawa members. “They blindfold- Dawa would not be revealed publicly until ed us and took us to the security and put the early 1970s when the government ar- us together in a garage. When my friend rested and executed its first members. Af- Kareem asked what was going on, I told ter college and serving briefly in the army, him this is the end of our lives,” Maliki Maliki found a job in accounting at the remembered. education department in Hilla, an hour’s But by a stroke of luck, a judge sym- commute from his home. On the surface, pathetic to Maliki, later executed by the Maliki’s routine as a minor bureaucrat was regime, freed him, and the young revolu- ordinary, but behind the scenes, he qui- tionary promptly prepared for departure. etly preached the teachings of Sadr and At 2 p.m., October 20, 1979, Ahmad Na- Islam to his relatives. Maliki did his best jat, a police security officer from Hindaya, not to attract attention, unlike his friends entered his office building with three offi-

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Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 IRAQ cers and asked for Maliki. A friend said he with Dawa. The killings implanted ven- hadn’t shown up that day. Najat slammed geance as a guiding principle for Maliki his hands together as if he had lost some- and his generation of Islamists. Radical- thing, then rushed down the street to an ized, Maliki drew on his military experi- alley where 16 security cars were waiting, ence recruiting fighters to set up guerrilla and sped off. cells in Iraq, training them and hiding weapons and pamphlets inside cars and Into Exile: 1979-1981 bicycles entering the country. Their party That same morning, Maliki walked from carried out the Middle East’s first modern his lush farming village to Hindaya. A suicide bombing in 1981—a suicide car police car passed him, but the officers bomb at the Iraqi embassy in Beirut— planned to arrest him at work that day, so and conducted and sabotage they ignored him. Maliki, passport in his against Hussein’s regime. pocket, hailed a ride through the desert of Maliki proved himself a tough leader the western Anbar province to the Jorda- in Damascus, establishing new communi- nian border, where guards demanded his cation channels with Dawa members from papers. He handed over his passport and Iran to Beirut as the movement reinvented tried to act normal, explaining he was go- itself in exile as a resilient, battle-tested ing to Amman for medical treatment and organization. The Dawa Party took notice would be back in two days. Behind him and summoned Maliki to Iran to help run was detention, torture, and death. Maliki its military training camp in 1981. Hus- arrived in Damascus with nothing. He sein’s war with Iran had broken out the waited at the tiny Abbas hotel for an old previous year, and Iraqi opposition groups friend from his army days. Each vowed to were using Iran as a base for their efforts to keep the ideas of Islamic revolution alive. topple Hussein. Back in Iraq, the state had confiscated Ma- liki’s family land and, over the next de- The Iran Years: 1981-1989 cade, killed at least 67 of his relatives. His Maliki confessed an infatuation with the wife and two-year-old daughter changed Iranian revolution in its first bloom—a houses regularly, fearful that they would fervent belief in Ayatollah Ruhollah Kho- be killed. It took a year to smuggle them meini as a seminal figure who did what to Damascus. In April 1980, came the ex- Shiite could only dream of. “When ecution of Sadr and Sadr’s sister. Stunned the Iranian revolution began, we interact- by the loss of their movement’s spiritual ed with it madly. It was the first revolution leader, Dawa rallied 45 protestors in front with Islam embedded. Its leader wore the of the Iraqi embassy and tried to storm in- turban and was a cleric,” Maliki recalled. side, but Syrian forces stopped them. But actual life in the new Islamic Repub- The Baath Party had executed several lic proved a rude awakening for the Dawa Dawa members and religious figures be- Party. Most members speak with bitter- fore, but never a cleric of Sadr’s stature, ness of Iran and Khomeini to this day. respected across the Shiite world. His Maliki, his wife, and a second daugh- execution marked a hardening of sectar- ter, born in Syria, arrived and settled into ian divisions in Iraqi society, with Hussein the small Dawa-run military camp outside killing anyone he suspected of affiliation of Ahwaz in Iran across the border from

