Coup Who?

Nibras Kazimi from the Hudson Institute is hearing coup rumors in Washington:

So the folks in Stephen Hadley’s NSC outfit are allegedly putting out the word that Meghan “Wanna-Be Ms. Bell” O’Sullivan, the White House’s political envoy to Baghdad, has lined up the necessary support to unseat current Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who would ostensibly be replaced by the former PM Ayad Allawi.

He points out, however, that "no one can pull-off a military coup in Iraq." After all, Iraq notably lacks in security services that can effectively control the country. As Brian Ulrich says "Nibras Kazimi made an important point about this Allawi coup business that I'm just now seeing:

Seriously, how is this coup supposed to work? Is the United States supposed to do it openly? The Mahdi Army? Badr Brigades? The Kurdish peshmerga? What kind of reaction is this likely to get from the other factions? I suspect it won't lead to national reconciliation.

Kazimi suspects that this is a way of trying to spook Nouri al-Maliki and his allies into compromising with the Sunni Arabs.

Comments

I'm pretty sure that if they named Galactus as Prime Minister all this unrest would settle down in a hurry. Otherwise things will remain fucked.

Posted by calling all toasters | August 20, 2007 6:13 PM

is hearing coup rumors

Or, more precisely given the date of the linked post, was hearing coup rumors 10 days ago. But I think the post from Saturday (a week after the linked post) makes this one inoperative?

Posted by Al | August 20, 2007 6:16 PM

Why, in a parliamentary system, would there be any need to use force to unseat an incompetent and corrupt PM? It's probably just a matter of time before the necessary horse-trading among the various parties results in a new coalition and a new PM. I would think that despite the official August recess, Iraqi political leaders are discussing this on the QT. If the Sunnis could get the Kurds on board and get a few of the smaller secular Shiite and non-sectarian parties on board, they could unseat the current coalition government. A secular Shiite like Allawi would be useful, since you'd need a Shiite PM.

I'm guessing the biggest stumbling block the Sunnis find in setting up this counter-coalition is how to get the Kurds on board. How can they give the Kurds more leeway than Maliki already has promised them?

The silver lining here is that once a new coalition is formed, it should move rapidly to legislate, since most of the major political issues will have been already addressed in the horse-trading that preceded the forming of the coalition.

Posted by Fred | August 20, 2007 6:19 PM

Kazimi suspects that this is a way of trying to spook Nouri al-Maliki and his allies into compromising with the Sunni Arabs.

Kind of a counterproductive strategy, when you think about it. The threat of a coup is supposed to pressure the Shiite government into granting Sunnis (and secular Baathist allies like Allawi) a larger share of power -- including most centrally a real stake in the security forces -- which would make a coup more plausible?!

It's like saying, "If you don't leave your money in a more accessible location, I'm going to rob you."

Posted by Swopa | August 20, 2007 6:19 PM

Here we go. Does anyone remember the revolving governments in South Vietnam that only served to vex and displease American planners? LBJ's comment about having enough of "this coup shit" comes to mind.

If we get in the business of backing coups, then we can forget about having any pretense to a role in Iraq. Every time we do that, we make a bunch of enemies and undermine whatever rule of law might exist. If this is where we're at, then we need to get out.

Posted by Unreal Veal | August 20, 2007 6:20 PM

these fuckers are coup-coup

Posted by cleek | August 20, 2007 7:39 PM

These master strategists are always a couple steps ahead of the rest of us. What could possibly go wrong?

I don't think they are planning on actually doing this. Even if they are unencumbered by a sense of shame, surely they realize that this is (1) physically impossible, and (2) counterproductive in the short- and long-term.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | August 20, 2007 8:15 PM

Is it true that Maliki is Arabic for Diem?

This is so delusional -- only Cheney with his little girl crushes on strong men could be this stupid.

Posted by klein's tiny left nut | August 20, 2007 9:05 PM

can somebody explain to me why you get this message:

Thank you for commenting.

Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner.

Return to the original entry

when you try to comment on McArdale's blog? Why do you have be approved to comment on one Atlantic blog but not all of the others? Yglesias, please enlighten us.

Posted by wondering | August 20, 2007 9:21 PM

Why bother? Does it really matter who announces that the Iraqi parliament won't be meeting for a few months, and thar when it does meet, there won't be a quorum?

Posted by Mike | August 20, 2007 9:41 PM

"...that Meghan “Wanna-Be Ms. Bell” O’Sullivan, the White House’s political envoy to Baghdad, has lined up the necessary support to unseat current Prime Minister Nouri Maliki"

My first read of this was that Meghan O'Sullivan was going to become the next PM of Iraq.

Posted by bob mcmanus | August 20, 2007 10:13 PM

I hate to clue the Democrats on this board in, but it was their heroes Jack and Bobby who had Diem assassinated. Madame Nhu, as well. What followed was "Big" Minh, Ngyuen Van Theiu and Nguyen Cao "Cocaine" Key. It got like Italy in Saigon for awhile, thanks to Jack.

