MALIKI IN THE TANK AND NOT ONE WITH TREADS!

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s faltering crackdown on Shiite militants has won the backing of Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that fear both the powerful sectarian militias and the effects of failure on Iraq’s fragile government.
The emergence of a common cause could help bridge Iraq’s political rifts.
The head of the Kurdish self-ruled region, Massoud Barzani, has offered Kurdish troops to help fight anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
Shiite militias were responsible for the deaths of thousands of Sunni Arabs in the sectarian bloodletting of 2006 and 2007. The Mahdi Army is blamed for much of the killing.
The Accordance Front pulled out of al-Maliki’s Cabinet in August to protest his policies. The newfound support over militias could help al-Maliki persuade the five Sunni ministers who quit their posts to return.
If he succeeds, that would constitute a big step toward national reconciliation, something the U.S. has long demanded.
Still, the Sunnis are looking for concessions from al-Maliki, whom they accuse of monopolizing power.
Whether that happens depends largely on how the government deals with the issue of Shiite militias.
The Basra crackdown, ostensibly waged against “outlaws, criminal gangs or the evil doers so often trotted out by the Bush administration bogged down in the face of fierce resistance and discontent in the ranks of government forces. Major combat eased after al-Sadr asked his militia to stop fighting last Sunday.
But al-Maliki continued his tough rhetoric, threatening to take his crackdown to the Mahdi Army’s strongholds in Baghdad. Al-Sadr hinted at retaliation, and the prime minister backed down, freezing raids and arrests targeting the young cleric’s supporters.
Barzani, the Kurdish leader, has been at sharp odds with al-Maliki’s government over what he sees as its lackluster reaction to Turkish military moves against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. The Kurds are also angry over the national government’s opposition to Kurdish deals with foreign oil companies.
But the Kurds, for years Washington’s most reliable allies in Iraq, also see the Sadrists’ anti-U.S. fervor as a threat to the country’s political process and its stability.
Al-Sadr is openly opposed to a federal system, arguing that carving up the country into self-rule regions similar to that in Kurdistan would lead to Iraq’s breakup. Another source of tension with the Kurds is the Sadrists’ vehement opposition to Kurdish claims to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which they want to annex to their region over the opposition of its Arab and Turkomen residents.
Al-Maliki has sought to cast himself as a national leader who is above the country’s sectarian divide, saying that he was going after “outlaws” and “criminal gangs” regardless of their sect, ethnicity or party links.
But other motives may have played a role in the crackdown.
Provincial elections are scheduled to be held before Oct. 1 and Shiite parties are gearing up for a tough contest in the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq, where oil-rich Basra and the wealthy religious centers of Najaf and Karbala are prizes.
A successful crackdown in Basra would have boosted the election chances of al-Maliki’s Dawa party and his Shiite allies in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, whose Badr Brigade militia is the Mahdi Army’s sworn enemy.
The Supreme Council hopes to win the fall vote so it can form a self-ruled region similar to the Kurdish one in the north something the Sadrists oppose. Key council figures also want the crackdown to continue even at the risk of a new round of fighting.
“He must impose the law on everyone, and he (al-Maliki) told us this is his intention,”