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the marshes of southern Iraq. The camp, severed in an instant. Summoned to Teh- named after the recently executed Sadr, ran to serve on the party’s military com- was run under the supervision of Dawa’s mittee, Maliki grew to hate life there and military veterans like Maliki and was in the small indignities that followed. “You a dangerous location. Iraqi missiles often don’t know their arrogance until you live shelled the base. Over two years, Maliki among them,” Maliki told an American saw 63 Dawa members die in bombard- diplomat long afterward, explaining why ments. Maliki’s time in Ahwaz coincided he never learned Farsi. with the growing tensions between Iran Miserable, he returned to Damascus and Dawa. Both were comprised of Shiites, hoping for more freedom. Instead, Maliki but Iran wanted Dawa as a proxy for its found himself doing little but sipping tea fight with Iraq—expecting Dawa to recog- in party offices, while suffering from stom- nize Khomeini as the organization’s spiri- ach bleeding. Finally, he packed a suitcase tual leader and submit to Tehran’s will. and took off for Iran, hoping a change of The demands sparked resentment among scenery would lift his black mood and Dawa members who saw themselves as improve his health. But the situation in Iraqi Islamists, not puppets for Iran’s the- Tehran remained bleak. Iran had co-opted ology and ambitions. Unable to co-opt specific Dawa factions to carry out attacks, Dawa, Iranian political and military lead- including the bombing of the American ers formed a competing movement, coax- and French embassies in Kuwait in 1983. ing senior Iraqi Shiite clergy including Another Lebanese Dawa member took Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr Hakim and part in the creation of . There his brothers—sons of an Iraqi grand aya- was never a formal rupture between Dawa tollah and founding members of the Dawa and its splinter groups. They were all fel- Party—to accept Iran’s offer of patron- low travelers who received funding from age and pledge allegiance to Khomeini as Iran, shared basic religious tenets, and be- their religious guide. Rank and file Dawa lieved in war with Hussein. The U.S. gov- members defected to the Hakims, joining ernment eventually cleared Dawa’s main their new party, the Supreme Council of branch of responsibility for the attack in the Islamic Revolution, and their militia, Kuwait. But U.S. officials declined to au- the Badr Brigade. thorize meetings with senior Dawa lead- Dawa’s leading members recall with ers until 2002. hatred the dark hour when the Iranians Asked about Iran’s manipulation of announced the Ahwaz camp no longer be- Dawa, Maliki told an American diplomat longed to Dawa and handed the facility to years later: “I don’t trust the Iranians for the Hakims’ Badr troops. Some remember a minute.” In 1987, he quit Iran when its Maliki marching to the front of Ahwaz’s security services began to harass and kill mosque, telling fighters they could choose Dawa members, according to a classified to carry on or leave, but the camp no lon- U.S. government biography of Maliki. ger belonged to them. It was a lesson to One American diplomat remembered Ma- Maliki in the exercise of power and percep- liki in 2004 choking up as he recalled a tion. Dawa was abandoned by those who Dawa Party friend in the 1980s, who was saw that prestige was with the Hakims. jailed and executed by the Iranians for not People could be bought, and old alliances pledging allegiance to Khomeini. Maliki

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Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 IRAQ roamed from the marshes of southern Iraq relatives from his village Janaga. In his to the mountains of Kurdistan to Damas- years as an outlaw, the family had burned cus as he strove to guard his independence all their old photos of Maliki, afraid the se- and carry on his guerrilla fight. “I never curity forces might find them. When Ma- stopped working in Iraq. I lived the suffer- liki’s nephew, Majid, first saw his uncle in ing of the Iraqis,” Maliki said. “I refused the camp, he had no idea who Maliki was. any other nationality.” His mother never mentioned him. It was as Little was left of the young man who if Maliki had never lived. Majid cried and had grown up in a village off the Euphra- told his long-lost uncle how the men in tes River. Pictures of him from this time Janaga had risen up and fought until Iraqi show a middle-aged man standing unsmil- tanks assaulted the region. Maliki answered ing in gray fatigues with a prayer rug and coolly. “You should be patient,” he said. worry beads in hands. He was known by his “What is in front of you will be much more pseudonyms—Jawad, Abu Mohasin, Abu difficult, so be patient.” Isra. Nouri al-Maliki no longer existed. By 1991, Maliki had settled in Da- mascus running the party’s office. When- Thet Was ed Years: 1991-2003 ever he feared he was While Maliki had bitter feelings toward slighted or in danger Tehran and Damascus, the 1991 Gulf War of