IRAQ: FORMING A NEW COALITION MAY DAMPEN SADR'S INFLUENCE...

Iraqis weigh alliance to marginalize Sadr and bolster Maliki
New coalition would bolster Maliki

BAGHDAD: Several of Iraq's major political parties are in talks to form an American-backed coalition whose aim is to dampen the influence within the government of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr and extremist Sunni Arab politicians, senior Iraqi officials say. President George W. Bush is directly pushing party leaders to create the coalition, the officials said.

A major goal of the parties is to support Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite, so that he no longer has to depend on Sadr, one of the most powerful figures in Iraq, and could even move militarily against him if needed, the officials said. Sadr controls a militia with an estimated 60,000 fighters that has rebelled twice against the U.S. military here and is accused of widening the sectarian war by murdering Sunni Arabs in reprisal killings.

The proposed coalition cuts across ethnic and sectarian lines. The groups involved in the talks include the two major Kurdish parties, the most influential Sunni Arab party and two powerful Shiite parties, including Maliki's.

The Americans, who are increasingly frustrated with Maliki's ties to Sadr, appear to be working hard to help build the coalition. Bush met last week in the White House with the leader of the other Shiite party, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, and is meeting this week with the head of the Sunni Arab party, Tariq al-Hashemi.

In late November, Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with leaders and envoys from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt to try to get them to persuade moderate Sunni Arabs in Iraq to support Maliki, which would give the prime minister more leverage to break with Sadr.

Last month, Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, wrote in a classified memo that Washington should press Sunni Arab and Shiite leaders to support Maliki if he sought to build "an alternative political base."

Iraqi officials involved in the talks said they had grown frustrated with militant politicians within the government.

"A number of key political parties, across the sectarian-ethnic divide, recognize the gravity of the situation and have become increasingly aware that their fate, and that of the country, cannot be held hostage to the whims of the extreme fringe within their communities," said Barham Salih, a deputy- prime minister and senior member of one of the major Kurdish parties. "Should these parties succeed in transcending the sectarian fault lines to work together on the national 'democratic' project in Iraq, then Iraq will have a chance," he said.

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1) Iraqis weigh alliance to marginalize Sadr and bolster Maliki