Maliki Fears His Career Hinges On Oil Bill.

The US military reports that bomb deaths in Baghdad are down a third and executions by almost half since the surge began. However, these reported reductions are against a "benchmark" that was the bloodiest 3-month period in Iraq since the invasion and ignore what is going on outside the capital - which is where all the bad guys have fled to. It looks like progress in Baghdad, sure, but it's just a variant on the last four years of whack-a-mole.

And even US military commanders admit:

that key to the operation’s long-term success is the willingness of Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic political parties to strike a power- and money-sharing deal. That remains elusive — a proposal for governing the country’s main source of income — oil — is bogged down in parliamentary squabbling.

The oil bill's passage is quickly becoming the event everyone is waiting for - suggesting strongly that it was always about the oil money. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki is worried that if things don't go smoothly the US will engineer a political coup to replace him.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fears the U.S. will torpedo his government if parliament does not pass a law to fairly divvy up the country's oil wealth among Iraqis by the end of June, close associates of the leader told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The legislature has not taken up the draft measure, which is only one of several U.S. benchmarks that are seen by al-Maliki as key to continued U.S. support, a crucial need for the survival of his troubled administration.

Aside from the oil law, the associates said, U.S. officials have told the hardline Shiite Muslim prime minister that they want an Iraqi government in place by year's end acceptable to the country's Sunni Arab neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.

"They have said it must be secular and inclusive," one al-Maliki associate said.

To that end, al-Maliki made an unannounced visit Tuesday to Ramadi, the Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold, to meet with tribal leaders, the provincial governor and security chiefs in a bid to signal his willingness for reconciliation to end the bitter sectarian war that has riven Iraq for more than a year.

...One al-Maliki confidant said the U.S. had voiced displeasure with the prime minister's government even though he has managed so far to blunt major resistance from the Mahdi Army militia to the joint U.S.-Iraqi security operation in Baghdad. The Shiite militia is loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose political backing secured the premiership for al-Maliki.

"They have said they are frustrated that he has done nothing to oust the Sadrists, that the oil law has not moved forward, that there is no genuine effort on reconciliation and no movement on new regional elections," said the official, who like the other associates agreed to discuss the situation only if not quoted by name because of the political sensitivities.


Passage of the oil law, which seeks a fair distribution of revenues among all Iraq's sectarian and ethnic groups, has become a major issue for the U.S., which had initially counted on financing Iraq's post-invasion reconstruction with oil revenues.

...The al-Maliki associates said U.S. officials, who they would not name, told the prime minister that President Bush was committed to the current government but continued White House support depended on positive action on all the benchmarks — especially the oil law and sectarian reconciliation — by the close of this parliamentary session June 30.

"Al-Maliki is committed to meeting the deadline because he is convinced he would not survive in power without U.S. support," one of the associates said.

Waiting impatiently in the wings, as I posted on Tuesday, is Iyad Allawi - the neoconservatives' preferred "strongman" candidate for the Iraqi leadership...and he isn't being helpful. He actually opposes the oil bill's passage, obviously hoping to speed his competitor's political demise. He would have to do a rapid flip-flop on that support after Maliki's dismissal to keep US support for what has been a very open and rapid campaign to push himself back into prominence:

Compounding al-Maliki's fears about a withdrawal of U.S. support were visits to Saudi Arabia by two key political figures in an admitted bid to win support for a major Iraqi political realignment. Saudi Arabia is a major U.S. ally and oil supplier.

Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shiite Muslim, flew to the Saudi capital Tuesday, a day after the arrival there of Masoud Barzani, leader of Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdish region. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims.

"Allawi is there to enlist support for a new political front that rises above sectarian structures now in place," said the former prime minister's spokesman, Izzat al-Shahbandar.

Barzani spokesman Abdul-Khaleq Zanganah said the two Iraqi leaders met in Kurdistan before the trip for talks on forming a "national front to take over for the political bloc now supporting al-Maliki."

It appears certain the U.S. was informed about the Allawi and Barzani opening to the Saudis, who are deeply concerned that al-Maliki could become a puppet of Iran, the Shiite theocracy on Iraq's eastern border they view as a threat to the region's stability.

Yet Allawi's last government presided over monumental corruption and ministerial theft. According to Marc Lynch at The Guardian, Allawi in power would mean the end of democratic dreams for Iraq, for now at least:

An Allawi return would mean a decisive break with even the pretence of caring about a democratic Iraq. He would return as a nationalist strongman, putting security (and American priorities) first, while always keeping in mind that elections are not his friend. The legendary corruption of his first government offers a preview of what to expect. So do his easy use of violence against both Sunni and Shia groups, his harsh repression of the media, and his generally anti-democratic instincts. From the vantage point of the emerging "new Middle East", sadly, this anti-democratic profile is an asset rather than a curse. This "Not-Dam Hussein" would be far more amenable to America's friendly Arab tyrants than is any elected, Shia, pro-Iranian alternative...He offers the fantasy of an easy solution to an intractable problem - a "magic bullet" which will only lead us deeper into fiasco.