The enduring debate on Maliki

FEATURE: "Iran-Iraq: Nuri Al-Maliki Steps Out of Iran's Shadow," by Larry Kaplow, Newsweek, 15 June 2009.

The long history between Maliki and the Iranians. During the war with Iraq, Maliki was an exile in southern Iran, running "covert Iraqi networks against Saddam Hussein."

The key bit:

Maliki long ago found out the hard way: Iran rigorously pursues its own national interests.

Even better:

. . . the prime minister's personal view might be better summed up in an old Iraqi proverb he's been know to quote when speaking of Baghdad's "friends" in Tehran: "They'll take you to the water and bring you back thirsty."

But Maliki remembers also that Iran gave his insurgent guerrilla party, Dawa, a sanctuary when nobody else would.

It reminds you of stories of East European communists who once allied or fought with the Soviet Russians, only to be their wary protégés once installed in power.

Tricky business.

Not to say that Maliki still doesn't get a bit Saddam-like at points regarding old enemies within Iraq, but it seems weak to write him off as an Iranian proxy and nothing more.

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

Let's pretend that Saddam was killed in Gulf War #1, but folks did not know it. Would the Iraqi people still have the same two century old bizarre relationships after Saddam machine ran for over a decade on auto pilot, and then was replaced by 'liberated' tribal groups without a common identity?