Word: shied
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...options. His government is not in immediate danger of collapsing even with the vacancies. So long as Maliki retains the backing of the Kurdish alliance and one of the main Shi'ite blocs, his government has enough supporters to fend off a vote of no-confidence in parliament. And while efforts are under way at the moment to bring Tawafiq back into the fold, Maliki has other alternatives...
...reconciliation efforts fail, Maliki would have little choice but to find other Sunni partners, who would be essential in establishing any sense of government legitimacy in an already troubled Maliki administration, which is losing support even among some stalwart Shi'ite circles. Sittar and his followers, should they be interested, represent a distant, difficult possible alternative. If Sittar becomes part of the Maliki coalition, it would be seen as a positive step by the Americans because of his recent cooperation with the U.S. military in Anbar. That closeness, however, may be politically problematical for Maliki, who has been attempting...
...charismatic and enigmatic former general who heads the country's largest Christian political party, the Free Patriotic Movement. Aoun's popularity confounds any attempt to read Lebanon as a battlefield in a "clash of civilizations," because he and his party are openly allied with Hizballah, the Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslim political party and anti-Israeli militia that leads the opposition...
...government reflects not so much an attack on democracy as it does the failure of the country's sectarian system to resolve internal disputes. The system, which reserves the presidency for the Maronite Christians, the Prime Minister's job for a Sunni, the speaker of parliament for a Shi'ite and generally distributes power on the basis of ethnicity and sect, was originally created to achieve stability through a careful balance of power. Instead, it has produced political deadlock and a system dominated by leaders whose domestic power is based on alliances with foreign powers...
...Shi'ite partisan, he has surrounded himself with a group of like-minded advisers and pursued policies that, far from healing the country's sectarian wounds, have often aggravated them. While Maliki has himself been careful to act the conciliator, especially in conversations with President Bush and American politicians visiting Baghdad, his aides have repeatedly ridiculed and humiliated Sunni leaders, and ignored the advice of secular politicians...