Yeah, You Already Know How this Will End

by Eric Martin

A rather significant development in Iraq:

Up to 35 officials in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior ranking as high as general have been arrested over the past three days with some of them accused of quietly working to reconstitute Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, according to senior security officials in Baghdad.

The arrests, confirmed by officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security as well as the prime minister’s office, included four generals. The officials also said that the arrests had come at the hand of an elite counterterrorism force that reports directly to the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

The involvement of the counterterrorism unit speaks to the seriousness of the accusations, and several officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security said that some of those arrested were in the early stages of planning a coup.

As Rob Farley noted, this coup looks more like it was initiated by Maliki (with a special armed force that answers directly to him), rather than targeting Maliki, as the official storyline suggests.  Details at this point are still sketchy, though there are some indications that electoral considerations were in play as well as a potential link to Syria.  While facts may come to light that change my initial impression, I can't help but think that this is yet another step in the process of Maliki consolidating power in a bid to become a strong man (or strong man-lite) in the new Iraq.

UPDATE: Spencer posits a theory:

[H]istorically, many an effort at consolidating power under a strong leader in weak-state conditions comes with the pretext at crushing a coup by forces of the ancien regime. Ask the Jacobins. Ask the Soviets. Ask the Maoists.

I'm not saying that I know this is what's happened. I absolutely don't. It's just something to be suspicious of, especially as, apparently, some of those arrested were Shiites, who make for unlikely Baathists. And the Interior Ministry is a real power center. The Los Angeles Times, I notice, adds this note of skepticism as well:

[...]In the past, Shiite political parties have used the allegations of membership in the Baath Party to purge senior Iraqi officers from the Interior and Defense ministries. Many of those expulsions have been considered cover to settle political or personal scores.

Comments

[Comrade Dread]

But, but, glorious Leader Bush said we brought freedom and Democracy to Iraq, so this can't be true!

[Fraud Guy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the initial plan in Iraq to install a friendly strongman (Chalabi) in power after some brief noises about democratic choice?

La plus ça change

[Eric Martin]

Yeah, but Maliki's not nearly as friendly as Chalabi would have been (or, at least, that it was assumed Chalabi would have been).

[Everett]

Nothing says "healthy democratic process" like summary arrests and disappearances of opposition figures...

[KCinDC]

Looks like things aren't working out as Maliki had hoped.

[File Shredders]

Working for government department where each and every word is confidential. Knowing that your shredded documents cannot be reassembled and that your confidential information is safe is worth every cent of the cost of a paper shredder

[File Shredders]

Working for government department where each and every word is confidential. Knowing that your shredded documents cannot be reassembled and that your confidential information is safe is worth every cent of the cost of a paper shredder

[File shredder]

Living in Florida there was an urgent need of shredder in the office so I called up the saleman who told me there was No sales tax on purchases delivered out of California! 10 year warranty on cutting heads & 1 year warranty on mechanical parts (parts only)!