Meeting with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey today, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki kicked off an effort to get additional US military subsidies by arguing that the ever-worsening violence is completely not his fault.
Rather, Maliki insisted that “regional unrest” was responsible for the resurgence of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and that the Arab Spring was benefiting terrorist groups like AQI.
Maliki insisted that AQI would spread world-wide if his country wasn’t given aid, saying that the group “carry bad ideas instead of flowers.” The group has of course been extremely active in the neighboring Syrian Civil War.
Yet Maliki’s claims of broad political consensus behind him in Iraq seems totally unwarranted, as the surge in violence in Iraq started in the wake of mass protests against his reneging on a power sharing agreement, and in direct response to a military crackdown on the protesters.
AQI may have had a lot of regional help in its recovery, but Maliki’s policy is also proving a useful talking point in the group’s recruitment.
"Really Maliki?" The country became a cesspool the day the US put your sorry ass in power, you hide behind your fortified bunker and let the country deteriorated into an all out civil war, the people of Iraq should put out a fatwa on your head.
Does the author really doubt that there is a "consensus" of ordinary Iraqi people (whether Shiite, Sunni or Kurd) that want an end to the terrorist bombings by a tiny minority of Sunni extremists (affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaeda) who have been terrorizing essentially all Iraqis since shortly after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003? Yes, there are legitimate grievances against Maliki's governance, and those grievances have been voiced not only by Sunnis but also Kurds and Shiites who have bitterly complained about Maliki's concentration of power in his own hands. However, there is a vast difference between voicing complaints and blowing people to bits with bombs — the latter method being peculiar to Sunni extremists (Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda wannabees). These Sunni extremists have been carrying on their terrorist bombings for nearly a decade now, and those terrorist bombings began before Maliki was elected to his present office. If I were Maliki, I would not only be asking the US for attack helicopters; I would be asking the US why it has not been conducting drone strikes against Al Qaeda terrorists openly operating in Syria at locations reported daily in US media.