Word: jaafari
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...politicians owe as much to another country's government as Nouri al-Maliki owes to the Bush Administration. In April, strong U.S. backing catapulted al-Maliki into his job as Iraq's Prime Minister after a two-month impasse over the nomination of his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Sunni and Kurdish politicians say U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad leaned heavily on them to back al-Maliki. "Khalilzad made it clear there was only one man on Washington's wish list," a senior Kurdish leader told TIME on condition of anonymity. "Al-Maliki cannot have any doubts about...
...Maliki, 56, is an unlikely unifier. In his previous job as spokesman for al-Jaafari's Islamic Dawa Party, he was known as a Shi'ite partisan. But he gained the trust of some Sunni politicians during last year's tortured negotiations over Iraq's constitution, when he was one of several politicians who helped cobble together a temporary compromise with Sunni and Kurdish groups...
...despite being the candidate least objectionable to both Washington and Iraq's feuding parties, al-Maliki comes to the job with considerable liabilities. For one, he lacks a public profile. Most Iraqis had not heard of him when he was named a candidate for al-Jaafari's job. More damaging is the fact that his party is allied with powerful Shi'ite groups that control the very militias he says he wants to crush. Criticizing U.S. troops will help him gain some street cred--if Iraqis believe he is serious. In the 10 weeks since the Haditha incident was made...
...many Iraqis, such optimism is hard to justify, especially since the new government includes several of the inept, corrupt and thoroughly discredited leaders who had made such a hash of the interim administration under the previous Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jaafari. Indeed, the most discredited of them all, former Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, has received a promotion...
...worth remembering that Maliki is himself a compromise candidate - a relative unknown figure with negligible street credibility, he was picked because his party boss, former Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, had become unacceptable to Sunni and Kurdish parties. Inside political circles, Maliki had been known as a strident Shi'ite hardliner. Since his nomination, he has struck a more conciliatory pose, talking up unity and inching away from the anti-Sunni positions he had previously defended. His reinvention has been aided by U.S. officials keen to present him as Iraq's best hope. Khalilzad has described him an a "patriot...