Tareq al-Hashemi: Nouri al-Maliki Is Becoming A New Saddam Hussein

Foreign Policy:

Shortly before a wave of 15 bombings ripped through Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing more than 60 people, Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi warned that a simultaneous political crisis in the country could spiral "beyond control." In an interview with Foreign Policy on Wednesday from Sulaymaniyah in Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region where the vice president has fled to evade an arrest warrant, Hashemi declared that the Iraqi political system is "drifting from building democracy to building an autocratic regime" -- and implied that Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was becoming a new Saddam Hussein.

Read the whole story: Foreign Policy

Comments

[karim banned]

11:35 AM on 12/23/2011

Tareq al-Hashemi is a terrorist.

His bodyguards confessed about multiple bombings!

Why the media in West are ignoring important facts.

[dim]

03:07 PM on 12/24/2011

Facts are decided by juries. So far these are allegations.

[getoffmedz]

11:08 AM on 12/23/2011

Nouri al-Maliki is the Bush Administration's guy.

FACT.

[dim]

03:15 PM on 12/24/2011

The Bush Administration is in the past, this guy is in the present.

[getoffmedz]

09:01 PM on 12/24/2011

True but he is still there.

[AndyB62]

10:53 AM on 12/23/2011

This is what happens when you invade a country without any plan for the aftermath. Bush, the gift that keeps on giving.

[korbendal]

10:38 AM on 12/23/2011

a waste of soldier lives and tax payer money for 10 years...

I always laugh when Bush, and other politicians claimed that we have to fight them there, so we won't have to fight them on American soil.

Us being there, getting involved in other nation's governments is why they hate us.

The Cold War is over guys.. bring our soldiers back home.

[AndyB62]

11:01 AM on 12/23/2011

Hey, remember the good old days when the repubs started a war of choice and then enacted tax cuts without any care about how to pay for them? Thank god the repubs are now very concerned that the 2 month extension of payroll tax cuts haven't been paid for. They really are the party of fiscal responsibility, aren't they?

[korbendal]

11:15 AM on 12/23/2011

you're right...
The Bush Tax Cuts haven't been payed off either..

[Ironsi]

10:36 AM on 12/23/2011

Actually, any intelligent person knew it was only a matter time, except Bush and Cheney.

Eventually, Nouri al-Maliki will need the army to further consolidate power.

Then, ultimately, the military will seize power for themselve. And why not? It will take tough dictatorship to govern the warring tribes.

We all know how dictatorships turn out.

[Donns]

10:23 AM on 12/23/2011

Whatever happened to Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner? Did somebody display that when the last soldier left?

[AndyB62]

11:02 AM on 12/23/2011

Haliburton had a no-bid contract to combine the banner with the US constitution and make toilet paper out of them.

[nastywolf]

10:20 AM on 12/23/2011

Now, now! Let's maintain some perspective. al-Maliki's Iraqi democracy is rising to the fast-sinking level of Korporate Neo-Amerikan democracy, here at home...so what's the big difference?

[nirek]

10:15 AM on 12/23/2011

You can't help people who don't want your help.
The Iraqi people didn't want us there and they don't like their own countrymen so let them fight it out.

[RichardinJax]

11:17 AM on 12/23/2011

Bravo...

[tanto]

10:11 AM on 12/23/2011

This is the start of a massive civil war as Iran works to control Iraq. 24 hrs after our last troops left the country and Iran is already destabilizing the country. Almost like they had it planned.

[The Contrary]

10:00 AM on 12/23/2011

Won't be surprised if Faux News pundits like Dollar Bill O'REALLY and "Hannibal Lecter" Hannity and neo-cons Republic'CONS' will say to Obama, "You need to restore democracy to Iraq by sending back American troops as long as they are not mine kids or my relatives." Just the other 99%.

LOL. When was the last time democracy was found and sustained in the Muslim world?

America isn't too far behind if the Americans turning over our democracy responsibilities to those feudal lords (the 1%) and corporations.

[Fit2betied]

09:54 AM on 12/23/2011

America's foreign policy is by definition insanity. We keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again expecting a different outcome. The proof is in the results:

Korea
Vietnam
Iraq
Afghanistan

Has the US government learned anything from it's foreign policy blunders of the last 50 years? Will it ever learn? Sadly it's my view that the answer is NO. What's even more sad is the government will continue to steal our hard earned tax dollars to pay for this failed policy. The time is long overdue for the American People to have the final word regarding foreign policy and use of the military. The best way to achieve that is to slash the military budget by 75% or more. Let's take a play out of the Republican playbook and de-fund the US MIC.

If the money that funded these conflicts had been put to better use we could have wiped out poverty, funded free education and health care for each and every American.

[nastywolf]

10:17 AM on 12/23/2011

F#486 for Truth!

[Fit2betied]

10:29 AM on 12/23/2011

Thanks!

Fanned back

[karim banned]

11:37 AM on 12/23/2011

Support Ron Paul, he is a non-interventionist!

[ConcernedCitizen78]

09:44 AM on 12/23/2011

These guys are suicidal, or stupid! To say one of their leaders is a new Saddam Hussein is to invite another US invasion! What are they thinking!!??

[dim]

03:30 PM on 12/24/2011

We can't afford another invasion and they know it.

[The Mikester]

09:27 AM on 12/23/2011

the only thing I care about is "has the US finally learned anything from foreign adventures?"

My answer is that there are still an awful lot of people in the US that have learned nothing for this huge loss that will haunt our economy for decades.

[Titus]

09:25 AM on 12/23/2011

"Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss"....

[rothomaha]

09:10 AM on 12/23/2011

How could this be a surprise to anyone? We marched in on false premises, overthrew a sovereign government(whether we liked it or not we had no right nor reason), destroyed the infrastructure(they still don't have reliable electricity or water supplies), killed more than 100,000 citizens, men, women and children and declared it GOOD - "Now you have a democracy"! Hoo Ha! Humans EVOLVE into a democratic form of government, they don't subjugate themselves to it, and most certainly NOT after countless centuries of non-secular rule! With leadership like our own, we should not be criticizing theirs!