Word: ites
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...final composition of the government will determine the future direction of the Iraqi state - whether it becomes more centralized in the hands of the Baghdad government, or whether power is devolved to the regions, especially the Shi'ite-dominated south and the Kurdish north. Those pushing centralization include Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shi'ite dominated State of Law coalition, and the ideologically similar, but more Sunni and more secular, Iraqiya coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Pushing for decentralization are the ruling parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government - the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq...
...Like most elections, Iraq's is in part a referendum on the incumbent, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is running on his record of bringing security and normal life back to Iraq. Originally chosen as a compromise candidate by rival Shi'ite leaders who expected him to be a weak prime minister, he surprised the country by consolidating power, reaching out beyond his Shi'ite base and embracing the cause of national unity. Still, Maliki's State of Law coalition has significant weaknesses. Though untouched by scandal himself, the Iraqi government is notoriously corrupt, and voters remain unhappy about...
...This time around, Maliki also has to look over his shoulder at his former Shi'ite allies, who have formed a coalition without him. The Iraqi National Alliance - led by Ammar al-Hakin, Moqtadah al-Sadr and Ahmed Chalabi among others - is more Islamist, and more friendly with Iran than Maliki's Dawa party...
...final composition of the government will nominally affect the future direction of the Iraqi state - whether it becomes more centralized in the hands of the Baghdad government, or whether power is devolved to the regions, especially the Shi'ite-dominated south and the Kurdish north. But either direction could destabilize the country. Devolution could spark a civil war between Arabs and Kurds, while further centralization in a country with a history of totalitarianism could put Iraq on a slippery slope to a new kind of dictatorship...
...That change may also be caused by shifts in the sectarian fault lines. Instead of Shi'ite-vs.-Sunni conflict, tensions now are mounting inside ethnic and sectarian groups. The duopolistic ruling parties of Iraqi Kurdistan find themselves under threat from a breakaway movement - Goran, or "change" - more interested in cleaning up politics in the Kurdistan Regional Government than in accelerating Kurdish autonomy from the rest of Iraq. And there's been plenty of bad blood between al-Maliki and the fundamentalist Shi'ite parties of the Iraqi National Alliance ever since the Prime Minister sent the army...