Anti-government protesters demonstrate in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on 18 January 2013. Thousands of Sunni Muslims took to the streets across Iraq to decry the alleged targeting of their minority. Arabic writing reads: "Set our detained women free" (L) and "Enough" (C). Source: AZHAR SHALLAL/AFP/Getty Images[/caption]
While Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki is in no position to refuse Tehran, his own power calculations have driven a continued relationship with Damascus, even twenty-one months into the Syrian uprising. Maliki’s support of Bashar Al-Assad now threatens to destabilize his command at home.
Prior to the Arab uprisings, Maliki had a burgeoning relationship with the Syrian president; trade relations between the two neighbors benefited both of their economies. At the same time, Tehran’s efforts to bring Iraq, Syria, and its partners in Lebanon together, both symbolically and politically, challenged the predominant Sunni politics in the region. This alliance bestowed Maliki a high-profile role in the Middle East after the American withdrawal in 2010.
As Assad’s fortunes tumbled, Maliki’s own self-preservation kicked in; he decided not to back the predominant Sunni opposition movement in Syria. Maliki estimated that the increasingly sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict could exacerbate the Sunni–Shi'a tensions in his own country and threaten his authority. The prime minister continued to allow the use of Iraqi territory and airspace as a conduit for arms and men to bolster the Assad government.
Maliki miscalculated: his support for the Syrian government has weakened his already fragile rule. The Iraqi prime minister is, in many regards, a second-rate dictator; he has neither the power nor the independence that his powerful neighbors possess. In his perpetual struggle against the Sunni opposition and his dependence on Tehran, Maliki has failed to see that his support of the Assad government has only exacerbated problems at home.
The Al-Nusra Front, one of Syria’s Islamist militia groups, is said to be an offshoot of Iraq’s Al-Qaeda branch. The Front is a small (2 percent of the armed opposition) but formidable force, especially dominant in Aleppo. The group has breathed new life into Al-Qaeda’s operations and support in Iraq, most noticeably in the Sunni dominated Al-Anbar province, which borders Syria. On 16 January terrorist attacks struck Baghdad, Kirkuk, Baji, and Tikrit, raising the likelihood that a reinvigorated Al-Qaeda is launching fresh attacks on the Shi'a-dominated government in Baghdad.
The growing tensions in Al-Anbar province, a direct result of Maliki’s own authoritarian mismanagement of Iraq, and the decision to seal off the border crossings into Jordan and Syria, have compounded the challenges Maliki faces. The radical Shi'a cleric, Muqtada Al-Sadr’s positive engagement with the Iraqi Sunni opposition further riles Maliki. With the growing risks of Syria’s spillover into internal Iraqi politics, Maliki is entering a deepening crisis with no clear strategy forward.
It is now a decade since Saddam Hussein fell. Yet Iraq begins a new year with the potential of a resurgence of violence and growing protests against Maliki’s rule, a deepening political crisis that neither Maliki’s patron in Tehran nor his friend in Damascus can rescue him from.
