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Do not look now, but democratic politics is booming in Baghdad.
Fifteen years after President George W. Bush was upset over trying to forcibly implant a representative democracy in the heart of the Middle East, the Iraqi political class had just gone through a major transition – albeit disorganized – executive power in which elected horse trade parties produce moderate and compromised candidates for the president and the prime minister.
"Iraq begins a new phase, a new era," Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Mahjoub said on Wednesday after the deadlock for months after an unsuccessful election. May known in Washington as president and Shiite politician Adel Abdul-Mahdi as prime minister.
In a political landscape torn by interfaith tensions and the rivalry of Iran and the United States, the two men are considered reliable choices, halfway.
"We have made great progress," Mahjoub told reporters at a roundtable at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. "It was unexpected that things are going so well," he said. "The Iraqi people are very optimistic about these events and these candidates."
The Trump administration Wednesday echoed his hope.
"These are people we know pretty well," state secretary Mike Pompeo told reporters. "They have been on the Iraqi government scene for quite some time.
"I am hopeful that we can continue to work with the Iraqi people and the new Iraqi government, which will soon be fully formed, to deal with this," said Pompeo.
The process was not always pretty.
The date of the initial vote of September 2017 was postponed as the government fought to subject the latest Islamic State enclaves to the north. During the May 12 poll, the electronic voting system prompted numerous complaints, which led to a manual recount a month later. The integrity of the vote was further darkened by a devastating fire on a storage site containing a large number of paper ballots.
The question of Iranian influence occupies a prominent place. In addition to sharing a border of more than 900 km with Iran and hosting each year more than 2 million Iranian pilgrims to Shiite holy sites in Iraq, the Iraqi electricity sector is highly dependent on Iranian natural gas.
Salih and Abdul-Mahdi are facing daunting tasks – not only trying to revive the badly damaged economy of Iraq and to address ethnic tensions after four years of war with the extremist group Sunni, but also to rebalance relations with the United States. United States and Iran.
Baghdad considers the two countries as allies, even as Washington seeks to isolate Iran and crush its influence in the Middle East through new US economic sanctions as part of President Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal. Iran of 2015.
The hidden hand of Iran?
On Wednesday, Mr Pompeo did not hide his frustration at what the administration described as an Iranian interference in Iraq.
He accused Tehran-backed proxies of having recently attacked US diplomatic posts, including a rocket attack targeting the US consulate in Basra, southern Iraq, which resulted in the withdrawal of the American staff of the facility.
"We can see the hand of [Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,] and his henchmen supporting these attacks, "said Pompeo, who hinted that the government was weighing military strikes or any other form of retaliation against proxies in Iraq backed by Iran.
The question is delicate for Baghdad, who denies the existence of such agents.
"There are no forces or military groups in Iraq that receive orders from abroad, whether they are from Iran or from another country," he said. said Mr. Mahjoub. "I do not know the source of the information available to Mr. Pompeo on the role of Iran in the threats against the US consulate in Basra."
The spokesman for the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said the recent protests and violence in the south of the country were "a normal expression of democracy" and that Iraqi officials "regretted that riots had occurred and that some been attacked ". Many events focused on the weakness of the economy and the region. the poor state of public services.
Mahjoub said he hoped Iraq could be "a bridge" between Washington and Tehran and urged US diplomats to return quickly to the Basra consulate, where the Iranian consulate was also recently attacked.
"Iraq does not want relations between Iran and the United States to affect relations between the United States and Iraq," he said.
For the moment, the emergence of MM. Salih and Abdul-Mahdi seem to be something that Washington and Tehran consider a good thing.
Iran welcomed the outcome of the coalition talks on Tuesday evening, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry expressing hope that this would result in strengthening "long-standing, firm and fraternal ties between the two neighbors, "according to Iranian media.
Compromise candidates
Under an unofficial agreement dating back to the 2003 US invasion, the Iraqi presidency – an essentially ceremonial role – is assumed by a Kurd, while the prime minister is Shiite and the president of the Sunni Parliament. The position of the speaker remains to be grasped.
Salih and Abdul-Mahdi are long-time members of Iraq's political class over the past 15 years.
Mr Salih was Irish Planning Minister and Prime Minister of the Kurdish Autonomous Region.
Abdul-Mahdi emerged as a compromise candidate after two Shiite-led blocs led the May vote, but did not win an absolute majority. He had the strong support of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a fiery nationalist whose supporters won the most seats in the May elections and who formed a bloc with the current prime minister, Haider al-Abadi.
The other bloc, dominated by politicians and militia leaders closer to Iran, first rejected Mr. Abdul-Mahdi and then agreed to support him after the Sunni and Kurdish parties rallied behind him. his side, said a Shiite politician at the Associated Press talks.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a high-ranking Shiite cleric and influential political voice, has made it clear through mediators that the position of prime minister should not be the responsibility of someone who once held this position and who advocated consensus. "L & # 39; s opinion [Tuesday] Abdul-Mahdi had to be charged quickly so as not to delay the process, "said the political officer at the AP.
Mr. Abdul-Mahdi, a trained economist from an important Shiite tribe based in southern Iraq, spent several years in exile in France, where he worked for think tanks and published magazines in French and Arabic.
He joined the Iraqi Communist Party in the 1970s, but later joined the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an exiled opposition group based in neighboring Iran. He remained in SCIRI, which became a powerful religious party after the 2003 US invasion, until the split of the party last year, when he became independent.
After the invasion, he held the positions of Vice President, Minister of Finance and Minister of Petroleum. He has 30 days to submit his Cabinet to Parliament for approval.
Iraqi officials said they expect the process of building a new government to be swift.
"If we had these two guys four years ago, the situation would have been totally different," said one official.
Mr. Mahjoub told reporters that Mr. Abdul-Mahdi's economic background was exactly what Iraq needs today.
"He is one of the leading economists in Iraq and the world," said the Foreign Ministry spokesman. "This gives us hope that Iraq can overcome its economic crisis."
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