U.S. policy on Iraq questioned as influence wanes, Maliki consolidates power

By Liz Sly,
WashPost
Updated: Sunday, April 8, 8:41 PM

BAGHDAD — On the face of it, Iraq’s first springtime since American troops withdrew in December is turning into the most peaceful and promising the country has witnessed in a decade, offering what U.S. and some Iraqi officials say amounts to a vindication of President Obama’s Iraq policy.

A feared collapse of order have not materialized. Although the group al-Qaeda in Iraq has continued to stage headline-grabbing attacks, they are diminishing in frequency and intensity. Oil is being pumped at record levels from the refurbished fields of the south. Iraq’s government has not rushed into the arms of Iran and, instead, has been wooing its Arab neighbors.

But the appearance of calm that has endured for four months has come at a price, many Iraqis say, in the form of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s increasingly authoritarian behavior. Maliki, they say, has been moving steadily to consolidate his control over the country’s institutions and security forces with the apparent acquiescence of the Obama administration.

Since U.S. troops withdrew in December, Maliki has extended his reach to take on his political rivals, drawing accusations from Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish minorities that he is intent on establishing a dictatorship. An arrest warrant issued just days after the U.S. pullout for Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi — the top Sunni official in Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government — has been followed more recently by challenges to the autonomy enjoyed by the Kurdish region in the north, provoking threats by Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani to sever ties with Baghdad.

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