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.

None of that counts much for Maliki, who doesn’t really believe the Western mantra that service delivery is what gets you votes.  Nor do I.  Maliki gets votes for many other reasons:  he defends the Shia from Sunni depredations, he vaunts Iraqi national pride (especially when challenged by the Kurds), he provides ample opportunities for patronage, he uses security forces to crack down on political competition, he dominates the airwaves, he controls the courts.

When these efforts fail to enable Maliki to get his way, he is really good at the political maneuvering that is essential in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq to assemble a majority in parliament.  This is how he beat back Iyad Allawi’s challenge in 2010:  he won a seat or two fewer than Allawi, then assembled a majority of parliamentarians even though he lacked a plurality.  You can doubt the constitutionality of what he did, but not the political acumen.  And he has done a great deal since then to lure members of Allawi’s coalition.  Sunnis still hold important portfolios in his government.  Maliki did not do well in this spring’s provincial elections and even lost control of Baghdad.  But he has still managed to keep his coalition in the majority in a few provinces.

When it comes to security, Maliki is old school.  He only reluctantly signed on to the American funding for the Sunni “uprisings” that most people think were vital to defeating al Qaeda in Iraq and ending the 2006/7 civil war.  He has neglected them since the US withdrawal.  He has instead assembled ample “counter-terrorist” forces to take on the challenge.  They are having a hard time delivering, partly because of the relative safe haven Al Qaeda has created for itself in eastern Syria.

So Maliki will have told President Obama how important blocking extremists in Syria is.  They’ll agree on that and likely launch an intelligence effort to target them, if they haven’t already done so.

Maliki will also have offered his cooperation on Iran.  He’ll find a chilly reception on that issue.  The Americans want him to block overflights Tehran uses to support Damascus.  He’ll insist that he needs American air defenses and F16s to do so.  The Americans will not want Iraq acting as an intermediary with Iran on nuclear issues.  They will prefer to handle that themselves.

Maliki’s big political worry is re-election.  I don’t really see how a visit to Washington can help with that, except to underline to those who remain among Iraq’s less sectarian middle class that he is acceptable to the Americans and a figure on the world stage.  It is hard however to picture many Sunnis voting for him.  Few Kurds will.  A hat trick will require that he ally with other Shia forces, then pivot to a cross-sectarian alliance after the election.  He managed that last time around, but it will likely be harder this time.

His re-election is far from guaranteed.  That in itself is testimony to the persistence of some semblance of democracy in Iraq.  But no one should count him out.  The advantages of incumbency in Iraq’s proto-democracy are enormous:  money, patronage, media dominance, security leverage, sectarian loyalty.  Nor is there a clear alternative.  The aging Allawi has not distinguished himself in opposition.  If Maliki can get better control of the security situation, Iraqis may welcome him back, even if other service delivery is not much improved.