For these reasons, some will no doubt construe the de-Baathification of Mahmud as a welcome check on Maliki’s authoritarian tendencies. Still, those who celebrate this move should take into account the fact that the campaign against Midhat has been spearheaded by Shiite Islamist hardliners in the Sadrist camp. We can now ask the question of who the Sadrists will attack next using de-Baathification as a tool. For example, many of Maliki’s generals are also due for retirement if the de-Baathification law were to be followed to the letter. Some of these generals are part of the backbone of the system of relative security that has emerged in Iraq since 2008.
The secular and increasingly Sunni-dominated Iraqiyya’s support for the move is particularly ironic since Mahmud in many ways was one of them in the past. Their embrace of the decision (“finally the de-Baathification committee is taking on a Shiite” according to parliament speaker Nujayfi) in some ways goes to underline their own increasingly Sunni sectarian position. It could be argued that what we are seeing in practice here is that Iraqiyya effectively supports Kurdish separatist policies and Sadrist Islamist policies at the same time in order to weaken Maliki. It’s actually not the first instance of this either: Recently Iraqiyya asked the all-Shiite National Alliance and the clergy of Najaf to come up with a candidate to replace Maliki, thus similarly reiterating the idea of sectarian alliances and even a role for the clergy in politics. It is true that Maliki has failed to make political gain from the only remaining issues where he can expect to win some Sunni and secular support – anti-federalism and disputed-boundary conflicts with the Kurds – but Iraqiyya’s actions show that we should not one-sidedly accuse Maliki of being the single factor behind the recent increase in sectarianism in Iraq.
In some ways, Judge Midhat’s continued tenure at the supreme court symbolized the contradictions of the “State of Law” Iraq where the law makes surprising twists and turn and is certainly not applied equally across the board. But the political direction of all of this – with the Sadrists in an attack position and general sectarian polarization in the region thanks to the Syria conflict – suggests that in the long run, the situation in Iraq may be exacerbated rather than alleviated by these latest developments.
While I agree that the debaathification decision against Chief Justice Al-Mahmood was entirely political, the author's irresponsible statements about him such as:
"It is widely agreed that Mahmud’s leading positions under the former regime are in conflict with the requirements of the de-Baathification law from 2008 which are particularly strict when it comes to leadership of judicial institutions"
are in direct contradiction with the appeals panel's ruling quashing that decision. After reviewing the decision and all of the evidence presented (including Al-Mahmood's service record), the Cassation panel (which has the final say) concluded that there was absolutely no evidence that Al-Mahmood held any position in the Baath Party, nor any other position that would be barred under the 2008 Accountability and Justice Law.
Prior to making these unfounded statements, the author should do his research and be responsible about his statements.
A full apology is warranted here.
The author of the article, Reidar Visser, has issued the following comment:
"The appeals board for de-Baathification reversed the ruling and reinstated Midhat. The Sadrist head of the de-Baathification committee withdrew and the Sadrists were given another post. The reinstatement does seem like a whitewash when you look at the CV of Judge Midhat http://iraqja.iq/minister.php It is hard to imagine he could have achieved all that without being a high-ranking member of the Baath. It is also dubious whether the PM had the right to intervene in the de-Baathification committee structure. I will see if I can find something more specific on these issues later."