Word: jaafari
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Even since the U.S. gave Iraqis the right to democratically elect their own leaders, Iraq has been governed by Shi'ite Islamist parties arguably closer to Tehran than to Washington, and reluctant to govern according to the American script. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who succeeded Ibrahim al-Jaafari in April 2006, has proven adept at outfoxing rivals and building the foundations of a strongman regime rooted in the loyalty he has cultivated in the security and intelligence services. But his electoral power base remains rooted in the Shi'ite majority, and he has largely declined to implement...
...teetering on the verge of collapse, Baghdad's Green Zone is humming with political maneuverings by Iraqi politicians who want his job. Given the dominance of the Shi'ite coalition in Iraq's legislature, the likelihood remains that the next Prime Minister - like Maliki and his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari - will come from within its ranks. And that fact alone means there's little likelihood of a major change in Iraqi government policies - bad news for the Bush Administration. Here's a look at the front-runners and the wild cards...
...callous disregard is pretty much exactly what they have come to expect from their politicians. Some of the most prominent Iraqi politicians spend little time in the country, much less in parliament. Egregious absenteeism cuts across sectarian and ethnic lines: perennial no-shows include Shi'ite elder Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Sunni leader Saleh Mutlak and secular stalwarts Iyad Allawi and Adnan Pachachi. (Al-Jaafari and Allawi, both former Prime Ministers, are trying to unseat the incumbent, Nouri al-Maliki.) "There's no point in going to parliament," Allawi told TIME recently. "Nothing important is done there anyway...
Even members of other Shi'ite parties that form the dominant block in parliament routinely complain that they are shut out by the Prime Minister and his coterie. A faction of his own Dawa Party, led by his predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari, has begun quietly to seek a new Shi'ite-Kurdish alliance that would eject Maliki. And another former prime minister, Iyad Allawi, is trying to cobble together a secular-Sunni alliance that would put Allawi back...
...answer: political acumen and the inability of his detractors to come up with someone among themselves to take his place. Unlike his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was more of an intellectual, Maliki has turned out to be a street-smart politician. He ingratiated himself with the Kurdish bloc when he stood up to aggressive Turkish rhetoric about the Kurdish border in May. He's managed to hold onto the support of the Shi'ite coalition by gingerly two-stepping around the abolition of militias - authorizing coalition and Iraqi troops to fight them in some cities, leaving them largely untouched...