| Nouri Mohammed Hassan Al-Maliki, was approved by the Iraqi parliament on 20/05/2006 to serve as Iraq’s first-ever elected Prime Minister of a full-term government.[1] He had been elected as one of Islamic Dawa Party’s Members of the Iraqi National Assembly as part of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) slate in January 2005, and again in March 2006, this time heading the Babil list. In the previous transitional assembly, he served as the Head of the Defence Committee (2005-2006), was a leading member of the committee drafting the Iraqi Constitution and was the official spokesman for the UIA up until his nomination for premiership. He was also a member of the De-Baathification Committee from 2003 to 2005. [2] Born in July 1950 in Abi Gharq west of Hilla in the Babil province, Nouri Al-Maliki received a bachelor's degree at Usul Al-Din College in Baghdad, and a master's degree in Arabic literature from Salah Al-Din University in Sulaimania. He had been involved in Dawa discussion circles before then, but it was only when he became a student that he became highly active politically. From there on, he devoted his time to political resistance, working tirelessly to spread Dawa’s message amongst the student population, helping recruit members and rising quickly up the ranks of the party. In the years to follow, he developed a particularly strong reputation for his argumentative and organisational skills, and his bravery in the face of the Baathist onslaught on Dawa. He was finally forced to leave Iraq through Jordan on 21st October 1979 after learning of the regime’s intention to have him killed. Saddam would later go on to pass a death sentence against him in 1980, a few months after he had left Iraq. Several plans to have Nouri Al-Maliki assassinated in exile were implemented, but none succeeded. In exile, Nouri Al-Maliki, under the pseudonym “Jawad”, lived in Syria until 13/01/1982 when he moved to Iran. There he lived for a year in Ahwaz, before moving to Tehran, where he lived until 1989. [3] His decision to go back permanently to Syria that year was faltered when he fell seriously ill and was forced to halt his plans. But, on 16th September 1990 he finally left Iran to return to Damascus where he remained until the fall of Saddam in April 2003. During his time in Syria, Al-Maliki was highly active in the political arena. He oversaw the publication of the Dawa Party owned newspaper Al-Mawqif and soon became head of the influential Damascus Branch of Dawa. In 1990, he worked on the Joint Action Committee, a Damascus-based opposition coalition, serving as one of the rotating chairmen. He toured Europe and the Middle East to garner support for the Iraqi opposition movement and its struggle against the regime. On 11th March 1991, these efforts culminated in the Beirut conference, where the 17 main Iraqi political parties and Iraqi NGOs met, with delegates from Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Kuwait as well as other international organisations present. [4] In the 2003 Dawa leadership election, he won a seat on the leadership council in the Dawa party, emerging as one of the most influential leaders in the party, a key negotiator and a driven leader. Following the fall of Saddam’s regime in March 2003, Nouri Al-Maliki realised his dream of returning to his beloved Iraq. He has since worked assiduously to fulfil the Iraqi people’s and Dawa’s ambition for a free and prosperous democratic Iraq. Nouri Al-Maliki is married to Fareeha Khalil and has four daughters and one son. |
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Words don't exactly fail me, Mr. Bones, but I somehow prefer not to utter them just now. To pick on poor M. al-Málikí under the present circumstances would be indecent, and in any case everybody else in the holy Homeland seems to be doing it for us.
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[1] All pre-1958 events and Dr. Ibráhím Ja‘farí have been flushed down St. George Orwell's memory hole, it looks like: wasn't IJ "elected Prime Minister of a full-term government" on exactly the same terms? Have I missed some invasion-based double talk here?
Well, actually I have, but in the bloody bushogenic quagmire such technical niceties tend to get confused and confusin', don't you know? Let's review the bidding:
* The first neorégime after the former Iraq was violently and irregularly formerized, that of Sultán Jay (General Garner), existed by sheer Boy-'n'-Party (unright of) conquest.
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* The second, under Sultán Jerry (Party Neocomrade P. Bremer), reposed itself upon the same easy and sensible basis, but it diverted the gullible natives with an ornamental "Governing Council" of twenty-five notabilities who certainly were never guilty of governing anybody.
