By Lennox Samuels

Foreign and Iraqi observers alike have been noting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s increasingly assertive conduct, dating back to his ambitious operation last March to wrest control of Basra from militias that had reduced the southern city to chaos. But even veterans of Iraq’s Byzantine politics are wondering what brought the prime minister to issue a decree this week declaring that ministers and various senior government officials may not travel outside the country until they get approval from him.

The decree, released by the National Media Center, says ministers must send a written request to the Cabinet’s secretariat-general and wait for approval. The order seems especially odd, because the government officials have already been bound by this rule for the past year. Some speculate that this is a rebuke to one of the approximately three dozen Cabinet ministers, who are from a variety of political parties, who might have wandered abroad without permission.

It is not clear who that might be, although Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani has been in London meeting with representatives from 35 energy companies to discuss development and exploration in Iraq’s oil industry. In June, the oil ministry opened six oil fields and two gas fields for international bidding, a move expected to lead to the return of foreign oil companies to the country 36 years after they were expelled by Saddam Hussein.

Maliki’s order may have nothing to do with Sharistani, a nuclear scientist who was imprisoned for a decade during Saddam’s regime for refusing to work on developing an atomic bomb. But there is said to be no love lost between the fellow Shiites. Shahristani is considered too independent and regarded as someone who may not support the prime minister’s program. The minister travels frequently in his bid to develop the oil sector.

On the other hand, Maliki also has feuded with the foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd who also travels a lot, and he has clashed with other members of his sometimes dysfunctional Cabinet. So, why he felt the need to issue a reminder – and via a publicly released decree – remains unclear.