slipping into ob- “i know the deepened his darkest thinking about the scurity in Syria, Ma- syrians, and West. Like others, Maliki listened when liki asserted himself President George H.W. Bush called pub- in public. He insist- believe me, they licly for Iraqis to rise up against Hussein. ed on paying a con- are sons of Then he watched with horror as Hussein dolence call to Syrian bitches to the sent helicopter gunships to fire on Shiite President Hafez al- rebels in southern Iraq, and the Ameri- Assad when his son last man. we are cans did nothing. Tens of thousands died, died in a car crash, going to have and hundreds of thousands more were although he had not to deal with displaced, while southern cities and reli- been invited. Still, gious shrines were left in ruins. Even two Maliki carried a gun them.” decades later, Maliki was still calling the for self-defense, as American decision to let Hussein smash he grew more alarmed about the uprising “a conspiracy.” plots with a thaw in Syria-Iraq relations. In the aftermath of the uprising, the Years later, angered by Damascus for its Dawa Party dispatched Maliki to Saudi support of armed Sunni groups, he would Arabia to visit the thousands of Iraqi Shi- say darkly to a Western diplomat: “Boy, I ite fighters who escaped. Rather than being know the Syrians, and believe me, they are warmly welcomed, the Shiite Iraqis were sons of bitches to the last man. We are go- penned up in spartan desert refugee camps, ing to have to deal with them. They need viewed with hostility in Sunni-dominated to remember that we know how to blow Saudi Arabia—a mute testament to the things up in other people’s cities too.” wreckage of Iraq’s Shiite resistance. Maliki met the refugees, listened to their stories The HOMECOMING: April 2003 from the rebellion, and asked for news of Maliki returned to Baghdad in a taxi

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solitary figures, compared with exile leaders favored by the West and Iran, like Ahmad Chalabi and the Hakim entourage, who entered the capital with armed supporters and long lines of vehicles. Not far from where Maliki stayed in Baghdad’s Sadr City, a new generation of Shi- ite activists were rallying around Muqtada Sadr, the son of a slain cousin of the late Mohammed Baqr Sadr. Dawa was a voice of the past, recalled with nostal- gia but lacking relevance. Maliki waited just a day before racing south to his native village he had dreamed of for the last 23 years, but on arrival, he recognized nothing. His childhood home was in ruins, an abandoned yel- low brick building and courtyard, with trash scat- tered across the property. Maliki’s obsession with what the Baath had done to his family and village quickly defined him. He opened a new Dawa Party office on Hindaya’s main street, sandwiched in a row of shops. One of his without fanfare, spending his first night in first public acts was to hold a symbolic an abandoned house with no electricity or funeral for local Dawa members killed by Army

US water. He and his two companions begged the Baath Party. He didn’t recognize some food from some young men. In the morn- of the people who attended. “I was asking: ing, the three drafted a party statement and Who is this? I was told he is from intelli- phoned fellow Dawa members, who wait- gence, this is a Baathist,” Maliki recalled. ed in Kurdistan for news. They appeared “I told myself, those people should feel shy

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Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 IRAQ after what they did to us.” At the end of the ascendant Sadrist movement, both the service, Maliki addressed the strangers: with their potent militias, viewed Dawa “Oh, Baathists. Listen to me. Don’t say as their weak cousin. Maliki shuttled that we surprised you. We have the right through the halls of government on Da- to seek revenge for Sadr. Our eyes will not wa’s behalf, with lists of names and ne- shut until we retaliate.” Soon after, some gotiating points for positions in the first Baathists were killed in Hindaya.In Mali- elected-government. He was kept waiting ki’s mind, it was the natural order. “Those in political figures’ reception rooms, in an who didn’t harm anyone are still working implicit reminder of his lower place in the in the area,” he explained. “People differ- pecking order of Iraqi politics. Ibrahim entiate between the good and the bad.” Jafaari, a doctor who had served as Dawa’s One hated figure who paid the price spokesman in London, desperately wanted was the police officer, Ahmed Najat, who to be premier, and the rival parties saw had terrorized Hindaya in 1979 on the the advantage to letting him serve ahead hunt for Dawa members and had barely of elections for a four-year government in missed detaining