IRAQIS, battered by a new wave of bombings, are worried their country could relapse into the cataclysmic sectarian bloodletting from which they have only just started to emerge.
Some Iraqis, however, are just as worried about the real intentions of their prime minister, Nuri Al-Maliki, in reaching out to fellow Sunnis in a national reconciliation they see vital for their country not to tip back into the raging bloodshed of years past.
As the rash of deadly bombings raises fears of resurgent sectarian conflict like that which tore Iraq apart between 2005 and 2007, there is little common ground about how to achieve reconciliation, or on whose terms.
Al-Maliki, an increasingly assertive figure as the United States draws down in Iraq, has called repeatedly for an end to the sectarian and ethnic strife unleashed by the 2003 US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.
But many doubt the willingness of a man who spent years fighting Saddam’s Sunni-led regime, which sentenced him to death and massacred fellow members of the Shiite Islamist Dawa party.
Lt. Gen. Raad Hamdani, who now lives in self-exile in Jordan, is one of those skeptical Iraqis.
Hamdani, a leader of Saddam’s Republican Guard until April 2003, has taken part in talks with the government on how to reach a settlement for former top officers, many who fled Iraq. “Sadly, there is a mistaken idea among those in power in Baghdad, which is that any institution from the past government, including the army, is synonymous with Saddam Hussein,” he said.
Security has broadly improved throughout Iraq in the past 18 months, but there was an alarming step up in violence last month, with 290 civilians killed across the country. Several of the attacks, including two days of suicide bombings that killed 150 people, targeted Shiite areas or Shiite holy sites.
Al-Maliki and other officials blame the Baath party and Al-Qaeda for recent violence. Hamdani complains the government cut off the talks with former officers without meeting a host of demands, like an end to a freeze on high-ranking officers’ property.
“This shows the government is not really serious about reconciliation,” Hamdani said. Salim Al-Jubouri, a prominent Sunni member of Parliament, believes that Al-Maliki, hoping to capitalize on his success in January’s local elections in national polls late this year, does not envision a major role for minority Sunnis in the new Iraq. “This is really about hoarding power for himself,” he said. “All we’ve seen so far on reconciliation is promises.”
The government has opened the door to the return of former members of Saddam’s Baath party, banned in Iraq’s constitution, but vows to punish any bid to revive it as a political force. The prospect of any opening for the party, though, brings a storm of criticism from Al-Maliki’s fellow Shiites and minority Kurds, thousands of whom were gassed by Saddam in the 1980s.
Many Iraqis ascribe sectarian motives to a delay in enacting a law to bring ex-Baath members back into state jobs after they were fired by the United States in 2003, a fateful move that fuelled a Sunni insurgency and crippling the government. The government blames Parliament for holding up enactment of the law; lawmakers point a finger at the government.
But suspicion runs deep about Al-Maliki’s intentions, fueled by recent arrests of the leaders of the Awakening Movement, the largely Sunni militiamen credited with weakening Al-Qaeda.
“This attitude won’t lead to political stability. Iraq will just keep running in circles and everyone will lose,” said Saad Al-Hadithi, a political analyst in Baghdad.
