Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Maliki   [Andy McCarthy]

With due respect to Stephen Hadley's sentiments, below, the protest over the decision to honor the new Iraqi Prime Minister with an invitation to address a joint session of Congress is entirely understandable. (Speaker Dennis Hastert has declined to disinvite Maliki). 

Maliki spent his exile-from-Saddam years in Syria as a political officer in the Dawa party which developed close ties with Hezbollah and Iran.  In the first elected Iraqi government, he was the number two guy to Dawa's leader, Ibrahim al-Jafaari — Jafaari having gotten the gig by virtue of being hand-picked by Moqtada al-Sadr, who (a) controls a critical bloc in the new democratic legislature, (b) maintains his own terrorist militia, the Mahdi army, (c) continues to wage a low intensity war with U.S. and British forces in southern Iraq, (d) has himself developed ties with Iran and Hezbollah, and (e) is sending some of his forces to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah against Israel.

Since Maliki replaced Jafaari, he has embraced Sadr (see here:  "The Mehdi Army of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is among the militias on Baghdad streets raising concerns within the coalition, but al-Maliki insisted al-Sadr is 'ready to participate in the political process and its responsibilities.... Muqtada al-Sadr is a part of the political process, and he has representation in parliament and he is a part of this government," [Maliki] said"), and the Iraqi government he leads is developing ever closer ties with Iran.  (In fact, it has been reported over the last month that Ahmadinejad may be visiting Iraq soon.)

Making the obvious explicit, Maliki condemned Israel in the war against Hezbollah.  This didn't happen yesterday — it happened a week ago.  And given everything we know, it  would have been shocking had Maliki taken some different position.

National Security Adviser Hadley says Maliki wishes to “express appreciation for the sacrifice Americans have made of blood and treasure to try and bring democracy and freedom to Iraq.”  The sacrifices Americans have made have been for the purpose of defeating Islamo-fascism and promoting American national security.  Since Maliki will apparently be informing us about his plans and “what a democratic Iraq will mean for the region over the longer term,” here’s hoping we hear the explanation for how cozying up to Iran, Hezbollah and Sadr fits in with his expression of appreciation for American sacrifice.

07/26 09:31 AMShare