Counting Votes in Baghdad

Last night, at a Washington reception, I met Mohammed al-Daini, a member of the Iraqi parliament and the National Dialogue Front, a party with 11 seats in the Iraqi legislature. Daini is one of the 144 parliamentarians who are supporting legislation calling for the United States to withdraw its troops from Iraq. With 275 legislators in the parliament, the please-leave bloc is now a majority. The big question is, will this bill come up for a vote? And if it does and passes, how will George W. Bush and the Republicans respond?

Daini has become a controversial figure. Last year, he helped expose a clandestine torture jail operated by the Ministry of the Interior, a government agency controlled by Shiite politicians he opposes. He also maintains that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his political allies have been taking orders from Iran and cooperating with Shiite death squads. But Daini has been accused of ties to sectarian violence. (See The New York Times story here.) He's a Sunni whose father is a Sunni and whose mother is a Shiite. He's married to a Shiite. He calls himself a nationalist, and his party is led by a former Baath Party official. He wants U.S. troops out of Iraq and says he has no fear there will be an anti-Sunni massacre mounted by the Shiites, should the United States disengage. Talk of a post-withdrawal Sunni genocide--an argument used by war backers in the United States to sustain support for the war--is, he said, nothing more than the exploitation of "a false fear so the troops stay longer."

From a distance, it's tough to sort out the charges against Daini. But what was interesting was that he said he expects the legislation calling for a US troop pullout to come up for a vote within two months or so. Could Maliki block a vote? No, he said, adding, "Our democracy is not like your democracy, there is no veto. The parliament will pass this bill."

I can't assess his political handicapping acumen. But imagine if he's right. Could the United States maintain troops in Iraq if the parliament requests they leave? On Sunday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, "I want to assure you, if they vote to ask us to leave, we'll be glad to comply with their request." Other Republicans have expressed a similar sentiment. Such a vote, in fact, would take congressional GOPers, who are nervous about the war's impact on next year's elections, off the hook. They could call for disengagement, proclaiming that the Iraqi people have spoken.

But what if the parliament approves of such a measure and Maliki declares he wants (make that, needs) US troops to remain in Iraq? (Daini contends that American troops are propping up the corrupt Maliki government.) Would Bush consider Maliki's call to be the real voice of the Iraqi people? And how would other Republicans deal with this? There could well be a split in the GOP between those who will want to take the opportunity to blame the Iraqis and run (as McConnell seemingly desires) and those who will want to slog it out (as Senator John McCain so heartily advocates). A divide in Baghdad could lead to a fracture within the Republican Party--just in time for the presidential primary contest.

There's a lot of see-you-in-September sentiment in Washington at the moment, meaning that many legislators (particularly Republicans) are looking to back-to-school days to bring signs of indisputable progress in Iraq. If no such omens emerge, GOPers will start demanding Plan B, or C, or D, or perhaps a pulling of the plug. Should the Iraqi parliament pass a bill urging a US withdrawal, that would significantly affect the deliberations on Capitol Hill. As I said, I can't assess Daini's prediction that this measure will be okayed. But if he's right about that, the debate in Washington could soon experience a tectonic shift.

Posted by David Corn at May 18, 2007 01:36 PM