KURDS STILL SEEKING CHANCE TO REPLACE MALIKI

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 000066 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/08/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS PINR IZ SUBJECT: KURDS STILL SEEKING CHANCE TO REPLACE MALIKI REF: A. BAGHDAD 04090 ¶B. BAGHDAD 03913 Classified By: Ambassador Ryan Crocker for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Kurdish leaders have agreed not to remove Prime Minister Maliki in the short term, but have little faith in him and probably would move to replace him if not for the Secretary,s strong message that Iraqi leaders must focus on issues instead of personalities. While that message registered, subsequent statements by Kurdish leaders have not demonstrated much appetite for rapprochement with the Prime Minister. The Kurds continue to criticize Maliki,s perceived failure to break the political stalemate in Baghdad, and disparage his leadership after clashing with the PM on core Kurdish issues - the Kurdistan Regional Government,s (KRG) unilateral oil production and development contracts, Iraq,s long-term security relationship with Washington, federal funding for the Peshmerga, and the delayed Article 140 process. Maliki,s governing coalition depends on Kurdish support and the Kurds probably would have little trouble removing Maliki through the Council of Representatives (COR),but there is no guarantee they could muster a majority behind any replacement, including their preferred candidate, Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi. The Kurds will likely continue maneuvering behind the scenes to broker a new governing coalition in the hope of jettisoning Maliki after the anticipated congressional testimony in March. End summary. Can Maliki win the Kurds back? -------------- ¶2. (C) The Kurdish leadership reluctantly accepted the message from the Secretary, the Ambassador, and others that now is not the time to replace the PM, and instead have offered Maliki a window to break the national political stalemate before they attempt to replace him. Kurdish leaders on 24 December signed an agreement with the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP),the purpose of which both the Kurds and IIP head Tariq al-Hashemi have said is to show Maliki they have other political options if he fails to change his ways. Two days later, Kurdish leaders sent Maliki a letter - to which Hashemi told the Ambassador he contributed - demanding steps Maliki must take on national (rather than Kurd-specific) issues. These included implementing the 26 August leaders, agreement, empowering the cabinet at the expense of Maliki,s inner circle, and strengthening relationships with provincial governments and neighboring countries. Barham Salih told the Ambassador the Kurds would form a committee to work with Maliki on these objectives and monitor his progress; senior Kurdish MP Mahmud Uthman said it already has been established but did not know its membership. The letter offers no timelines or specific benchmarks that would keep Kurdish leaders in Maliki,s coalition. More importantly, several top Kurdish leaders say they have no expectation Maliki will meet these objectives. Why are the Kurds so frustrated? -------------- ¶4. (C) While months of political stagnation in Baghdad have created a crescendo of Kurdish frustration with Maliki, that frustration peaked because of the confluence of four key disputes: KRG oil contracts, Iraq,s long-term relationship with the US, funding for the Peshmerga, and Article 140. The most serious is the oil dispute - not only has Maliki challenged contracts Erbil considers vital to its future economic viability, but the Baghdad government,s perceived unwillingness to compromise on the issue has left Kurdish interlocutors feeling negotiations are futile. Some of the feud derives from the personal animosity between Oil Minister Shahristani and KRG Oil Minister Hawrami, but the dispute has a substantive basis going beyond a ministerial rivalry. As KRG PM Nechirvan Barzani told Maliki in December, if Shahristani spoke for Maliki when he called the recent KRG oil contracts "illegal," then the Kurds could no longer be part of his government. (Reftel A) ¶5. (C) The Kurds had a generally peripheral role in the arduous negotiations over the SPD and UNSCR renewal, but the intransigence of Maliki and his advisors threatened another core Kurdish priority: the long-term role of the US in Iraq. Kurdish politicians still tell us regularly they want a permanent US presence in Iraq, specifically in Kurdistan, and Barzani in late December told the Ambassador he could not leave the future of this relationship in the hands of an unpredictable team like Maliki,s inner circle (reftel B). Talabani told Ambassador Satterfield in November that he had threatened to pull the Kurdish ministers out of the cabinet if Maliki continued to obstruct the SPD (reftel B). ¶6. (C) The Kurdish bloc in the COR in has clashed with BAGHDAD 00000066 002 OF 003 Maliki over funding for the Peshmerga, a seemingly simple budget issue that has also