Finally, it was pressure from Iran on Muqtada al-Sadr that made possible the return of his old arch enemy, Maliki,[9]  to head the cabinet. At that time, Sadr had been living in Iran for about four years (early 2007-January 5, 2011) in a self-imposed exile, after the US army wanted him dead or alive.[10] Sadr delivered his bloc of 39 seats in the 2010 parliament in return for eight ministries in Maliki’s cabinet.[11] He returned to Iraq two weeks after Maliki became prime minister.[12]

 

On August 16, 2007, a new parliamentary alliance was made up of two Shi’ite parties, the Da’wa Party and SCIRI, and two Kurdish parties.[16] The new alliance excluded the Arab Sunnis. Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the Iraq Accord Front, criticized Maliki and Iran. In an email to the Associated Press, Dulaimi wrote that there was against Sunnis, “An unprecedented genocide campaign by the militias and death squads that are directed, armed and supported by Iran.”[17] Maliki’s sectarian and corrupt reign was described aptly in Foreign Policy:

 

The security sector, which had an annual budget greater than the budgets for education, health, and the environment combined, was subject to minimal oversight. Soldiers were enrolled and paid monthly salaries without reporting for duty. Overpriced and faulty equipment was procured using the laxest [sic] standards. Training sessions were financed on paper but never took place in practice. Appointments were politicized. Officers close to the prime minister’s office who failed to investigate leads on terrorist attacks were almost never held accountable for their actions. Even the most grotesque failures, including the military’s passivity in the face of regular attacks against Christians in Nineveh over a period of years, went unpunished. Morale among the rank and file was low, and there was very little desire to take risks on behalf of political elites who were viewed as wildly corrupt.[18]

 

Within a few months, the Awakening forces had reduced the level of violence considerably. In the Report to Congress dated September 26, 2008, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, it was stated that “Civilian deaths across Iraq have declined dramatically. During this reporting period, according to Coalition and Iraqi reports, there were 77 percent fewer deaths than during the same period one year ago.”[20]

 

The decline in violence was not entirely due to the Awakening project. The success was made possible through the cooperation of Iran. Tehran’s interest in calming matters down in Iraq during the remaining few month of the Bush administration’s term in office was designed to deflect a possible attack by the US over the Iran’s nuclear program. In October 2007, US military officials began noticing a decrease in the supply of Iranian weapons and assistance. Spokesman Col. Steven Boylan said General Petraeus observes that Iran is following through on promises it made to Iraqi and US officials not to provide aid to extremists in Iraq, adding, “we are ready to confirm the excellence of the senior Iranian leadership in their pledge to stop the funding, training, equipment and resourcing of the militia special groups.”[21] In a related development, on August 29, 2007, Muqtada al-Sadr suddenly ordered his Mahdi Army militia to suspend all acts of violence for six months and on February 23, 2008, Sadr extended the cease-fire for six additional months.[22]

 

US pressure made the Iraqi government agree to pay the salaries of the Awakening fighters[23] and to absorb up to 20 percent of the fighters into the Iraqi security forces, with others to be given government jobs.[24] However, the Maliki government reduced the monthly salary to $250 and absorption of Awakening fighters into the security forces was well below 20 percent. Maj. Gen. Mike Ferriter, deputy operations commander of the American-led forces, conceded at a press briefing that in the past year (2008), only 5,000 fighters had been integrated into the Iraqi security forces, mostly in the police. That was well short of Maliki’s pledge of 20,000 fighters.[25]

 

Maliki’s intention to dismantle the Awakening project became public knowledge. Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi said at a news conference, “We completely, absolutely reject the Awakening becoming a third military organization ... The groups would also not be allowed to have any infrastructure, such as a headquarters building, that would give them long-term legitimacy.”[26] Christopher Hill, US ambassador in Baghdad between 2009 and 2010 recalled how Maliki resisted paying Sunni Awakening fighters and how he doubted the entire project, “I had to go to him, sometimes on a weekly basis, just to make sure the check was indeed in the mail ... Just looking at his body language, he didn't believe in the whole venture ... Nothing was squared away in 2007.”[27] Sheikh Awad al-Harbousi, who lost a son, a father and four other relatives to al-Qaeda, said, “The Iraqi Army considers us members of al-Qaeda, not Awakening Council leaders. We sacrificed to kick out al-Qaeda, and this is their thank-you?”[28]

 

As long as US forces were in Iraq, Maliki camouflaged his true sectarian spots. Immediately after US forces left Iraq on December 18, 2011, he embarked upon an aggressive program of marginalization of Sunnis. The next day, on December 19, 2011, Maliki ordered the arrest of Iraq’s Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi. He accused Hashimi of running a death squad that assassinated Shiite officials.[29] Hashimi was sentenced to death in absentia on September 9, 2012. He had fled first to the largely autonomous Kurdish north, and from there to Qatar and on to Turkey.[30]

 

In public remarks after a meeting on December 12, 2011 with Maliki at the White House, Obama praised Maliki for leading “Iraq’s most inclusive government yet.” Iraq’s Sunni Deputy Prime Minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq, told CNN he was “shocked” by the president’s comments. “There will be a day,” he predicted, “whereby the Americans will realize that they were deceived by al-Maliki … and they will regret that.”[31]

 

Six senators sent the White House a letter before Maliki visited with Obama on November 1, 2013 warning that, “by too often pursuing a sectarian and authoritarian agenda, Prime Minister Maliki and his allies are disenfranchising Sunni Iraqis … This failure of governance is driving many Sunni Iraqis into the arms of Al-Qaeda.”[32] 

 

A just and fair-minded prime minister was needed for reconciliation and protection of the rights of all citizens, but Maliki’s pro-Iran policies and extreme sectarianism stood in the way. In reaction, Awakening’s tribesmen re-embraced al-Qaeda as if the Awakening project had never happened.