Inside the walls of his shaded villa in the heart of Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, Nouri al-Maliki still greets his visitors in the same marble-floored office where he worked for eight years as prime minister.
As one of the country’s three vice presidents, he now holds a largely ceremonial position in the government of his successor, .
But whether Maliki has given up his quest for power is increasingly in question as he sets about widely publicized battlefield tours, meetings with tribal elders and visits abroad.
[]
In an interview at his villa, he denied desire to reclaim his former position and pledged support for Abadi, who six months into the job is attempting to quell the chaos convulsing Iraq. Maliki has been widely blamed for much of it, with his failure to reach out to Sunnis and his policies, widely seen as sectarian.
But he does not rule out that he could one day return.
“Based on my popular support base, which still exists and is strong, it’s possible,” he said, indicating that he is setting his sights on Iraq’s next election, due in 2018.
“Legally and constitutionally, it’s possible,” he said. “But it’s the Iraqi people’s choice.”
Maliki’s looming presence poses a challenge for Abadi as he attempts to win back ground from and repair rifts with Iraq’s Sunnis and Kurds. It comes as an has highlighted the premier’s lack of control over the Shiite volunteers and militias that are leading the fight.
Maliki “still has a role, and he’s not finished,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a lawmaker from the former prime minister’s State of Law bloc.
A Western diplomat based in the region said there are deep concerns about what Maliki may be up to and little doubt that he is trying to undermine Abadi. “He’s irredeemable,” the diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Maliki appears to wield influence over more members of parliament than Abadi and seems to have more support in the security institutions, the diplomat said.
On a March trip to a town near Tikrit where fighters had driven out Islamic State militants, Maliki greeted the forces as if he were still in power.
Since leaving office, he has become a particular champion of the legions of largely Shiite volunteers and militias known as the “popular mobilization” units — many of which answered a to sign up to fight.
“I established it in my time,” Maliki said of the force that was mustered in the dying days of his leadership. “And they feel very close to me, or may be loyal to me. Therefore, I keep working with them and supporting them and pushing them to fight.”
Not everyone believes that Maliki can make a comeback.
“He had a big failure in administering the country,” said Izzat Shahbandar, a former lawmaker from the State of Law coalition, who remains friends with Maliki. “There is no Iraqi power, Sunni, Shia or anyone else who will support him."
But Maliki clearly has support in his party, Dawa. Maliki is senior to Abadi in the party, holding the title of secretary general. Some Dawa members mockingly refer to Abadi as “the traffic warden,” suggesting that although he runs the government, his actual power is in question.
Maliki and Abadi have drastically different ruling styles, perhaps rooted in their disparate experiences of exile during the rule of Saddam Hussein. While Abadi, an English speaker who worked as an electrical engineer in Britain, is seen as cozy with the West, Maliki whose U.S. backing fell away in the final years of his rule, is closer to Iran, where he lived for seven years.
[]
On billboards around Baghdad, Maliki’s pictures still loom large. Abadi, in contrast, has ordered that no posters of him be displayed, in an attempt to break with the country’s tradition of personality cults.
When Maliki ventures from the Green Zone, he does so in a big convoy of armored SUVs. Abadi won plaudits for publicly visiting a shrine in Baghdad accompanied by only two bodyguards. While Abadi shuns honorifics, Maliki has dubbed himself “first vice president” — though in the past there’s been no differentiation between the three.
The rivalry between Maliki and Abadi is thinly veiled.
“What he’s doing is what’s possible — not the ambition that is required, but what’s possible,” Maliki said pointedly of Abadi’s progress. He added, though, that his successor is constrained by the country’s shaky finances and fragile security.
Maliki is quick to point out what he sees as flaws in Abadi’s policies. For example, he criticized Abadi’s proposal for a national guard, a new system of localized forces that would be a cornerstone of the country’s security policy: “I’m the one who suggested it, but not in the way it has developed recently. It’s become a danger to national unity,” Maliki said.
The competition has sparked rumors of splits within the Dawa party.
“There are people close to Nouri al-Maliki who are trying to make some problems, talking against Haider al-Abadi,” concedes Ali Alaq, a senior Dawa member, though he dismissed the notion of a rift. “Nouri al-Maliki says he has nothing to do with them.”
In his home in the upscale Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, Maliki ally Saad al-Muttalibi is less than flattering about the new leader, though he claims that Abadi is an old friend.
“Mr. Abadi isn’t as hands-on as Maliki,” said Muttalibi, a member of the Baghdad provincial council. “I don’t know if he’s trying to show himself as a technocrat, or if it’s just inability.” Members of parliament are rallying to support Maliki, he said.
Maliki, known for his unrelenting work ethic, has kept up a hectic schedule since leaving power.
When Abadi made his first visit to Iran last year, Maliki followed a few weeks later, also meeting with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Maliki said Iraq’s relationships with Iran and the United States were once “balanced,” but he claimed that had changed since the United States failed to fulfil a security agreement signed by the George W. Bush administration under which the United States pledged to defend Iraq’s democracy and territorial integrity.
“We have an agreement and we asked them, we asked them to bomb with their planes, we asked for more weapons from them to face the developed weapons that [Islamic State] has, but we don’t know why they didn’t respond,” he said.
U.S. officials conditioned their approval of airstrikes on , saying a new leader was essential if Iraq was to overcome the that had fueled the Islamic State’s rise.
Maliki said the decision last summer was “illegal” after his party won the highest proportion of votes.
Still, “today we have to cooperate in the process of building the country and facing the challenges,” he said. “Therefore, I’m keen for this government to succeed.”
That feeling of betrayal may be spurring him to launch a comeback, however, and with Iran playing a powerful role in Iraq, it is Maliki who stands to gain.
Abadi is not a natural ally of Iran, which initially blocked his nomination for the premiership in a country where Tehran wields significant influence.
Hamid al-Mutlaq, a Sunni member of parliament’s defense and security committee, said Iran is now trying to undermine Abadi.
“Iran has a lot of power in Iraq," he said. “They make problems when someone is not obeying them, and one of their soldiers is Maliki.”
Whether Maliki can, in fact, make a comeback is an intense subject of speculation.
Shahbandar said Maliki is finished.
Asked why it is that Maliki then believes he can return to power, Shahbandar chuckled, “Saddam Hussein is dead, and even he believes he can make a comeback.”
“This is what power does to you,” he added.
Mustafa Salim contributed to this report.
Loveday Morris is a Beirut-based correspondent for The Post. She has previously covered the Middle East for The National, based in Abu Dhabi, and for the Independent, based in London and Beirut.
Liz Sly is the Post’s Beirut bureau chief. She has spent more than 15 years covering the Middle East, including the Iraq war. Other postings include Africa, China and Afghanistan.
In this Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009 photo Andreas Lubitz competes at the Airportrun in Hamburg, northern Germany. ( Source: AP) 
A group of pro-Islamic Turks protest against the Saudi Arabia-led coalition's military operation in Yemen, in Ankara, Turkey, Sunday, March 29, 2015. (Source: AP) 