festered because of Maliki,s perceived unwillingness to compromise. The root conflict is over who will pay for the Peshmerga: the Kurds define them as a national security force which the GOI should fund separately from the 17% of the budget allocated to the KRG, while Maliki defines them as a regional security force that the Kurds must fund with their 17% allotment. This was one of Nechirvan Barzani,s primary discussion topics on his mid-December Baghdad trip, and while several Kurdish interlocutors anticipated it would be the least contentious issue, the two governments made no breakthrough. ¶7. (C) Finally, while even the Kurds do not blame this issue only on the GOI, the Article 140 deadline expired on December ¶31. The major Kurdish parties had long since realized the referendum on disputed territories would not occur on time. Nevertheless, the arrival of the deadline and the complaints it unleashed among Kurdish politicians, journalists, and citizens shone a brighter spotlight on the national government,s paralysis, and the deleterious effect this paralysis has had on the Kurdistan region,s efforts to consolidate all it has gained since 2003. ¶8. (C) We have seen symbolic steps forward on some of these issues in the last month, but they probably are insufficient to temper Kurdish anger. Maliki and the younger Barzani agreed on the last day of his visit to establish a committee to examine the oil issue, consisting of two constitutional experts, the COR Energy Committee, Hawrami, and former GOI Oil Minister Thamir Ghadban (a mild concession to the Kurds, who refuse to work with Shahristani). This agreement resolves nothing of the substantive dispute, however, and may serve only to formalize the unproductive discussions already underway. On Article 140, SRSG De Mistura brokered an encouraging agreement to postpone the referendum and allow for a helpful UN role, but the Kurds remain suspicious that Article 140 is being shunted off on the UN in order to slow or prevent progress. Separately, Maliki condemned Kurdish civilian deaths during a mid-December Turkish bombing. The statement fell far short of condemning the Turkish campaign itself, however, and did little either to placate Masud Barzani,s rage or to counter the appearance of GOI fecklessness when Kurdish territory comes under attack. Trouble Ahead? -------------- ¶9. (C) The question is whether the Kurds will become angry enough with Maliki to disregard the advice of their key allies, both in and outside Iraq. Kurdish officials probably hope U.S. officials will be more amenable to leadership change if several more months pass without significant political progress. One risk is that the Kurds might try to slow-roll progress on reconciliation so as to undermine Maliki in the run up to the anticipated congressional testimony in mid-March, although we have seen no indication they are doing this so far. Another possibility is that the Kurds will not only assemble the votes to oust Maliki (which they could easily do with the cooperation of Tawafuq, Fadhila, Iraqiyya, and the Sadrists),but will also build a consensus on Maliki,s successor - which might persuade otherwise lukewarm Maliki backers to finally pull the plug on his premiership. Who would come next? -------------- ¶10. (C) All indications are that the Kurds prefer Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi as the next Prime Minister. Abd al-Mahdi enjoys close relations and similar politics with President Talabani, and in recent weeks both KRG representative to Baghdad Dilshad Miran and Mahmud Uthman have identified Abd al-Mahdi as the Kurds, consensus favorite. Miran added that while the Kurds have reservations about former Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, they would accept him, the implication being that Maliki,s removal is valuable enough in itself to tolerate a potentially mediocre successor. Indeed, the mere process of elevating a new head of government could benefit the Kurds - as a likely "swing vote" for any candidate attempting to accumulate a majority in the COR, they are in a position to extract concessions on oil, 140, or any other issue, regardless of the candidate. Miran also added, however, that former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi would not be an acceptable candidate. Comment -------------- ¶11. (C) While the Kurds may hope engineering Maliki,s departure will advance their interests, there is no guarantee that a new Prime Minister - even one as seemingly sympathetic as Adil Abd al-Mahdi - would achieve breakthroughs on BAGHDAD 00000066 003 OF 003 unilateral oil contracts, Article 140, a permanent U.S. presence in Kurdistan, legislation in Baghdad, or stability in Iraq,s many conflict zones. Maliki,s perceived unhelpfulness to the Kurds on these issues reflects deep and ongoing disagreements along Iraq,s ethnic and communal divides that transcend any one leader. Regardless of who holds the office of Prime Minister, the Kurds must prepare for difficult negotiations on the very issues on which they have assailed Maliki,s performance. CROCKER