Word: maliki
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...simmering issue of the MEK's fate flashed into the open earlier this month when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unexpectedly declared that the group would no longer be allowed to remain in Iraq. Shortly after that, Maliki's national security adviser, Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, said the MEK's camp roughly 40 miles north of Baghdad would be disbanded within two months, declaring during an appearance in Tehran that Iraq would not play host to threats toward its neighbor...
...Maliki, 58, hardly looks the part. With his permanent five-o'clock shadow and slack posture, he seems no more tyrannical than a demotivated schoolteacher, an impression underscored by his toneless speaking style. But there's no denying that his stature has increased. "I didn't know he had it in him," says Ridha Jawad Taki, a Shi'ite parliamentarian who has known Maliki since the 1980s, when both lived in Syria. "He has become self-assured, and very decisive." Those qualities were burnished in November, when Maliki overcame considerable opposition within Iraq's parliament to sign an agreement with...
...latest version of Maliki will be put to the test on Jan. 31, when Iraqis vote in provincial elections. If the Dawa Party - now a junior partner in the Shi'ite coalition - makes big gains, it will be seen as an endorsement of the Prime Minister. Dawa officials have been playing up Maliki's tough-guy credentials, depicting him as the man who forced a reluctant U.S. to accept a withdrawal deadline...
...strategy. Some Iraqis say a strongman is just what they need to end Iraq's destructive sectarian politics. But at the polls, Iraqis have shown little appetite for tough guys, preferring to vote for diffuse coalitions of parties with little in common beyond sectarian identity. The cautionary tale for Maliki is Iyad Allawi, the country's first post-Saddam Prime Minister: he, too, portrayed himself as a strongman, but his secular coalition won barely 14% of the vote. "Maliki will go the same way as Allawi," says Abdel-Bari al-Zebari, a Kurdish MP. "Iraqis know that a strongman...
Would a more powerful Maliki be good for the U.S.? The withdrawal deal served the interests of Barack Obama last year; both he and Maliki wanted a firm timetable, whereas President Bush opposed the idea. Officials close to Maliki say he was impressed with Obama when they met last summer. But the Prime Minister is no fan of the new U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Two years ago she expressed concerns about Maliki's sectarian sensibilities and called on the Iraqi parliament to replace him with a "less divisive and more unifying figure." Furious, Maliki said that Democrats such...