Iraq facing a Constitutional crisis

Baghdad: Iraq is in mortal danger from a band of fanatics rapidly overrunning the country. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is not the man who can lead in the present moment of crisis, which is his own creation. He has alienated Sunni, Kurdish and other minority groups and undermined the Army and other national institutions through cronyism.

The demoralised Iraqi Army fled in disarray in January when challenged by the radical jihadists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), leaving behind vast arsenals of American-supplied heavy armaments that the Islamists are now using in their relentless advance.

Now the Iraqi president has finally named a candidate from Maliki’s own party who is more acceptable to other factions. But Maliki has angrily refused to step aside and has ordered Army and police units still loyal to him — many trained by the US — into the streets of Baghdad. Adding a constitutional crisis and a potential military coup to the great danger already posed by the jihadists is madness.

There is no guarantee that the President’s nominee, Haider al-Abadi, who is a member of Maliki’s Shiite Islamist Dawa Party and also the first deputy speaker of Parliament can save Iraq.

Kurdish forces have recaptured two towns near Erbil, following American airstrikes. But ISIS forces have kept pressure and are moving eastward. This challenge would be greater than any previously experienced.

If Maliki used his powers as commander in chief to thwart the political process, there will be little international support, and ISIS forces will run over the country and set up its much cherished dream of a Caliphate in Iraq.