Maliki. In the summer less than eight months. of 2003, masked men picked up Najat in During Jafaari’s brief time in of- Baghdad, put him in a car, and brought fice, Maliki often led the political and him to Hindaya, where gunmen executed administrative bat- him on the street. Those who knew Ma- tles against the Sun- liki from the 1970s were shocked at his nis and Baathists. for maliki, the change. A handsome man with light hair He always sat in killings and and tan skin had morphed into a bespec- the front row of tacled politician with thinning black hair parliament. When excesses of the and a darker complexion. he stood to speak, shiites paled everyone listened. before the Rise to Power: 2003-2006 He clashed with Maliki spent his early days in Baghdad Sunni politicians on first enemy— working in cramped Dawa and government the country’s consti- al-qaida and offices. The country’s national leaders hob- tutional committee the baath. nobbed with the West and Iran and basked over the right of in the public spotlight. Maliki served a tier former Baathists below—executing their plans, a faithful to work in the ministries and secu- emissary and troubleshooter. He belonged rity forces. As head of the parlia- to a stable of Dawa men who insinuated ment’s security committee, he vowed themselves into the country’s weak insti- to hunt down Baathists in the army and tutions. The party tapped him for the new police. Bloodshed reached epic heights af- de-Baathification board, which would earn ter the al-Qaida bombing of a Shiite shrine notoriety for its secretive meetings, where in Samarra in February 2006. In its after- he, Ahmed Chalabi, and other Shiite hard- math, Shiite militias scoured Baghdad to liners approved the dismissal of thousands kill Sunnis, and Jafaari became a scapegoat of suspected Baathists from ministries. for the chaos. When the country’s first election took Iraq had held elections in December place in January 2005, the Hakims and for a four-year government, and Jafaari

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secured enough backing among the Shi- father’s security. Years later, Ahmed would ite parties for a second full term. But the become arguably the most powerful force Americans made clear they would reject in his office, with the ability to comman- another four years of Jafaari, especially af- deer military units. Trusted friends like ter Samarra. It was apparent, however, that Abu Mujahid, a squat, tubby man who Dawa and the Sadrists would only abandon drove Maliki around during his Damascus Jafaari if another Dawa member replaced days had come back from his new life as him. During a four-month stalemate, Ma- a butcher in Australia. Now he served as liki emerged as a dark horse candidate. The protocol secretary, controlling access to Americans played the role of kingmak- Maliki, while running informant networks er. U.S. Ambassador Zalamay Khalilzad that collected intelligence for his friend. interviewed the candidates, and his staff drew Men from the ranks of Dawa served as his spreadsheets charting candidates’ positions. enforcers and represented the party’s voice. On Maliki’s interview day, he appeared un- Maliki’s first chief of staff, Tareq Abdullah, comfortable. He sat with Khalilzad and re- considered as ruthless as Maliki, would fused the customary offer of tea that other take on any task. candidates would take. A servant brought Then there were the professional Dawa water, and Maliki left it untouched. The security men. Farouq Arraji, a colonel in message was implicit, according to those Hussein’s army and Dawa member who who were there. Maliki did not intend to be secretly joined the party in 1963, head- the Americans’ puppet. ed Maliki’s office as commander in chief, Khalilzad thought whoever was prime establishing direct oversight of the de- minister would be sectarian, but at least fense and interior ministries that officials Maliki would chart a Shiite Iraqi direction, resented. Similarly, Abu Ali Basri, 12 not an Iranian one. Of course, Maliki had years younger than Maliki, who earned clear question marks. A few Sunni politi- enough of the prime minister’s trust to run cal figures warned the embassy that Maliki his special intelligence office, boasted cre- had been an aggressive proponent among dentials as the son of a Dawa Party mem- Shiite leaders for the assassination squads ber executed by Hussein. Basri’s activities, carrying out hits against Sunnis. Maliki’s cloaked in mystery, inspired fear among dossier, however, was inconclusive: rife Maliki’s enemies. A U.S. intelligence with allegations, but lacking credible report claimed, “derogatory information evidence. The United States considered about Ali Basri includes operating secret Maliki the best worst option. prisons, torturing, and