During these debates, since December 2009 and the first week of January 2010, there have been important visits on the line of Baghdad-Washington-Erbil. Firstly, the Vice President of Iraq Adil Abdul-Mahdi who is a Shia visited Washington in January 12, 2010. Then, upon the President Obama’s invitation the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, with a broad committee was in Washington in January,23. On the day when Barzani went to the USA, the Vice President of the USA, Jeo Biden, was in Baghdad and met with senior authorities (the President Jalal Talabani, the Prime Minister al-Maliki, and Iraqi parliament speaker al-Samarai). Moreover, it is expected that the Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who vetoed the Iraqi elections law for twice, and approximately thirty Iraqi authorities will visit the USA.
Considering the developments in Iraq offering an insight to this visiting traffic, it appears that “the Ba’ath Factor” that threatens the new future of Iraq has an important role in Baghdad administration. According to the accounts of Iraqi authorities, there are about 30 thousand Ba’ath people working in critical institutions in Iraq. As a measure for this situation, according to the decision of The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, it was forbidden that 511 candidates in a relationship with the Ba’ath Party could not participate in the elections. The fact that the candidacy of Saleh Al-Maliki, who heads the Iraqi National Front and supported by many Sunnis, will be cancelled in the following elections will trigger the ethnic and denominational conflicts in Iraq. Therefore, the Sunni resistance upon the 2003 elections in Iraq may rise again.
The Obama administration has already started to meet with important names in Iraq for the reshaping of Iraq and this brings this question into the mind: Does the USA assemble the new administration before the Iraq elections? In order to clarify the situation, the fact that Obama has been frequently meeting with Iraqi authorities means that the USA has started to create the core of the administration, which will be determined with the March elections. However, it is challenging that the Prime Minister Maliki was not among the Iraqi authorities whom Obama met in Washington. That the rumors of Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who is the member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Vice President of Iraq, will be the president of the administration according to the Arab press have been supported by these attitudes of Obama.
Consequently, it can be expected that internal dynamics in Iraq will change after the general elections which will be held in March,7. If Obama administration really wants an Iraq free from violence and terror, first of the important steps should be the formation of an administration that will keep Iraq united and will stay out of ethnic and denominational conflicts. Otherwise, it can be said that there will be a darker future waiting for Iraq after the elections. It will be better for the solution of the Kirkuk problem if there will be a common effort of all ethnicities in Kirkuk (Turkmen, Arab, Kurdish, and Kildu-Asuri) in a short time rather than a fait accompli. It is very probable that on the following days violence and terrorist attacks will rise with the escalation of election rivalry. Therefore, it is very important to have more security forces particularly in disputed enclaves (Kirkuk, Mosul, and Diyala province) and to take extensive security measures.
Ali Semin, Assistant