Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...first time the President and his Sunni and Shi'ite deputies in the presidential council have publicly chastised Maliki over the tribal gatherings. In late November, they demanded that Maliki suspend the pro-government groups until their legality could be determined. "For us to begin today to form councils paid for by the national budget to assume a role that has no known institutional or legal place, this is a situation that needs a serious pause," the council said in a statement posted on its website. The Prime Minister's critics say the so-called Support Councils are a blatant...
...turmoil out of Iraq may no longer be bloody and fatal, but politics can result in casualties too. Indeed, the recent successes of Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, may have made him a target for the country's increasingly voluble politicians. In his apparent overwhelming confidence in his power, Maliki has recently picked fights with his Kurdish allies, his Shi'ite opponents and his Sunni partners over a variety of issues. Now Iraq's President, Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, wants to haul the Prime Minister into federal court, an unprecedented and blistering public slap...
...amend the constitution to beef up the central government's powers at the expense of Iraq's 18 provinces did not spare the semiautonomous three-province Kurdish region in the north. It has not only stoked tensions with the independence-minded Kurds but has also drawn fire from his Shi'ite coalition allies in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, who want to set up a similar semiautonomous region in the Shi'ite south. On Monday, the Kurdish regional government strongly condemned Maliki's governance, basically equating it to Saddam Hussein's. Maliki wants to "take the people of Iraq back...
Vali Nasr, a Tufts University professor and expert on Shi'ite history, understands why the theories are popular with some Shi'ites. Since they have historically been viewed as inferior to the dominant Sunnis, he says, Shi'ites are eager to claim ownership of "anything or anyone that can show them to be superior." Since Obama is widely popular among Muslims, "assuming that he is Shi'ite and also the most powerful man in the world gives the Shi'ites pride and confidence," Nasr adds...
Back in Sadr City, one community leader laughed off the Obama-as-Shi'ite theory but acknowledged it was popular. He suggested it might work in the U.S.'s favor. "The fools who believe this kind of thing, once their fellow Shi'ite is President, they will become less hostile to America," he said...