Word: maliki
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...Both sides can play the opportunism game, of course. A week later, in Ramadi, I saw tribal sheiks gather to support Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Status of Forces Agreement he has negotiated with the U.S. A couple of years ago, many of the sheiks were backing the Sunni insurgency and refusing to recognize Maliki's Shi'ite-dominated government. Now, Sheik Mohammed al-Hais told me, "We are closer to Maliki than any Shi'ite group...
...There has been growing discontent among Iraqi politicians over Maliki's bold style of leadership, which has upset both friends and foes alike. In recent weeks, he has antagonized his Shi'ite and Kurdish allies in the ruling coalition by setting up tribal councils that are widely viewed as a direct challenge to their power on the ground. Maliki's Sunni allies in the Tawafuk Front, the largest Sunni parliamentary bloc, have branded the Shi'ite prime minister as "another dictator". And Maliki remains at odds with Shi'ite opponents such as Moqtada al-Sadr, whose bloc of 28 lawmakers...
...Maliki's Shi'ite and Kurdish allies backed the pact, which requires that U.S troops redeploy out of Iraqi towns and cities to bases in the countryside by June of next year, and completely withdraw by the end of 2011. The Sunni Tawafuk bloc also gave it the nod, after securing concessions on its demands for an amnesty for detainees in U.S custody, and for the holding of a referendum on the security pact next July. A ?no' vote in that referendum could torpedo the deal, and give Washington one year's notice to leave, effectively bringing forward...
...many others viewed the treaty - and the debate it provoked - as an opportunity to change the direction of the country. "This wasn't about [opposing] Maliki as a man," said Nada Ibrahim, a Sunni lawmaker from a smaller political bloc that did not vote for the SOFA. "It's about the political parties in this government, the parties that are thinking in a sectarian way, behaving in a sectarian way. That is the problem. We think we have to share everything in this country, to re-evaluate and rebalance things...
...Maliki's hard bargaining on the SOFA deal, in which he forced Washington to make a number of key concessions on issues ranging from a firm deadline for withdrawing from Iraq to restrictions on the operations of U.S. troops currently in Iraq, might have been taken as a point of pride among Iraqi nationalists. Instead, at least among the political class, it merely reinforced a perception that Maliki is a new strongman who does things his own way, without consultation. "He could have been more diplomatic with handling this treaty," said Abdel-Bari al-Zebari, the Kurdish lawmaker. "He didn...