Juan Cole: Iraq Declines to Cut Syria Off

http://www.juancole.com/2011/08/iraq-declines-to-cut-syria-off.html

As Syria passed another bloody Friday of protests, Arab journalists and now the New York Times are noting that the Iraqi government of PM Nouri al-Maliki has declined to withdraw its ambassador from Damascus or to put any significant pressure on Syria with regard to the suppression of protests. The NYT speculates that Baghdad has succumbed to pressure from Iran, Syria’s chief ally and the broker of al-Maliki’s own parliamentary majority.

In contrast, Agence France Presse attributes the Shiite government’s reluctance to take a stand against Bashar al-Asad to fears that hard line Salafi Sunnis might come to power in Damascus if al-Asad falls, and to feelings of solidarity with a fellow Shiite (al-Asad belongs to the folk-Shiite Allawite sect, which differs substantially from the bookish Twelver Shiism of Iraq and Iran, but which is closer to them than it is to Sunnism).

Al-Maliki has called for reforms in Syria, and a foreign ministry official has urged the regime to compromise with protesters, careful to condemn violent dissidents as well as government crackdowns. But recently he has warned the protest movement against undermining the Syrian government.

In contrast to the Iraqi executive, the parliament has recently strongly deplored the government’s use of violence against protesters. Two major blocs in parliament, the Kurdistan Alliance and the Sunni-dominated Iraqiya Party, are not Shiite and have ties to protesters in Syria, whether Kurds or Sunni Arabs. The Speaker of parliament is a Sunni Arab from Mosul who has strongly condemned the Baath government’s repression.