threatening detain- ees.” Maliki imposed his own direct hand in Power: 2006-Present on security matters, as if he were run- Coming to office, Maliki knew to bring ning underground cells against Saddam’s along those who were loyal to him— regime. His office called commanders in linked to him by blood and tribe, exile, the field and angered the Americans by giv- or the bonds of the Dawa Party and its ing units direct orders. Maliki seldom slept history of martyrdom. His son, Ahmed, and spent hours around the clock monitor- served as an assistant in the office of chief ing troop operations from his office. of staff. Over time, he would take on more For Maliki, the killings and excesses of responsibilities, including supervising his the Shiites paled before the first enemy—

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Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 IRAQ al-Qaida and the Baath. After President suffered defeats, he viewed the Shiite mi- George W. Bush sent his surge troops in litias, attached to Sadr, who had defended early 2007, the Americans were frustrated their communities against al-Qaida, as a by Maliki’s reluctance to go after the Shi- threat to his ambitions. ite militias. Maliki prevented major opera- In March 2008, Maliki surprised the tions in Shiite militia strongholds, and the Americans by announcing his own mili- Iraqi police and army provided cover for tary offensive against the Sadrists in the death squads, some of whom killed U.S. lawless southern city of Basra, the main soldiers. A debate raged privately inside port for Iraq’s oil exports. His relationship Shiite political circles about how far they had already soured with his onetime allies, could go in the name of defending their and now Maliki felt strong enough to at- sect. In meetings, Maliki accused General tack. The Americans urged him to wait, of allowing his troops to saying they needed six months, but taking kill innocent Shiites, and the American a page from his past commander raised his voice rebutting the as an underground allegations, while Maliki, repeated the Dawa commander, maliki did charges and avoided the general’s eyes. he flew to the city not believe One of the pair’s biggest sources of and launched his war. tension was the emergence of Sunni insur- His headquarters was in meeting gents, known as the Awakening movement, pounded with rock- anyone half who joined with the Americans in 2007 to ets and mortars. U.S. way. instead, fight al-Qaida. Maliki initially opposed the air strikes decimated groups, seeing the fighters as vehicles for the ranks of the Mah- he wanted to Hussein loyalists to overthrow his govern- di Army, the military push others to ment. But the fighters, protected by the backbone of the Sad- their breaking U.S. military, helped reduce violence, and rists. A formal cease- Maliki reluctantly offered them positions in fire was brokered. points. the security forces and ministries. But it didn’t matter Ever the strategist, Maliki insisted how much Maliki relied on the Ameri- the Americans hand over the fighters’ full cans or Iranians to end the fighting. To the files to the prime minister’s reconciliation public, he stood triumphant. committee and offered low level posts to If Maliki had been perceived as weak ordinary Awakening members. The prime and beholden to his Shiite rivals, he minister understood symbolism. By virtue now towered above them. Iraqis wanted of his post, he—not the American military strength, and Maliki radiated it. This was or Sunni fighters—received the credit for the high point of Maliki’s rule. His office the dramatic drop in violence. Maliki’s used cash to woo Sunni and Shiite tribal security forces targeted many of the move- leaders alike. Ordinary Iraqis saw him as ment’s leaders for arrest, several of whom someone willing to stand up to anyone. now waste away in jail. “Our triumph [in Basra] gave credit to Maliki was left alone, the man who the rule of law,” he told me in a 2010 in- held Iraq together. Maliki saw himself as terview. At the same time, the prime min- a nationalist and patriot, an impulse in- ister still believed in the currency of fear. herited from his grandfather. As al-Qaida Bred in a world of conspiracy and shaped

