Top 10 Mistakes of former Iraq PM Nouri al-Maliki (That Ruined his Country)

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http://www.juancole.com/2014/08/mistakes-maliki-country.html

Top 10 Mistakes of former Iraq PM Nouri al-Maliki (That Ruined his Country)
By Juan Cole | Aug. 15, 2014

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1. Al-Maliki was so partisan in 2006 when he first came to power that he denied that Shiite militias were a security problem. When Gen. David Petraeus came to him in late 2006 with a plan to disarm the Sunni and Shiite militias in Baghdad, al-Maliki insisted that he begin with the Sunni armed groups. The US acquiesced, but as a result, the Shiite militias came into disarmed Sunni neighborhoods at night when the Americans weren’t looking, and ethnically cleansed them. Baghdad went from some 45% Sunni in 2003 to only 25% Sunni by the end of 2007. Al-Maliki’s sectarianism led to the transformation of Baghdad into a largely Shiite city.

2. Gen. Petraeus and others cultivated Sunnis who were alarmed at the rise of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (the predecessor of today’s so-called “Islamic State”), and created “Awakening Councils” of armed Sunnis willing to fight the extremists. Al-Maliki opposed this program and had shouting matches with Petraeus over it, fearing that the armed Sunnis would become a problem for his Shiite government after the defeat of al-Qaeda. (In fact, if only al-Maliki could get the Awakening Councils back now, he’d be very lucky). As the American forces withdrew from a combat role in 2009, US generals asked al-Maliki to hire the some 100,000 Sunni Awakening Council fighters. They could have been integrated into the police in cities like Mosul or Fallujah. Al-Maliki took about 17,000 of them, but left the other 83,000 twisting in the wind, without any stipends or pensions. Because they had fought al-Qaeda, they were targeted by the terrorists for reprisals and some were killed. In some instances al-Maliki actually prosecuted some Awakening Council fighters for anti-government activities they had engaged in before they joined the Council. Figure each of the 83,000 had a circle of 20 close relatives and friends. That was 1.6 million Sunni Arabs (out of some 5 million at the time) that al-Maliki alienated.

3. Although al-Maliki’s campaign in Basra against the Mahdi Army in spring of 2008 was a victory for the new Iraqi army, it only succeeded because the Shiite, pro-Iranian Badr Corps joined in on the side of the army, and because of American close air support. Al-Maliki is alleged in the aftermath to have brought thousands of Badr Corps fighters into the army, beginning a process of sectarianizing it. Ultimately, al-Maliki’s army from all accounts ended up being largely Shiite, which is one reason they were so unwelcome in mostly Sunni Arab Mosul (a city of 2 million) and that the Mosulis allied with the “Islamic State” against al-Maliki.

4. Al-Maliki allegedly kept the military weak for fear that a powerful officer might try to make a coup against him.