Word: itely
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last Saturday, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to one of his aides, warned the U.S. ambassador that he was "not America's man in Iraq." On Tuesday he drove home the point, ordering an end to the U.S. military cordon around the Baghdad Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City - a demand with which the U.S. military complied. Although U.S. troops don't take orders from the Iraqi government, refusing to heed the writ of that democratically elected government would make the U.S. military presence in that country untenable. The U.S. did point out that it had been...
...should have been that surprised by Maliki's move. What he is doing is strutting his sovereignty, which includes making clear that he won't countenance U.S. military actions that go against the interests of his own Shi'ite-backed government, and also demanding the final say over security policy. Maliki not only wants veto power over U.S. military action in his country; he also wants the Iraqi government to have control over the deployment of the Iraqi security forces, which currently still operate under U.S. command...
...Maliki's concern for his Shi'ite political base - which includes Moqtada al-Sadr, whose sectarian militia, the Mahdi Army, is believed to be the target of the U.S. operation in Baghdad - drives his objections to U.S. plans. Without the backing of that base he becomes simply another Iraqi politician backed by Washington but rejected by his own electorate - like Washington's erstwhile "man in Iraq," former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Maliki agrees in principle that Shi'ite political militias must be disbanded or brought under government control. But he also believes this can't be done as long...
...reality, Maliki has no good options. The U.S. wants him to do more in pursuit of national reconciliation, tackling the sectarian militias that strike fear into Sunni communities and offering amnesty to Sunni insurgent fighters. But many Shi'ite leaders see the U.S. demands as signs that Washington has tilted in favor of the Sunnis. Mindful of Shi'ite objections, Maliki is moving slowly, and that is deepening the alienation of even those Sunnis closest to the political process. Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni Vice President of Iraq, for example, condemned Maliki's intervention to lift the security cordon around...
...heavy U.S. presence in Sadr City sparked street protests, with demonstrators calling for an end to the "siege" of Sadr City. And the fact that the U.S. security cordon around the area did not prevent a terror attack on Monday morning that killed at least 26 Shi'ite day laborers and wounding at least 60 people will only escalate the tension. One reason Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has castigated the U.S. for recent raids against the Mahdi Army is the fact that in Shi'ite communities, sectarian militias are often seen as a necessary level of self-defense against...