Is Ayad Allawi the answer to Iraq's leadership woes:
Allawi already had a shot at the position and he was terrible. He was appointed interim prime minister in May 2004, keeping the position until he was replaced in April 2005 by Ibrahim Jaafari (following the January '05 elections). If that sounds like the time when the insurgency really started to heat up, well . . . it was.
Allawi's tenure was marked by corruption, a feckless approach to basic services, and a widespread perception of thuggishness. In one particularly intense episode, he's said to have personally (and summarily) executed six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station.
Perhaps most importantly, his support for the devastating military incursions into Fallujah and Najaf in 2004 earned him the hatred of both Shia and Sunni Iraqis. As a postscript to this illustrious record, after the latest elections, he basically disappeared to London and Jordan -- when Ambassador Crocker was asked about Allawi recently, according to NYTimes, he "said he only spoke to people who actually came to Iraq."
So why are Westerners so intent on hyping him?
Allawi is precisely the kind of leader the uninformed pundit class loves.
Just as David Broder can wax pathetic about Michael Bloomberg for his "leadership" and "post-partisan" positioning, other observers label Allawi "tough" and "non-sectarian." These kind of vague labels are music to the ears of pundits, neocons, and deluded war supporters alike, and Allawi gets disproportionate attention because he is essentially a Westerner. He speaks English well, is comfortable among elites from London to Amman to Washington, and knows that the surest route to political acceptance in the US is a massively expensive lobbying campaign by former Bush administration officials. But when it comes down to it, Allawi has about as much support for Iraqi PM as Bloomberg does for US president . . . and from the same types of people.
There's another reason, too: Call it to "Do Something" fallacy. Most American pundits would, in honesty, tell you they don't know that much about Iraq and they really don't know how to fix the country's woes.
Most American pundits would, in honesty, get fired for writing columns that reflected such self-awareness. So they need to say something when things are going wrong. Allawi happens to be a name they already know, associated with a period in Iraq that was better than the current moment, and is superficially free of the sectarian bickering which is tearing the country apart. He makes perfect "Do Something" fodder, and that's what pundits need.
And then, of course, there's the massive lobbying campaign designed to sell Allawi to American elites ...
Allawi Now ~
Allawi courts regional leaders in power bid
Iyad Allawi, the former Iraqi prime minister whose coalition narrowly won the most seats in last month’s election, will reach out to regional leaders this week by sending a delegation on a tour of the Middle East.
Mr Allawi wants to seize back the premiership from the incumbent, Nouri al-Maliki, whose alliance of parties came second in the poll. But no group won an overall majority in parliament, and hard bargaining is now taking place to form the next government.
Mr Allawi, who has warned against outside interference, hopes the nation that probably wields the most influence in Iraq – neighbouring Iran – will receive his representatives.
Officials of Mr Allawi’s Iraqiya alliance on Monday said they had received a formal invitation from Iran, and a meeting was scheduled with the alliance’s delegation in Tehran on Wednesday.
The fact that Shia Iran took time to extend an invitation is not surprising as Mr Allawi is a pro-American secular Shia and Iraqiya is dominated by Sunni Arabs. His Shia Islamist rivals, as well as Kurdish politicians, all headed to Iran almost as soon as the last votes were counted.
“We hope Iran will extend an invitation to our team,” Mr Allawi told the Financial Times. “But for us it is quite worrying, the interferences of regional powers ... we hope nobody will interfere.”
Last Saturday, the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, sent a conciliatory signal to Iraqiya, saying their delegation would be invited to Iran. He added that Sunni Arabs – who overwhelmingly backed Mr Allawi – should be included in Iraq’s next government.
Mr Allawi’s supporters are concerned that Iran will try to push the main Shia alliances into forming a coalition that would probably deny him a return to the premiership.
These groups – State of Law, led by Mr Maliki, and the Iraqi National Alliance, which brings together the Sadrist Movement of Moqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric, and the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq (ISCI) – won 159 seats in the 325-member parliament. This would be just short of an overall majority, but comfortably ahead of the 91 seats won by Iraqiya.
Mr Allawi diplomatically avoided saying that Iran aimed to unite the Shia parties against him, but he insisted: “Iraq has to choose their own.” He also warned that any revival of the Shia Islamist alliance that dominated Iraq’s government after the last election in 2005 would be a move back to “square one”, stirring up sectarianism and threatening more violence.
“It will be quite devastating for the country,” he said. “It will ruin the national fabric.”
Mr Allawi dismissed suggestions that he has also courted the support of outsiders, notably Saudi Arabia, Iran’s leading regional rival. “We have not been supported by anybody,” he said. The aim of his delegation’s tour was to “explain to the region that the stability of Iraq is the stability of the region”.
Mr Allawi added: “We are very keen that the neighbours do understand what is going on in Iraq.” He stressed that they had a “responsibility, especially in this transitional period, to keep the borders safe, quiet and to help Iraq to pass through this very difficult phrase”.
Analysts believe Iran wants Iraq to be weak enough not to be a threat – the two fought a war in the 1980s – but strong enough to avoid instability. Arab states want a strong, nationalist Iraq that would resist Iranian encroachment but not strong enough to repeat its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, according to Joost Hiltermann, at the International Crisis Group, a body committed to resolving conflicts.
But Mr Hiltermann cautioned against over-estimating the strength of Iran’s ties with Iraq’s Shia parties. “None of these groups are Iranian proxies, but they are potentially Iranian pawns simply because they are so weak and divided.”
More on Allawi ....
Survivor returns
Iyad Allawi first tasted power in Iraq when he became interim prime minister in 2004, writes Andrew England.
Like many others who took up senior positions after Saddam Hussein’s downfall, he was a returning exile, relatively unknown to the masses.
After performing poorly in the 2005 elections, Mr Allawi slipped off the radar. Now, however, he is among the country’s most recognisable and talked-about figures after his secular Iraqiya alliance won the most seats in last month’s election.
This latest switch of fortunes resembles the rollercoaster journey Mr Allawi, 65, has endured during his political career.
A secular Shia, he was an early member of Saddam’s Ba’ath party, but left Iraq in 1972 for London to pursue postgraduate studies in medicine.
He then fell out with the Ba’ath party; survived an assassination attempt; and embarked on years of opposition politics in exile.
It was during that period that he forged close ties with British and US intelligence. Mr Allawi is a candidate who would be considered favourable to the US and the UK. He is also seen as a figure who could repair relations with neighbours, particularly Saudi Arabia and Syria.
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