IRBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan: In and of themselves, the audio recordings are scarcely newsworthy. They simply confirm what is a matter of public knowledge in Iraq: That the antipathy between two of the country’s most powerful Shiite power brokers, Nouri Al-Maliki and Muqtada Al-Sadr, is deep, and their relations with other Iraqi politicians complicated.
The real significance of the recordings, according to analysts, lies in their revelation of the deep divisions and enmities that plague Iraqi politics, and are likely to continue hindering the process of government formation in the months to come.
In the recordings, known in Iraq as the “Maliki Wikileaks,” the man who served as prime minister between 2006 and 2014 is heard denouncing his political rivals and talking about an imminent civil war.
“Iraq is on the verge of a devastating war from which no one will emerge unscathed, unless the project of Muqtada Al-Sadr, Masoud Barzani, and Muhammad Al-Halbousi is defeated … and if necessary, I will attack Najaf,” Al-Maliki is heard declaring in one of the many recordings, whose authenticity he disputes.
He even claims the British are behind a conspiracy to place Al-Sadr in charge of Iraqi Shiites and then assassinate him, paving the way for the restoration of Sunni rule over the country
The recordings, released by journalist and activist Ali Fadhel, appear to be at least two months old since they refer to the tripartite Save the Homeland parliamentary coalition — consisting of the Sadrist Movement, Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Halbousi’s Progress Party — that competed against the pro-Iran Shiite parties under the umbrella of the Coordination Framework, of which Al-Maliki’s State of Law is a part.
Al-Sadr ordered all 73 of his MPs to resign in mid-June after months of trying to form a majority government without the Framework, which favors another consensus-type government that has been the norm in post-2003 Iraq.
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