BAGHDAD — Major Iranian-backed Shiite groups announced a new alliance Monday but excluded the Iraqi prime minister. The move puts pressure on Nouri al-Maliki to strike a deal with Sunni parties if he hopes to keep his job after January's parliamentary elections.
Monday's announcement represented a major realignment in the Iraqi political scene, breaking up a Shiite coalition that has dominated Iraq's government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The new bloc, called the Iraqi National Alliance, will include the largest Shiite party, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, or SIIC, and anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc, both of which have close ties to Tehran, as well as some small Sunni and secular parties.
If the alliance does well in the Jan. 16 vote, Tehran could gain deeper influence in Iraq just as U.S. forces begin to withdraw. The last American soldier is scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.
It's also likely to worry Sunnis who largely consider the Supreme Council as little more than an instrument of Iranian policy - exacerbating sectarian divisions at a time when violence that had waned is again on the rise.
Left outside of the alliance, al-Maliki appears to be trying to cast himself as a Shiite leader who can draw in minority Sunnis and Kurds.
The realignment does not immediately threaten al-Maliki's position as prime minister, but points to stormy politics in the election campaign and beyond, as U.S. troops prepare to withdraw.
Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
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