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by authoritarian figures who chased him of former Prime Minister , a from Iraq, he understood that being la- secular Shiite, who aimed to inhabit the beled weak would leave him vulnerable to same nationalist space as Maliki. enemies of all stripes. Maliki intimidated When the March 2010 election end- his rivals with the creation of his own ed, Maliki had won two fewer parliament special brigade and security detention seats than Allawi, but the prime minister centers that existed outside of any normal refused to accept his loss. Instead, Mali- chain of command. Police who had been ki warned of a plot by Baathists, foreign involved in death squad killings in 2005 powers, and terrorists to appeal to Iraq’s and 2006 worked in the new jails attached Shiite majority. He extracted a legal rul- to Maliki’s office. His special forces initi- ing that whoever had the biggest coalition ated mass arrests in Sunni communities in in parliament, even without the highest Mosul, locking up the men in an unde- popular vote, could form a government. clared jail in Bagh- He lobbied and bullied political figures— dad, where detain- both threatening arrest and tempting his decades of ees were raped and them with lucrative jobs and patronage. humiliation tortured. Human Unlike his rivals, nothing was beneath rights officials, who him. He had spent too much time doing set him on the Maliki had sup- their errands as a party functionary. Now, path of running ported to expose he would use his skills to defeat them. A a faltering abuses in the po- future out of office would mean death or lice and army, soon exile. He despised Iran and the Sadrist autocratic state found themselves movement but made arrangements with immersed in threatened with both. When the government was seated perpetual war. arrest for looking nine months later, Maliki remained prime into Maliki’s own minister and had ceded little real pow- special security ap- er, keeping control of the state security paratus. The judiciary was twisted to his apparatus and the cabinet. Indeed, Maliki purposes. He may have longed for a mod- acted as if the American era was already ern state, but he would not risk anything gone and went after coalition partners that lessened his authority. in his government, either reneging on As elections approached in 2010, Ma- power-sharing deals or seeking their ar- liki juggled his contradictory impulses. rest. He struck his opponents before they He remained a staunch Shiite Islamist, could move against him. Barely a day vigilant to maintain his sect’s grip on after the last American soldiers left Iraq power. At the same time, Maliki’s grand- at the end of 2011, he obtained an arrest est gesture was to defy the other Shiite warrant for Iraq’s Sunni vice president, religious parties to pursue his own vision who fled the country. No move promised of a bloc, which included Sunnis, liber- the creation of durable institutions all als, and secular-minded figures. Maliki groups could trust. Similarly, in the face and his advisers discounted the possibility of regional upheaval, he demonstrated that the Shiite religious vote could splin- support for Syria’s president, Bashar al- ter between Maliki and his Islamist rivals. Assad, a man he blamed for suicide bomb- They also underestimated the popularity ings in Iraq. Yet he dreaded Iraq’s Sunni

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Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 IRAQ neighbors more—especially Turkey and stems from his own interests and an in- the giant Saudi Arabia—and saw Assad stinct for survival. If he turns a blind eye and his Iranian allies as the lesser evil. to Iranians traversing his air space to arm Maliki did not believe in meeting any- the Syrian regime, it is a calculation he one half way. Instead, he wanted to push makes based on his own national concerns. others to their breaking points. His con- It doesn’t make him Iran’s servant, just as frontational tactics had caused him to be taking American weapons doesn’t make loathed as he created a new military com- him America’s man. mand in the fall of 2012 to stare down the His ultimate destiny, he believed, was Kurds over the contested northern territo- one where he stayed alive, dreaming of a ries. Maliki’s aggressiveness also alienated grander, glorious future for himself, his Sunnis, who rose up in anger this winter nation, and its leadership role throughout with weeks of protests after he arrested the the region. The decisions to attract or dis- guards of his Sunni deputy prime minister, card allies—whether Iranian, American, Rafaa Issawi. But Maliki bet he could push or Shiite—were always undertaken to fur- the sides to exhaustion and once more ther this calculus. emerge improbably triumphant. Maliki should be judged based upon His aspirations for a prosperous, mod- the realities of Iraq, not America’s or Iran’s ern Iraq were sincere but hobbled by his interests. This does not mean blindly and own traumatic memories of persecution fatalistically to accept his behavior or incli- as a religious Shiite. His ruthless drive to nation toward authoritarianism. Excesses control a population, which he saw as res- by Maliki that violate principles of human tive, sabotaged him. rights and democracy should be confronted