SPECIAL REPORT-How Iraq's Maliki defined limits of U.S. power

    By Warren Strobel, Missy Ryan, David Rohde and Ned Parker 

    WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD, June 30 (Reuters) - In November 2010, 

the United States faced a painful dilemma in Iraq. The man 

Washington had picked from near-obscurity four years earlier to 

be Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, had narrowly lost an 

election but was, with help from Iran, maneuvering to stay in 

power. 

    The clock was ticking as a U.S. troop drawdown gathered 

pace. American diplomats and Iraqi politicians cast about for 

alternatives to lead Iraq. But Iraqis had elected a hung 

parliament and there were no candidates with clear-cut support. 

Fearing chaos, Washington settled again on Maliki. 

    In a tense meeting in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green 

Zone, two U.S. diplomats sat down with Maliki, Kurdish chief 

Massoud Barzani, and Iyad Allawi, the politician whose bloc had 

won the most seats in the election and whose support was needed 

to finalize any deal. Earlier that day, U.S. President Barack 

Obama had phoned Allawi and pledged his support for a government 

that included all Iraq's main sects. 

    In the meeting, tempers flared. Both Allawi and Maliki 

threatened to walk out, and Barzani at one point physically 

blocked Allawi from leaving the room, according to two people 

with first-hand knowledge of the meeting. The Americans 

encouraged them to set aside their differences. At last, the 

Iraqis agreed a final deal which was spelled out in a 

handwritten note. 

    The agreement finalized that day was the last real 

power-sharing accord Iraq had, and it failed almost immediately. 

Thanks to Maliki and his opponents' intransigence, the deal was 

never implemented and the country's sectarian divides widened. 

Maliki has governed more as a defender of the Shi'ites than as 

an inclusive national leader. 

    Now, as violent Sunni militants from the Islamic State of 

Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) cement their hold over western Iraq, 

declare a Caliphate, and threaten a new civil war, Washington 

has again demanded that Iraq's leaders form an inclusive 

government encompassing the country's minority Sunnis and Kurds. 

    But former officials and even some in the current Obama 

administration say that effort may also founder. Maliki had been 

expected to be named prime minister for a third term after his 

coalition won April elections, but as security deteriorates 

pressure is mounting even from within his Shi'ite power base for 

him to go. Even if he is pushed aside, Washington will likely 

struggle to exert much sway over the situation.  

    More than a dozen former and current diplomats say the 

relationship between Washington and Baghdad has been marred by 

repeated missteps by both Obama and his predecessor President 

George W. Bush. Washington, the diplomats say, has been 

unwilling or unable to influence Iraqi politicians and in 

particular the man they helped bring to power.  

    While Maliki lost the 2010 elections, he emerged stronger, 

said Emma Sky, a British Middle East scholar who was a political 

adviser to U.S. commander Gen. Raymond Odierno from 2007-2010. 

Maliki then "faced no consequences when he reneged on his 

commitments" to integrate Sunnis into the government, she said. 

    Ali Khedery, a long-serving adviser to multiple U.S. 

ambassadors in Baghdad, said he resigned after warning in an 

October 2010 memorandum that U.S. backing for Maliki's 

premiership would lead to dictatorship, renewed civil war and 

Iranian hegemony in Iraq. Other U.S. and British officials who 

shared his view had left Baghdad by the fall of 2010, he said, 

but his memo reached top White House officials, who overruled 

him.  

    To be fair, Maliki took some early positive steps, including 

facilitating the U.S. surge and confronting Shi'ite militiamen 

in Basra, according to former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay 

Khalilzad. But his rule has proved increasingly divisive. 

    Maliki's office declined to comment for this story, citing 

the demands on his time from the war campaign and efforts to 

choose a new government. Maliki has long blamed his opponents 

for sabotaging him, and feels let down by Washington. 

    "There is a bitterness in Maliki's tone when he talks ... 

about the American role, even what is going on in DC, with 

speeches in Congress and Obama's speech," longtime Maliki ally 

Sami Askari said about his mood in recent weeks. "He ... has no 

hope. He says we have to rely on ourselves."  the United States faced a painful dilemma in Iraq. The man 

Washington had picked from near-obscurity four years earlier to 

be Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, had narrowly lost an 

election but was, with help from Iran, maneuvering to stay in 

power. 

    The clock was ticking as a U.S. troop drawdown gathered 

pace. American diplomats and Iraqi politicians cast about for 

alternatives to lead Iraq. But Iraqis had elected a hung 

parliament and there were no candidates with clear-cut support. 

Fearing chaos, Washington settled again on Maliki. 

    In a tense meeting in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green 

Zone, two U.S. diplomats sat down with Maliki, Kurdish chief 

Massoud Barzani, and Iyad Allawi, the politician whose bloc had 

won the most seats in the election and whose support was needed 

to finalize any deal. Earlier that day, U.S. President Barack 

Obama had phoned Allawi and pledged his support for a government 

that included all Iraq's main sects. 

    In the meeting, tempers flared. Both Allawi and Maliki 

threatened to walk out, and Barzani at one point physically 

blocked Allawi from leaving the room, according to two people 

with first-hand knowledge of the meeting. The Americans 

encouraged them to set aside their differences. At last, the 

Iraqis agreed a final deal which was spelled out in a 

handwritten note. 

