The New York Times, the spokesman for the Obama Administration’s attempts to maneuver Prime Minister al-Maliki out of power or push him to “reform”, reveals high-level discussions in Iraq.
Alarmed over the Sunni insurgent mayhem convulsing Iraq, the country’s political leaders are actively jockeying to replace Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, American and Iraqi officials said Thursday.
The political leaders have been encouraged by what they see as newfound American support for replacing Mr. Maliki with someone more acceptable to Iraq’s Sunnis and Kurds, as well as to the Shiite majority.
The Times says two leading politicians — Sunni Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi and Ahmad Chalabi, the prominent Shia figure whom the US tried to install after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 — have met US Ambassador Robert S. Beecroft and Brett McGurk, the senior State Department official on Iraq and Iran.
“Brett and the ambassador met with Mr. Nujaifi yesterday and they were open about this: they do not want Maliki to stay,” Nabil al-Khashab, the senior political adviser to Mr. Nujaifi, said.
Khashab continued, “We will not allow a third term for the prime minister; they must change him if they want things to calm down.”
McGurk denied that US diplomats were trying to forge a coalition to choose a new Prime Minister, “That is 100 percent not true.”
However, the Ambassador and McGurk are meeting the Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani over the weekend.
The Foreign Minister of the Kurdish Regional Government, Falah Mustafa, said the Americans would urge a unity government.
Vice President Biden accompanied the discussions with phone calls on Wednesday to Barzani and Nujaifi.