Nouri al-Maliki
Nouri Kamil Muhammad-Hasan al-Maliki (Arabic: نوري كامل محمد حسن المالكي; born 20 June 1950), also known as Jawad al-Maliki (جواد المالكي), is an Iraqi politician and leader of the Islamic Dawa Party since 2007. He served as the Prime Minister of Iraq from 2006 to 2014 and as Vice President from 2014 to 2015 and again from 2016 to 2018.
Nouri al-Maliki
Fuad Masum
Himself
Vacant
Fuad Masum
Himself
Jawad al-Bulani
Faleeha Khalil
Muhammad Hasan Abi al-Mahasin (grandfather)
5
Usul al-Din College
University of Salahaddin
Al-Maliki began his political career as a Shia dissident opposed to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in the late 1970s, and rose to prominence after he fled a death sentence and went into exile for 24 years. During his time abroad, he became a senior leader of the Islamic Dawa Party, coordinated the activities of anti-Saddam guerrillas, and built relationships with officials from Iran and Syria, seeking their help in overthrowing Saddam's government. Both during and after the American-led occupation of Iraq (2003–2011), al-Maliki worked closely with the Multi-National Force (MNF–I), and continued to cooperate with the United States following the withdrawal from Iraq.
Three years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, al-Maliki became the country's first post-Saddam full-term prime minister after he was appointed to the position by the MNF–I's leading American authority Michael Douglas Barbero. The first-term al-Maliki administration succeeded the Iraqi Transitional Government; his first cabinet was approved by the Iraqi National Assembly and formally sworn in on 20 May 2006. His second cabinet, in which he also held the positions of acting Interior Minister, acting Defense Minister, and acting National Security Minister, was approved on 21 December 2010. In the wake of a string of defeats to the Islamic State during their Northern Iraq offensive, American officials said that al-Maliki should give up his premiership.[3] Two months later, on 14 August 2014, he announced his resignation as prime minister.[4] During his eight years in power from 2006 to 2014, allegations of corruption were widespread, with hundreds of billions of dollars allegedly vanishing from government coffers.[5] He was criticized by American officials[6] and by local Iraqis for empowering Shia militias, for his close ties with Iranian government/military officials,[7] and for fuelling Iraqi sectarian violence by favouring Shia political/military figures over Kurds and Sunni Arabs as well as other non-Shia minorities.[8][9] In September 2014, al-Maliki was elected as one of three of Iraq's vice presidents, an office he held despite attempts to abolish the post.[10]
Early life and education[edit]
Nouri al-Maliki was born in the village of Janaja in Abu Gharaq, a central Iraqi town situated between Karbala and Al Hillah. He is a member of the Al-Ali Tribe, an offshoot of the Bani Malik tribe. He attended school in Al Hindiyah (Hindiya). Al-Maliki received his high school degree from Hindiya city and moved to Baghdad with his family. Al-Maliki lived for a time in Al Hillah, where he worked in the education department. His grandfather, Muhammad Hasan Abi al-Mahasin, was a poet and cleric who was the representative of the Revolutionary Council (Al-Majlis Al-Milli) of the Iraqi revolution against the British in 1920, and was Iraq's Minister of Education under King Faisal I.[11]
Exile and return to Iraq[edit]
On 16 July 1979, al-Maliki fled Iraq after he was discovered to be a member of the outlawed Islamic Dawa Party. According to a brief biography on the Islamic Dawa Party's website, he left Iraq via Jordan in October, and soon moved to Syria, adopting the pseudonym "Jawad". He left Syria for Iran in 1982, where he lived in Tehran until 1990, before returning to Damascus where he remained until U.S.-led coalition forces invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam's regime in 2003.[12] While living in Syria, he worked as a political officer for Dawa, developing close ties with Hezbollah and particularly with the Iranian government, supporting Iran's effort to topple Saddam's regime.[13]
While living in Damascus, al-Maliki edited the party newspaper Al-Mawqif and rose to head the party's Damascus branch. In 1990, he joined the Joint Action Committee and served as one of its rotating chairman. The committee was a Damascus-based opposition coalition for a number of Hussein's opponents.[12] The Dawa Party participated in the Iraqi National Congress between 1992 and 1995, withdrawing because of disagreements over who should head it.[14]
Upon his return to his native Iraq after the fall of Saddam in April 2003, al-Maliki became the deputy leader of the Supreme National Debaathification Commission of the Iraqi Interim Government, formed to purge former Baath Party officials from the military and government. He was elected to the transitional National Assembly in January 2005. He was a member of the committee that drafted the new constitution that was passed in October 2005.
Sunni friction[edit]
Maliki's critics assert that he did his utmost to limit the power of both Kurds and Sunnis between 2006 and 2014. Their view is that Maliki worked to further centralise governance and amass greater controls and power—from militarily to legislative—for his party. Instead of strengthening and securing Iraq, Maliki's actions have led to a rise in both Kurdish nationalism and Sunni insurgency, which has resulted in civil war and the effective failure of the Iraqi state.[44]
The reign of al-Maliki has been described as sectarian by both Sunni Iraqis and western analysts; something which helped fuel a Sunni uprising in the country in 2014.[45] During the Northern Iraq offensive, beginning in June 2014, ISIS vowed to take power away from al-Maliki, who called upon Kurdish forces to help keep Iraq out of the hands of ISIS, as well as air support from American drones in order to eliminate dangerous jihadist elements in the country, which was refused by the United States, as "administration spokesmen have insisted that the United States is not actively considering using warplanes or armed drones to strike [jihadist havens]."
The announcement of al-Maliki's resignation on 14 August 2014 and the leadership transition to Haider al-Abadi caused a major realignment of Sunni Arab public opinion away from armed opposition groups and to the Iraqi government, since many Iraqi Sunni Arabs were optimistic that the new government would address their grievances and deliver more public goods and services to them than the government led by al-Maliki.[46]
Later duties[edit]
On 26 January 2013 al-Maliki's opponents passed a law[61] which prohibited al-Maliki from running for a third term but an Iraqi court later rejected it.[62]
By August 2014, al-Maliki lost all his chances to win a third term in office.[63]
On 8 September 2014, during approval of the new government led by Haider al-Abadi, al-Maliki was named one of the three vice presidents, a prestigious albeit largely ceremonial post.[64]
On 11 August 2015, the Parliament approved a reform package by Prime Minister al-Abadi that foresaw, among other measures, the elimination of the three vice president posts.[65] However, following a lawsuit opened by fellow Vice President Usama al-Nujayfi, al-Maliki declared in September 2015 that he was still holding his office because the removal of the post was not in line with the Iraqi Constitution.[10] Osama al-Nujaifi filed a complaint against the decision in November 2015, considering it to be against the Constitution.[66] On 10 October 2016, the three posts of Vice Presidents were restored by the Supreme Court of Iraq which termed their abolition as unconstitutional.[1]
Personal life[edit]
Al-Maliki is married to Faleeha Khalil, with whom he has four daughters and one son. His son Ahmed was head of Al-Maliki's security, and two of his sons-in-law also worked in his office.[67]
On 26 April 2006, al-Maliki stopped using the pseudonym Jawad which he had used since moving to Syria in the early 1980s.[68] However, the pseudo- or code name (Kunya) "Abu Esraa" (father of Esraa – his eldest daughter) is still occasionally heard on Iraqi satellite media, because it is very common in Arab culture (and in Iraqi culture in particular) to call someone by his eldest child's name, especially among his close friends and followers.