* After Bremer fled the country, a third or "transitional" neorégime took over, having been specified in the Jerry-built "Transitional Administrative Law," and at its head stood CIA asset Dr. ’Ayad Alláwí. At this point Boy and Party first started fibbing about the "sovereignty" and "independence" of their neo-Iraqi subjects.
* Phase Four was in fact the Age of Khalílzád Pasha and konstitution-makin' and all those inky-fingered plebescite, though the CIA asset presided still, technically.
* After that, as konstitutionally provided for, came the "interim" neorégime of Dr. Ja‘farí, yet with the Spirit of Zalmáy still always broodin' over everthin' that mattered.
* Finally come Modern Times and poor M. al-Málikí, who is neither "transitional" nor "interim," but probably should not count on being permanent all the same.
[2] That may be the very caltrop to unhorse him well this side of a "full-term government." Down at Rancho Crawford, the Big Management Party stumblebums radically fail to understand how their little Twelver friends feel about the Ba‘thiyya. They themselves could zig-zag back and forth anyway they pleased about whether Saddám was a solid pillar of "regional stability" or an imminent menace to East Texas armed with terror-tipped forty-five-minute specials. 'Twas all but a great game for Big Party cowpokers who could even boast of Sole Remainin' Hyperpower as they aggressed.
No Twelver GOP-occupee in the former Iraq can ever be quite as blithe and frivolous as the militant extremist Crawfordites and their Party base-and-vile have been about Saddam and all that. Even their very best former ideobuddy Dr. A. Chelabi, whose Twelverism seems marginal to nonexistent, only a trashy westoxicated Norman Vincent Peale matter of "identity," is very solidly unforgiving about the Ba‘thí Ascendancy. It would nicely suit the Party of Grant that that all its neo-Iraqis subjects get mutually reconciled, but one must remember that Saddam never inflicted anything at all on the Party of Grant, either its geniuses or its dupes. When somebody else did actually inflict upon them a tiny little bit for a change once in a while, 11 September 2001, the Boy-'n'-Party bozos did not exactly prove themselves models of the forbearance and reconciliation that they now recommend to all their spear-won subjects in the former Iraq.
"Another's tears are water," says the Russian proverb. Forbearance and reconciliation are excellent things, things certainly not to be discouraged! But the Harvard Victory School MBA señoritos ought to ponder and understand the sales resistance to this particular product, why it is so hard for the Lesser Breeds Without to forbear and be reconciled when they actually have some real grievance to forgive, or to pretend to forget. Even Mr. Bones and I "know" the correct answer at the back of the textbook well enough, yet we fail to "know" what it is like to be oppressed and suppressed by a systematic Saddámite dictatorship or by any incoherent lawless Kennebunkport-Crawford Dynasty factious muddle.
Pastor Bonhoeffer deplored "cheap grace," without at all setting himself up against Grace as such. Let's deplore "cheap reconciliation" in the spirit of Bonhoeffer, then, Mr. Bones: poor M. al-Máliki ought to forgive and forget about the sins of the Ba‘thí Ascendancy, yet we're no better than shameless Party-of-Grant cheapjacks if WE (we, of all people!) preach that sermon to him directly. "Softly, softly, catchee monkey"!
[3] I didn't know that, Mr. Bones, did you? I seem to have confused the qPM with Dr. Ja‘farí, who worked out of Damascus consistently.
[4] If that great harnessing of diversity was ever visible from an invasion-language perspective at all, it has sunk without a trace since. Why, the former Iraq is a foreign country, Mr. Bones, just think of THAT, sir! They do things differently there, including milestone marking. Though the lunar calendar be decorative rather than functional, it is an admirable emblem of the radical asynchronicity between Big Party cowpokers and small neoliberated pokees. We in the holy Homeland have never heard of 11 March 1991 especially; conversely poor M. al-Malikí is very inadequately worried about (Tuesday) 4 November 2008. Compared to that, the conventional journalistic sort of difference in "clocks" relied on by Party neocomrades Petrolaeus and Crockerius at brave New Baghdád as opposed to the clocks of Congress and Televisionland on Main Street sinks into negligibility. No ordinary clock can be more discrepant with its mate by more than six hours. The discrepancy between poor M. al-Málikí and his aggressionist betters down at Rancho Crawford cannot be gauged by clocks like that.
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