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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy we stuck with Maliki — and lost Iraq
BY ALI KHEDERY July 3 at 1:39 PM
Ali Khedery is chairman and chief executive of the Dubai-based Dragoman Partners. From 2003 to 2009, he was the longest continuously serving American official in Iraq, acting as a special assistant to five U.S. ambassadors and as a senior adviser to three heads of U.S. Central Command. In 2011, as an executive with Exxon Mobil, he negotiated the companys entry into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
To understand why Iraq is imploding, you must understand Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and why the United States has supported him since 2006.
I have known Maliki, or Abu Isra, as he is known to people close to him, for more than a decade. I have traveled across three continents with him. I know his family and his inner circle. When Maliki was an obscure member of parliament, I was among the very few Americans in Baghdad who took his phone calls. In 2006, I helped introduce him to the U.S. ambassador, recommending him as a promising option for prime minister. In 2008, I organized his medevac when he fell ill, and I accompanied him for treatment in London, spending 18 hours a day with him at Wellington Hospital. In 2009, I lobbied skeptical regional royals to support Malikis government.
By 2010, however, I was urging the vice president of the United States and the White House senior staff to withdraw their support for Maliki. I had come to realize that if he remained in office, he would create a divisive, despotic and sectarian government that would rip the country apart and devastate American interests.
America stuck by Maliki. As a result, we now face strategic defeat in Iraq and perhaps in the broader Middle East.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-we-stuck-with-maliki--and-lost-iraq/2014/07/03/0dd6a8a4-f7ec-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html?
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Altho the writer has an obvious pro-USA bias, he explains the issues better than anywhere else I have heard.
And more or less lets slip the reasons we were occupying Iraq for so long after Hussain.
karynnj
(59,504 posts)I was shocked that nearly every comment mentioned that he selected Maliki, in spite of many things that suggests he would become just what he did become. He pushed to Bush to back him and Bush essentially gave him his position.
It is clear that everyone blames Maliki - no matter what else their position was. This guy, who was Maliki's BFF, is out claiming that he told Obama, Biden et al that Maliki should be pushed out in 2010. However, by that point, the US was not suppose to pick the leaders. Where he claims the US "backed" him, a more honest comment is that the US did not do what was needed to FORCE Iraq to pick another government. The fact is that even when the US ambassador tried to get Maliki to not ban Baathist linked candidates, he was ignored.
By 2010, Iraq was supposed to be governed by the Iraqis. It is not clear - short of threatening force - how he thought the US could force them to pick the government more like the one we would have wanted. Consider that even as Maliki desperately needs help now, he is unwilling to really create the inclusive government that the US has said is needed before we do much of anything. Even though we had 50,000 troops in Iraq then, it might be we have more leverage now --- though it might be that in both times are leverage is miniscule.
This is just another in what likely will be many articles trying to cast blame for "losing Iraq" on others. It is easier to argue that this man, by pushing Maliki as someone to achieve Bush's goals was one of the people who set up the failure of the political/diplomatic effort. It might be that after Bush, who made the decision to invade, and the advisers who pushed that, this guy deserves the most blame.