Day: November 2, 2013
Maliki isn’t likely to take much advice
Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki completed his visit to Washington yesterday. He got a lot of free advice. He should govern more inclusively, he should be less sectarian, he should at last reach agreement on an oil revenue law, he should not use the election law to exclude electoral competition, he should address Sunni protest demands…. There was rare unanimity in Washington on what President Obama should say. I agree with a lot of these suggestions.
But I don’t really think Maliki will take much of the advice. After his last visit to Washington in 2011, he brought murder charges against (Sunni) Vice President Hashemi and chased him from the country. His visit before that sealed the deal for American withdrawal. And the one before that he signed on to the American military surge against Sunni insurgents.
Maliki is not about governing. He is about power. That means he worries about three things: garnering votes, political maneuvering and security. His now more than seven years as prime minister have seen a major increase in oil production and revenue, which are essential to everything else in Iraq. The government makes more than $100 billion in oil revenue per year. But other than that, there has been little progress on Iraq’s many social and economic challenges: education, healthcare, transportation, social welfare. Much increased electricity production still doesn’t keep up with subsidized demand. Read more
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Maliki makes his case
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in Washington last week to talk about Iraq’s problems and the future of US-Iraq relations. Maliki’s trip culminated on Friday, with a visit to the White House to meet with President Obama and Vice President Biden. On Thursday, Maliki spoke to a large audience at the United States Institute of Peace.
Iraq has experienced significant change since the United States withdrew its troops from the country in 2011. The economy has improved over the last few years, according to Maliki’s op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday, with an overall expansion of 9.6 percent in 2011 and 10.5 percent in 2012. The nation’s oil production has increased by 50 percent since 2005. Iraq is on pace to become the world’s second largest energy exporter by 2030.
But the security situation is dire. The presence of extremist groups like Al-Qaeda in Iraq has increased with the seemingly interminable and volatile situation in Syria. Sectarian tension is on the rise, with increased instances of violence. Read more
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The quickest way out of the Balkans
It doesn’t rank high in the annals of Balkan history, but the apparent Greek suggestion that Macedonia be renamed “Slavo-Albanian Macedonia” is certainly one of the more offensive and revealing maneuvers of recent times. Greeks know that Macedonians don’t like to be characterized as Slavs, even though their language is a Slavic one. It’s a bit like the term “redskins”: offensive despite the veneer of descriptiveness.
The proposal is also calculated to cause trouble between Macedonians and Albanians, the two most populous ethnic groups in the country. Never mind the other minorities the country counts among its citizens, including Turks, Roma, Serbs and Vlachs. They won’t be pleased either. There is a reason the French call a fruit salad une macédoine.
The Greek suggestion is calculated to irritate Skopje, but it ought also to annoy the international community, which has been hoping for two decades that Macedonia and Greece would come to a compromise solution on the “name” issue. Greece has simply confirmed what should have been obvious: there will be no solution based on the free will of Athens and Skopje. Greek Prime Minister Samaras has wanted the collapse of his northern neighbor. Better to increase the chances of that than solve the problem. Conversely, Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevski sees no possibility of a negotiated solution better than the one he already has: the entire world calls Macedonia Macedonia, except for Greece. He is not blameless in the failure to reach a negotiated solution. Read more
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Tomorrow’s Kosovo elections
| Milan Marinkovic writes from Nis, about Sunday’s municipal elections in Kosovo:Given the importance of the forthcoming local elections in Kosovo for the ongoing normalization between Kosovo and Serbia and, consequently, both countries’ European perspective, it is clear that Brussels, Priština and Belgrade all want the process to succeed. One measure of success will be voter turnout, which all sides hope to be as high as possible. Another measure relates to whether the elections will pass in a peaceful atmosphere.
As for voter turnout, politicians can do their best to encourage people to vote, but cannot force them to do so. Everyone has their own right to decide for themselves whether or not to cast a ballot. In the case of those who will eventually boycott the vote, the key question is how many of them will abstain because they really don’t want to participate in the election (regardless of anyone’s personal reasons), and how many due to fear of Serb extremists like those seen in the Youtube video below. The latter concern logically raises the question of what kind of and how large security presence will be needed to avoid any possible incident during the elections and thus keep the voters safe. Read more |
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