A delegation from The Arab League, headed by its Deputy Secretary General Ahmed Ben Hili, was scheduled to arrive to Baghdad next week to hold talks with the leading political groups in Iraq and try to find a way to free them from the bottleneck they put themselves into. But Nouri al-Maliki suddenly asked them to postpone the visit, without giving them an alternative timetable.

Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman of the Iraqi government, said that the reason for the postponement was to “give Maliki and the political groups enough time to prepare for the talks,” which I thought is a very good answer, except that it is a big fat lie!

We have to realize that this visit has been in the planning for almost a year now, since Iraq, Syria, Iran and the United States held their talks in Iraq last February. At the time, the Arab League wanted a bigger role in Iraq’s political process and they offered to go to Iraq and help the political groups to “reconcile.”

It is a very good idea “give Maliki and the political groups enough time to prepare.” And then I ran the names of the Iraqi political groups that are big enough to hold talks and got these names: Dawa Party, Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, Iraqi Accordance Front, Sadr Trend, Iraqi National Accord, Fadhila Party, Kurdistan Democratic Party, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Then I thought: wait a minute; the Iraqi political groups are the same groups in the Iraqi government, which is in power since early 2006. Haven’t they got enough time to “reconcile” already?

And, wait a minute; the Iraqi political groups not only have been in power since early 2006, but they’ve been the same political groups that were in power in the first Iraqi government, which was seated in early 2005. I thought three years were enough to “reconcile.”

Then I remembered: those Iraqi political groups were participants in Iyad Allawi’s government, which was seated in mid 2004. And at the time, they were all going around on TV stations and newspapers inside and outside Iraq talking about “the national unity government” and “reconciliation.”

I wasn’t upset with what I found because we already expected that. And by we, I mean the Iraqis who really understand the background and interests of the Iraqi political groups, and their sycophants.

But my mind didn’t stop there. It hit me hard when I thought: but these are the same groups that formed the Iraqi Governing Council. And before that, they were all “together in the struggle against Saddam Hussein Regime” and formed one opposition umbrella group in 1991 called The Iraqi National Congress.

Technically, the current Iraqi political groups had 18 years to reconcile, and yet they haven’t. What does that tell you?

I guess the Bush administration should have asked me about the opposition groups, I would have said: Well, think about it this way: the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi, failed and everyone of the groups took off and formed their own fronts. That’s probably not a good sign!

If I knew that, and I was in my teens, how could the Bush administration “geniuses” not notice that?

I say it again and again: this Maliki government is nothing but a sectarian tool that is trying, and unfortunately succeeding, in splitting Iraq into ugly extreme Islamic pockets, labeling it “Shiite, Sunni” and into a hideous ethnic regions.

This government has not done anything that we as Iraqis can point at and say “this is better for us.” Nothing, And I dare anyone in the government to come out and give me one example of something done for the sake of Iraqis.

Maliki’s gang is not interested at all in Iraq, unless we consider destroying its heritage and future an interest. And what pains me, and most Iraqis, is that no one of the respected political groups is trying to do anything about it.

I left Iraq 18 months ago and when I left, the situation was like this: no electricity, no water, no trash collectors and so on. The situation now is much much worse because it’s 18 months later and there are no annual renovations for the streets or the infrastructure, and the insurgency and militias are still free.

Here is evidence from someone living in Baghdad now:

It has been more than three weeks since we have had any power from the national grid at our house. We don’t consider it that much of a difference because even in "normal'' times we get just one hour of power during the day and another hour at night. We don’t bother anymore to ask about the reasons behind this or when the electricity might be fixed and come back.

How many Iraqis are living like this now? And the government is not even bothering with listening to the average Iraqis. They are busy taking stars off the Iraqi flag and lying about what they represented. They are busy applying on the ground the Iranian Mullahs plan for Iraq, because they only have one more year to go and after that the Iraqis will hold new elections and shoo the black-turbaned and the white-turbaned Mullahs and away once and for ever.

Painting by Iraqi artist Betool Fekaiki

NOTE: Ali has published a new post.

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Prime Minister, “postponed” the official celebration of the Iraqi Army 86th anniversary, which was January 6th, for “security reasons,” his office said!

I am thinking: Aren’t you, Maliki, the one who has been talking about how “safe and secured” Baghdad has been for the last two months or so? Didn’t your government announced that it was “very safe and security has been maintained” in Baghdad, where the celebration of the Iraqi Army was supposed to be held, and advised the Iraqi refugees to “return to their homes?”

What changed in the last week?

Maliki, wasn’t your government’s mouthpiece, al-Iraqiya TV, air the celebrations of Christmas and New Year’s from “every part of Baghdad and in the streets?”

If the average Iraqis celebrated Christmas and New Year’s in the streets and enjoyed “the achieved security,” like what your propaganda team told the world, why couldn’t you hold the celebration of the Iraqi Army anniversary inside your fortified Green Zone, where it was supposed to take place?