    The agreement finalized that day was the last real 

power-sharing accord Iraq had, and it failed almost immediately. 

Thanks to Maliki and his opponents' intransigence, the deal was 

never implemented and the country's sectarian divides widened. 

Maliki has governed more as a defender of the Shi'ites than as 

an inclusive national leader. 

    Now, as violent Sunni militants from the Islamic State of 

Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) cement their hold over western Iraq, 

declare a Caliphate, and threaten a new civil war, Washington 

has again demanded that Iraq's leaders form an inclusive 

government encompassing the country's minority Sunnis and Kurds. 

    But former officials and even some in the current Obama 

administration say that effort may also founder. Maliki had been 

expected to be named prime minister for a third term after his 

coalition won April elections, but as security deteriorates 

pressure is mounting even from within his Shi'ite power base for 

him to go. Even if he is pushed aside, Washington will likely 

struggle to exert much sway over the situation.  

    More than a dozen former and current diplomats say the 

relationship between Washington and Baghdad has been marred by 

repeated missteps by both Obama and his predecessor President 

George W. Bush. Washington, the diplomats say, has been 

unwilling or unable to influence Iraqi politicians and in 

particular the man they helped bring to power.  

    While Maliki lost the 2010 elections, he emerged stronger, 

said Emma Sky, a British Middle East scholar who was a political 

adviser to U.S. commander Gen. Raymond Odierno from 2007-2010. 

Maliki then "faced no consequences when he reneged on his 

commitments" to integrate Sunnis into the government, she said. 

    Ali Khedery, a long-serving adviser to multiple U.S. 

ambassadors in Baghdad, said he resigned after warning in an 

October 2010 memorandum that U.S. backing for Maliki's 

premiership would lead to dictatorship, renewed civil war and 

Iranian hegemony in Iraq. Other U.S. and British officials who 

shared his view had left Baghdad by the fall of 2010, he said, 

but his memo reached top White House officials, who overruled 

him.  

    To be fair, Maliki took some early positive steps, including 

facilitating the U.S. surge and confronting Shi'ite militiamen 

in Basra, according to former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay 

Khalilzad. But his rule has proved increasingly divisive. 

    Maliki's office declined to comment for this story, citing 

the demands on his time from the war campaign and efforts to 

choose a new government. Maliki has long blamed his opponents 

for sabotaging him, and feels let down by Washington. 

    "There is a bitterness in Maliki's tone when he talks ... 

about the American role, even what is going on in DC, with 

speeches in Congress and Obama's speech," longtime Maliki ally 

Sami Askari said about his mood in recent weeks. "He ... has no 

hope. He says we have to rely on ourselves." 

    To some officials, the painful arc of U.S.-Iraq relations 

speaks less about one man, Maliki, than it does about the limits 

of American military and political power to bring democracy or 

exert decisive influence in the Middle East.  

    After decades of rule by autocrats, often supported by 

Washington, the region remains riven with rivalries and 

distrust. Despite the Arab Spring, a generation of politicians 

like Maliki are skeptical that political compromise can ever be 

reached or fair elections held. 

    James Jeffrey, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad from 

2010-2012, said the American effort to remake Iraq was never 

realistic or sustained enough to succeed. The Bush 

administration failed to explain to the U.S. public the scope of 

the effort needed and the Obama administration frittered away 

the limited influence it had, he said. 

    "This all operates on the assumption that we have the skill, 

the patience, the national interest, and the support from the 

American people to keep an occupation force in a country and to 

do long-term nation building a la Japan and Germany in an area 

that is far less fertile," Jeffrey said. "I challenge the 

underlying assumption that we could do this." 

    Robert Ford, who twice served as a senior American diplomat 

in Baghdad, said Washington was often impatient for Iraqi 

politicians "to finish their tiresome and long political 

negotiations." At the same time "you've got to give them time to 

work out compromises that are sustainable." 

    Obama, elected in 2008 on a platform to end the war, has 

visited Iraq just once as president. Having blessed Maliki's 

continuation in power, he completed Bush's plan to withdraw U.S. 

troops and quickly refocused attention elsewhere, ending the 

frequent video conferences Bush held with Maliki and handing the 

Iraq portfolio to Vice President Joe Biden.  

    The White House declined repeated requests to discuss the 

U.S. relationship with Maliki. 

    Maliki, who has visited Washington twice in the last three 

years, has grown mistrustful of America's inconstancy. 

    "I think he has a very hard time figuring us out, because we 

do a lot of things that don't seem consistent to him. I think he 

finds us very frustrating, and very difficult to read," said Ken 

Pollack, a former White House and CIA official, and long-time 

Iraq specialist. 

    Pollack, who met Maliki in March and later briefed U.S. 

officials on his trip, said the Iraqi leader appeared obsessed 

with marginalizing his political opponents after April's 

national elections. He showed little interest in discussing 

reconciliation or economic development, Pollack said. 

    "We were trying as hard as we could to get him to talk about 

something other than a pogrom against his opponents," said 

Pollack, now at the Brookings Institution think tank. "He just 

wouldn't do it, no matter how much bait we gave him." 

       "VERY AMBITIOUS" 

    Maliki is no American creation. He spent years in exile as a 

member of a secretive Shi'ite

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Maliki has long blamed his opponents 

for sabotaging him, and feels let down by Washington.