Maliki stands up to Iran and Democrats

Amir Taheri:

A FEW months ago, Wash ington circles saw Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as "Tehran's man" in Baghdad. Today, Tehran circles label him "Washington's man" in Baghdad.

Maliki's government has the unenviable task of keeping the Americans in, when they don't want to stay - and the Iranians out, when they want to come in.

Some Americans blame Maliki for doing nothing to hasten the departure of U.S. troops, for not decreeing a blanket pardon of Baathists (regardless of what they did during four decades of despotic domination), and for rejecting federal schemes that could lead to the disintegration of the Iraqi state.

They also criticize Maliki because he refuses to share out Iraq's oil income as if it were loot among thieves.

These American critics want Maliki to throw Iraq to the wolves so that Jack Murtha and Michael Moore can prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was wrong.

Maliki's Khomeinist critics in Tehran have their own beef.

The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) recently called Maliki "too pro-Arab." In plain language, that means he emphasizes the Arab identity of the majority of Iraqi peoples - rather than their sectarian affiliation, as Tehran would prefer.

Last month, Ali Khamenei, the top mullah in the Khomeinist system, attacked Maliki in a roundabout way. He recalled that many leaders of the new Iraq spent years in Iran as exiles, and he implied that it was payback time. Last week, the mullahs showed their anger by refusing to let Maliki's plane pass through Iranian airspace on its way to the Far East.

Maliki has offered no favors to the mullahs. He visited half a dozen capitals in the early stages of his premiership - but pointedly avoided Tehran. He also turned down Tehran's offer of hosting a regional conference on Iraq, preferring to hold the exercise in Baghdad and then, later this year, in Cairo.

Maliki has also given the green light to a crackdown on Shiite militias and death squads, serving notice that the war of the sectarians must end. Within the next few weeks, he is expected to further anger Tehran by dropping from his Cabinet all five Sadrist ministers, who are beholden to the Iranian regime.

Tehran indicated its displeasure by activating its networks in Iraq to organize last week's demonstrations in Najaf.

Despite months of pressure from Tehran, Maliki has also refused to scrap the maritime-inspection mission of the Coalition forces under a mandate from the United Nations Security Council. (The 15 British sailors captured by Tehran last month were operating on that mission.)

Tehran wants the mission terminated for two reasons:

* First, it wants to impose total control on the Shatt al-Arab, a waterway between Iran and Iraq, thus violating the 1975 Algiers agreement that established the thalweg (the deepest channel in the river) as the frontier.

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* Second, the Islamic Republic fears that the United Nations might, at some point, use the inspection mechanism against the Islamic Republic in the showdown over the nuclear issue. (Recent Security Council resolutions would allow the monitoring of Iranian naval traffic in the Gulf to continue from Iraqi bases even after the U.S.-led Coalition has left.)

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He appears to be his own man. He is also dealing with a culture of passive aggressive response to pressure. That is how the Iraqi Shia survived for decades. It is also how they continue to respond to those trying to impose results on them now. Gen. Petraeus has shown that Maliki will respond to reason and act to preserve his government. His refusal to bow to Iran or the Democrats suggest that the pressure both want to put on him would be counter productive.