Posted on 01/05/2013 4:08:08 PM PST by Olog-hai
He’s one of the most powerful men in Iraq—and one of the least popular. Nuri al-Maliki has, for many Iraqis, forfeited his credibility as prime minister. His allegedly authoritarian and inefficient leadership style has even been criticized by members of the parties that make up the government coalition.
No wonder—a year after the withdrawal of the US army, he can barely point to a single success. Unemployment is high, terrorists have infiltrated security forces and corruption is widespread. Some of his coalition partners are even accusing Maliki of behaving like Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein.
“Maliki depends on a small, internal circle of his Shiite party and is heading more and more towards an autocratic regime,” said Udo Steinbach, expert in Islamic studies and former director of the German Orient Institute. “He is alienating a section of the Shiite majority in the country, but mainly the Sunni-Arab minority.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at arabia.msn.com ...
The election of Maliki was seen as a failure of US policy and an internal failure by local Iraqi’s even before the election of 2010. Al Alawi was the popular candidate, but didn’t have the support of foreign governments or Muqtada al-Sadr.
I still trade emails with my Iraqi interpreter and I can tell John is scared for his country. I once asked him how things were in Iraq and he said “Pray for Iraq we are back to the first square.” My heart hurts for the regular people of Iraq that just want to make it - they love their religion, their country, and just want it to be like any other place that is at least relatively safe.
This news article surprises me not one bit. The portion of the headquarters staff of the Iraqi Air Force with which I worked almost to a man loathed the PM.
What a waste of life and resources Iraq has been
Didn’t many Americans die and wasn’t much American taxpayer money spent making these camel-jockeys “free”? What happened?
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