Kerry, Iraqi PM embrace unity to defeat insurgency

[karynnj]

17. Obama/Kerry did not say who should be in the government -- they

said that they would not help them if they did not form a unity government. Note that theoretically, Maliki could have done so himself. In reality, he couldn't as he had alienated all the non Kurds.

The Iraqi government has elections, and then the President asks the person, who has the best chance to form a government with at lest 50% of the members behind it. The President, a Kurd, picked the current Prime Minister, because there was a coalition of parties - equally more than 50% behind him. Maliki argued that because he had the plurality (something in the 30s) he should have first chance. Note that Israel, with a similar structure, did essentially the same thing when Livni had more votes than Netanyahu, but given where the other votes were - it was likely true that Netanyahu had a better chance to gather the number of MK needed. President Peres was to the left of Netanyahu.

When Kerry was in Iraq in June, he very carefully saw EVERY possible leader and did not indicate any favorite. The only American comments that referred to any leader were those that accurately spoke of Maliki having marginalized both the Sunnis and Kurds.

So, the strongest case you could make is that because Iraq wanted (or needed) the US military assistance, they saw that anyone but Maliki would be a better choice - which would have encouraged them to consider coalitions that would exceed 50% without Maliki. However, it seems fair for the US to be able to say that if there is NO unity government, they will not fight ISIS on Iraq's behalf - when they do not think that would work as there would be no local forces to backfill any areas where air strikes and the Iraqi army on the ground move ISIS out.

Yesterday, there was an article that spoke of how the new government - as part of its military - was planning to recruit Sunnis into local (by towns, tribes) in national guard type organizations that could take the lead in their own areas. They would have government salary and pensions. This would be a "regularized" version of the Sunni awakening where the US paid the tribes informally. The ambitious attempt here is to have a unity government that does not marginalize non Shiites, where the people they see defending them are theirs.

As bad as things are, a solution seemed even less likely last June when Obama first spoke of this US effort. One thing that annoys me is that many pundits on the left (especially Hayes and Maddow) are saying that it was the beheadings that led to this as foreign policy. However, there is nothing that could be called a change from Obama saying in June what he intended to do. That was when US troops were sent back in, when the air strikes were spoken of, when Kerry was first sent to the region (including Iraq itself) and to EU. What DID change was the level of outrage and the level of American support --- and the interest level of pundits.