What kind of “security threats” were you thinking about when you asked your press office to write the statement to postpone the celebration? What kind of threats do you have to face in the Green Zone?

I am going to tell you, Maliki, and tell your government and the 275 “parliamentarians”:

The Iraqi Army fought eight years war with Iran. The Iraqi Army killed at least 500,000 Iranians in the 1980s, according to UN statistics. How can you allow the Iraqis to be proud of their army, which defended Iraq against all the threats since 1921? How can you allow that, when it is the same army that failed your Mullahs plans?

The first thing Ibrahim al-Jaafari, you predecessor, did when he was seated was to issue the order to take down one of Iraq’s most beautiful and important monuments, the Martyr Day monument in Palestine Street. That monument depicted the criminal act of the Iranians committed against the Iraqi Prisoners of War in the early 1980s, when they brutally murdered them and mutilated their bodies.

Why did Jaafari issue orders to take that monument down? The Iraqi Army wasn’t Saddam Hussein’s, it was Iraq’s army. And those who were killed by Iranians in that brutal and criminal act were Iraqis and should be immortalized, like it or not.

And what did Jaafari’s government put to replace the monument? A Picture of Muqtada al-Sadr’s father!

What did you do, Maliki, when you first came to power? You issued the orders to take down the Crossed Swords Monument, which is one of Iraq’s most famous and celebrated monuments that depicted the victory of the Iraqi Army against the Iranian Army.

Why did you take the monument down? Was it hurting anybody? It is inside the Green Zone anyway. Why did you take it down? Is it because it was hurting your Iranian breadwinners?

Even if you say “the monument was Saddam Hussein’s delusional victory.” I would say: So? The Iraqis liked it because it is a piece of art that was never repeated anywhere in the world.

If you, Maliki, or one of your government puppets, say “well, we don’t want to have bad relations with our neighbor, Iran, and these monuments remind everybody of the bloody war Saddam Hussein launched against Iran, I will ask you: Did the Iranians take down their monuments from the 1980s period, which depict their war with Iraq?

Every piece of art in Baghdad is going to be taken down, and pictures of turbaned dead men will replace them. The Iraqi art, one of the world’s oldest and most celebrated civilizations, is being replaced with turbans and bearded men.

This is what the Iraqi government is doing now; erase what is left of Iraq’s civilization and history. If anyone goes to Baghdad now, they will never believe that this is the city where civilization started. If you go to Iraq, you would never think that this is the country that is called “cradle of civilization” because you will find nothing but black Abayas and pictures of bearded men in the streets, just like Iran during the time of Khomeini.

This is the new Iraq: A government that has no credibility in the international community and has no friends but the Iranian government, which is committed to destroying what is left of Iraq.

There are more than four million Iraqi refugees outside Iraq, more than two million Iraqis displaced within Iraq, the Kurdish government is totally separate from the central government, the central government has no power to prevent the Kurds from investing in the northern oil wells [which to me is a good thing,] the government has no power to control criminals, insurgents and militias, the government is not taking care of those who were forced to return to Baghdad from Syria and are homeless now, non of the government officials leaves the Green Zone unless in a helicopter, NOT ONE street in Baghdad was paved or renovated since 2002 and early 2003, NOT ONE water plan was renovated since before the invasion. When it rains, Baghdad floods. The ministry of Health is importing suspicious medicines and there is a scandal every week. The ministry of Interior is very corrupt that no one has the ability to start investigating. The ministry of Culture does basically nothing, but it still exists. The ministry of Trade is decreasing the amount of food given to people based on the food stamps and no one is even noticing it. The ministry of Electricity is… well it exists for no reason. The ministry of Oil is exporting oil for five years now, but where is the money? And so on…

What is this government doing there!

But this will not last for longer. Maliki’s plan, and that of the turbaned snakes and poisonous Mullahs in Iraq, Shiite and Sunni, will not succeed. The Iraqis are realizing gradually the mistake they’ve done when they voted for Ali al-Sistani and Harith al-Dhari. They know now that because of their miscalculated vote, Iraq has moved backwards a 100 years.

Islamists will never be able to govern a stable Iraq, nor will Christians. Iraq is a mix of different ethnic and religious backgrounds and it is impossible to compromise, and Iraq is now the evidence. What have we achieved since the Islamists took power in Iraq? Blood baths, men cannot wear shorts even when they play tennis! Women cannot drive or use cell phones in the streets. Women have to wear head scarves, women cannot wear pants, women have to wear Abayas, men cannot walk in the streets with women unless they are relatives, men cannot drink alcohol, university students cannot hold parties and cannot organize trips or picnics. Girls have to wear head scarves inside campuses.

And when I say the truth about Ali al- Sistani and Harith al-Dhari, people call me “sectarian!”

Nothing of what we’ve got from Islamists is useful. Show me one useful thing the turbaned snakes and poisonous Mullahs have given Iraq.

And if you don’t find any, then the question is: Why do we have them in power? And why don’t you like it when I attack them, by logic and evidences?