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Is Maliki becoming a dictator?

While I was publishing an op/ed in the Washington Post optimistic about prospects for democracy in Iraq, my former colleagues (Sean Kane and Jason Gluck) at the United States Institute of Peace were giving interviews to the New York Times for a piece that views Maliki as broadening his powers in ways that threaten Iraqi democracy.  Who is right?

My view is that we all are.

There is no question but that Maliki aspires to enhanced powers, and recent constitutional court decisions have given him some.  We’ll have to wait and see what he does with the administrative oversight he has gained over the central bank and the electoral commission, about which I have already expressed concern. I’ll be surprised if Maliki can get away with monkeying with the central bank.  The electoral commission though is another matter, and especially important.  I have little doubt that Maliki, if allowed, will exploit his position in ways that enable him to enhance his power and to stay in office for as long as he likes, which could well mean beyond the 2014 retirement date he has announced.  That is what I would expect of any good politician, and certainly Maliki has proven that he is one.

But I also have little doubt that there are other forces at work in Iraqi society, where there is relative freedom for them to work.  Most directly relevant is the parliament, which needs to learn how to check the executive’s ambitions.  The previous parliament was quite accomplished at this–it had learned how to stop financing the prime minister’s pet projects, some of considerable merit, and thereby exert influence on him.  This new parliament will have to learn similar tricks.  The parliament would do well to use the power of the purse to force Maliki to appoint Interior and Defense Ministers, portfolios that he is still holding himself.

The collapse of the ill-fated proposal for a National Council for Strategic Priorities, led by Maliki’s archrival Ayad Allawi, enhances the prospects for parliament taking a firmer stand.  As Reidar Visser has suggested, it is time for Allawi to focus his attention on checking prime ministerial power, even if his coalition members remain in the government (that’s my view, not Reidar’s).

The constitutional court has unfortunately been a disappointment.  Its decision that only the executive can initiate legislation is particularly concerning, but I don’t really see how it can seriously inhibit parliamentary oversight and legislative activism.  Presumably any proposed legislation can be amended.  Maliki lost many votes in the previous parliament, despite his nominal parliamentary majority.  Why shouldn’t he lose them in this one as well?

The demonstrators are another important check on Maliki, whose security forces have handled them badly and committed many gross human rights violations–the parliament would do well to focus some attention on accountability for those.  But when Ayatollah Sistani is asking the government to provide better services, it is clear that Maliki cannot ignore the protests, which may well grow.

It is important to remember that all of this is occurring while Iraq is still threatened by both an Al Qaeda-linked insurgency and Iranian-back Shia militias.  Maliki isn’t wrong to worry about the demonstrations being exploited by anti-constitutional forces.  His responsibility is to protect the country from enemies, foreign and domestic.  The protesters, the parliament and the constitutional court should be ensuring that he does it strictly within the limits of the “state of law,” which happens to be the name of his electoral coalition.

Behind Iraq’s protests, a call for better democracy

Read my op/ed in tomorrow’s Washington Post.

I wrote this originally during my trip to Baghdad in January.  It was even more “optimistic” then than the current version, which will strike many as still too rosy-eyed.  What I did not see in January was the enormous gap that has opened up between Iraq’s politicians and its people.  The politicians were happy with the “national partnership” government, but the people were not seeing anything change in their too real lives.

Maliki seems to have understood this, after the demonstrations.  We’ll see how effective he is at getting some results.

I do think there are upsides for the United States if a more or less democratic Iraq can come out of this mess a high-volume oil (and maybe gas) producer that exports to the north and west as well as through the Gulf.  That’s not neo neo conservatism.  It’s just realism.  No need anyway for Iraq to be a model any longer–the Arab countries seem to be in a race to produce democracies left and right.  Let’s hope they succeed at least as well as Iraq.