No coup is possible right now. A "Strongman" Regime can't exist because there's no Saddam on the horizon. Mookie can't take power because al- Hakim would never submit to his authority and al-Sistani considers the young lad to be an usurper. Many of the Sunni Tribals are ex-Ba'ath who happen to be on the CIA payroll right now (we're probably throwing bribe money around that country like it's going out of style. It don't get better than to be a Sheik...).

Allawi could do the job, but he'd have to form the Coalition From Hell with the Kurds and the Sunnis. Quite unlikely.

Which leaves one man left in the wings as Last Man Standing:

Ahmad Chalabi.

The guy who told the CIA that their coup was penetrated by the Mukhabarat in 1996. The CIA wouldn't listen and Saddam's guys rolled it up. Very embarrassing for the Agency, but typical of their incompetence. Of course, they never forgave Chalabi for being right and have been leaking stuff against him ever since.

I for one wouldn't be surprised to see Chalabi tell the Chief of Station to Get Lost.

You heard it here first.

Posted by section9 | August 20, 2007 10:15 PM

Looks like Carl Levin isn't just floating rumors of a coup, but he is openly calling for a coup. Whoever would have thought that the Carl Levin Left is more of a coup-mongerer than the Bush administration?!

Senator Calls for Maliki's Ouster
Levin Urges Iraqis To Replace Leaders

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 21, 2007; Page A01

Declaring the government of Iraq "non-functional," the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq's parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.

Posted by Al | August 20, 2007 10:38 PM

section9, JFK's role isn't exactly a newsflash to Dems interested in Vietnam. Also, Chalabi has no real support base in Iraq. His support base is located closer to AEI's DC headquarters. What did his party get in the elections, like 2.5%?

Posted by Reality Man | August 20, 2007 11:33 PM

Right, we're going to put Chalabi - the man the neocons love even though he's an Iranian agent - in power.

He'd last ten seconds - the rest of the ministers would shoot him themselves, they wouldn't wait for the insurgents. Iran might like it since they know they can buy him already.

As long as you have three factions, and the lowest on the total pole in terms of US support are the Sunnis, there will be ZERO chance of any "coalition" that could do anything whatsoever about the rest of the country.

The Kurds want the Kirkuk oil to finance their independent Kurdistan, and they're going to get it - assuming the Turks allow it. And Israel will help them, since they want to use the Kurds to get the Kirkuk oil to Haifa and also to use the Kurds to harass Iran.

The Sunnis want a fair share of the oil, and a say in the government. Over the dead bodies of Shia will that happen, and that's fine with the Sunnis. But it won't actually happen.

The Shia want to make sure they are never again ruled by the Sunni, and if they have to give northern Iraq to the Kurds to get the necessary majority, they will. Meanwhile, they will make sure they are friends with Iran.

al-Sadr is the only one who might be able to make deals with the Sunnis and Kurds, but he is a nationalist (although he supports attacking the US is the US attacks Iran.) He has no base for achieving political power himself, but he does have enough authority, support and deal making skills to just conceivably put together some sort of coalition.

Said coalition's first priority, however, would be to kick out the US - which means he's not going to be allowed by the US to put together any deals that might actually help. So that's a non-starter.

This coup business is merely an attempt to dump the Shia who are too friendly with Iran and try to put a more tractable strongman in charge - one who will go along with the neocon and Israeli notion of supporting both sides against each other. If that happens, the Shia will turn on the US even WITHOUT an attack on Iran (which is still guaranteed at some point) and then the US will be fighting TWO insurgencies even as they fight each other. Even Sistani will be urging the US be run out on a rail at that point, even though his political authority has now been deprecated.

I think Cheney figures that since we're going to attack Iran anyway, the only way we can handle the resulting situation in Iraq is to go for broke, install an even more obviously puppet government, and then resort to mass murder to keep the rest of the country in line - literally bombing the country into submission as we did with Vietnam.

Not physically possible, of course, despite the neocon nutcases calling for "nuking Iraq" recently.

But the one thing you can always count on is that people who screw things up can always make those situations even worse.

You think Iraq is bad now? You ain't seen nothing yet...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 21, 2007 4:46 AM

Al, in a parliamentary system, the parliament can oust a leader. That doesn't count as a coup.

Posted by Alan de Bristol | August 21, 2007 5:32 AM

Uh, wouldn't this strengthen the case for America staying in Iraq due to instability?

This is for American consumption; has nothing to do with Iraq as a governing country.

Posted by Michael J. | August 21, 2007 7:04 AM

Al, in a parliamentary system, the parliament can oust a leader. That doesn't count as a coup

Tell that to Matthew and Nibras Kazimi!

Posted by Al | August 21, 2007 7:20 AM

My prediction is that when the dust settles, Muqtada al-Sadr is the last man standing.

Posted by Daddy Love | August 21, 2007 1:55 PM

Looks like Carl Levin isn't just floating rumors of a coup, but he is openly calling for a coup

No, idiot, he's calling for the man's removal by constitutional processes. Jeez, you probably think this country is going to have a coup in January 2008.

Posted by rea | August 21, 2007 3:20 PM

Uh, rea, Matthew and Nibras Kazimi are using the word "coup" to describe the man's removal by constitutional processes. (You read the Kazimi post, right?) I'm just following their lead in using that term.

Posted by Al | August 22, 2007 2:30 AM