pragmatically. The prime minister should A Broader Lesson not be allowed simply to indulge his worst Maliki’s experiences are especially relevant impulses, yet still receive a blank check for today’s Middle East: in Egypt and Tu- from the United States for military weap- nisia, where Islamist parties, long hidden ons. There is a limit to what any nation can in the shadows, similar to those that nour- do to affect another. It is arrogant to think ished the Dawa, are striving to shed au- the West can shape Iraq’s destiny or Ma- thoritarian instincts and make the transi- liki’s behavior, but neither does the United tion to mainstream democratic politics; in States have to enable Iraq’s slow downward Libya, where regional militias, mindful of spiral. At this point, the United States has recent history, still do not trust one anoth- likely ceded most of its influence in Iraq er enough to disarm; and in Syria, which through inertia and lack of vision, but the is currently roiled by bloodshed among its fading relationship still provides an open- warring ethnic and religious groups that ing to encourage the country’s leaders to rival the darkest moments in Iraq. turn away from their darker impulses and Maliki is neither pro-American nor pursue genuine institution building. The pro-Iranian. He will take what he can from alternative risks the demise of the Iraqi whomever he can. He will adapt ideologies state and years of bloody . as much from expediency as belief. When It is a mistake to see Maliki or Mo- he heeds the Iranians, his responsiveness hammed Morsi in Egypt or any of the

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ascendant new leaders in the Middle East dents at university are swiftly dismissed— as builders or wreckers of new . perhaps planted by the state to see how far Maliki was a defender of Iraq, the coun- it can go. Intimidation and pressure by try’s Shiite population, and himself, the the state has also been apparent in Egypt way his predecessors had been defenders since its revolution, as Islamist lawyers of their own amendable ideologies. bring lawsuits against artists they consider His experiences were what allowed him blasphemous. In Tunis, radical Salafis are to rise in the turbulence of post-Saddam given tacit freedom to physically attack Iraq, but his decades of humiliation set bars, actors, and political opponents. It is him on the path of running a faltering au- still a riddle for the Arab world’s now rul- tocratic state immersed in perpetual war. ing Islamists leaders—how to bring their In Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, it may societies into harmony with their religious prove tempting to color the country’s new values. But Maliki and his counterparts all leaders as democrats when they are not, or have similar aspirations for their nations. to accept their potentially dictatorial ten- They want to establish modern, vibrant dencies as the natural order. Maliki, the states in accordance with Islam. first elected Arab Islamist leader, shaped What has always guided Maliki is a wish in the shadows, exemplifies all the chal- to be seen as a great leader of Iraq. When lenges of the new breed. He is not bound he left his village full time for Baghdad to authoritarian rule, but his history leads in the early days after Hussein’s fall, some him in that direction. Since taking office warned him that he would be swallowed by in 2006, amid dismal hopes, he has both the state. His answer: You can forget your disappointed and exceeded expectations. political party, but never your own people. There is a fundamental tension among It is this wish to be true to his people that the new Islamists, whether from Maliki’s could still redeem him. And it is this wish Dawa Party or the Muslim Brotherhood in that could redeem the Arab world’s post- Egypt or their counterparts in Tunis—on revolution leaders as they juggle their na- how to create a society living in harmony tions’ ghosts and their own demons. with Islamic values. How much of this can be imposed, and how much should be a This article is based on trips the authors made free choice made by the society, remains an to Maliki’s village; a 2010 interview one of the open, but crucial, question. Iraq under Ma- authors conducted with the prime minister; state liki has seen the slow creeping tide of reli- television interviews given by Maliki; and inter- gious values imposed with raids on alcohol views the authors conducted with relatives and shops and nightclubs. Sudden whispers friends of Maliki, members of the Dawa Party, that the government will shut down arts other Iraqi political figures, U.S. military offi- colleges and separate male and female stu- cers, and current and former U.S. officials. l

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