Iyad Allawi, the US-hand-picked prime minister of the Iraqi Interim
Government (IIG) and a wanna-be prime minister of the elected government, is on
his way to Washington to accomplish several objectives. First and foremost is
to get his master, President George W Bush, re-elected. Second, to get an
endorsement of his performance thus far from the international community by
appearing at the United Nations. Third, to take that endorsement back to
Iraq and hope that it will win him election as a regular and a long-term prime
minister of Iraq next January. In the achievement of all of these objectives,
he faces an uphill battle. Even his success in the first two of those
objectives is not likely to get him elected.
There are two international Pollyannas regarding Iraq: Bush and British Prime
Minister Tony Blair. The first one wants to be re-elected, the second wants to
hang on for the rest of his term, and hopes to leave behind a respectable
legacy. Allawi, meanwhile, whose popularity in Iraq is highly tainted, is in
dire need of approval from the UN if he is to have a future in Iraq, since he
has failed to receive that from within Iraq. And Allawi should know that
America's past puppets have had an equally tough time establishing credibility
inside their own countries.
A decision seems to have been made in Washington not only to harp on the "good
news" in Iraq, but also to bring Allawi to Washington to speak in front of a
highly skeptical US Congress. During the first leg of that scripted trip in
London, Blair and Allawi started a chorus of emphasizing the "good news" during
a joint appearance. Blair said, with Allawi standing next to him, that the
second Iraq war, between the coalition forces and insurgents, is now under way
in what has become the "crucible" of the global "war on terrorism". Wait a
minute; Bush told us before invading Iraq that it was the center of global
terrorism then. Which of these statements is correct? The credibility gap is
fast becoming a chasm.
Allawi also chimed in. He told highly incredulous British journalists, "Let me
assure you, we are succeeding in Iraq; we are succeeding against the forces of
evil. I am really dismayed by the media, that they are not looking at the
bright side and what has been achieved." That is exactly the oft-repeated
rhetoric of Bush's stump speeches these days. If one were to guess, all
Allawi's speeches and public statements have been drafted in the White House,
which also seems to be scripting what Blair must emphasize during his public
appearances.
At the same time, three highly respected US senators of the Republican party
are making very somber statements that really reflect the ground realities
regarding Iraq. Senator John McCain, a member of the Armed Services Committee,
said the situation in Iraq "has been deteriorating, to say the least". He went
on to predict that it would worsen between now and Iraq's elections
planned for January. Senator Richard G Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, criticizing the fact that only US$1 billion of the $18 billion
appropriated by Congress for Iraq's reconstruction had been spent, called it an
outcome of "the incompetence of the administration". Senator Chuck Hagel, a
member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said, "We are in deep trouble in
Iraq."
Allawi has been reiterating that elections in Iraq will not be postponed,
regardless of the deteriorating security situation in the Sunni-dominated areas
of his country. He seems to be unfazed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's
recent warning that there could not be "credible elections if the security
conditions continue as they are now".
Of the preceding, the most ominous development is that Allawi is looking for
legitimacy for the IIG not at home, but in the international arena. One thing
should be clearly understood about actions of this nature. The role of the
international community is very important in providing legitimacy to the IIG;
and it did that when that entity was first created in June. That was the end of
the role of the international community. From then on, the IIG needed to
establish its legitimacy inside Iraq. Such legitimacy must be evolved
through highly visible capabilities of the IIG to build or rebuild governmental
educational, health, law-enforcement and economic infrastructures. Those
infrastructures, in turn, must start producing results in the form of services
for the highly critical eyes of the populace. In this regard, the US government
has indeed played an active role in Iraq.
However, it seems the Iraqi insurgency has read all the Western books on the
stages of economic development, and those describing the blueprints of the
evolution of legitimacy in the Third World at large. Those forces are
systematically, and in a highly focused fashion, blowing up most, if not all,
visible symbols of economic development. Then, through an added deadly wrinkle
to their strategy - by kidnapping foreign workers, who are there to rebuild
Iraq, and blowing up all willing Iraqis who wish to join the security forces of
their country - the insurgents are ensuring that Iraq stays as a miserable
living place, a condition that is bound to increase the unpopularity of the
IIG. This is also where the rub is.
The only way to secure institutions of economic development (and that, to be
sure, includes the safety of oil pipelines) is to have a proactive policy of
countering terrorism. However, the Iraqi population has no idea whether the IIG
is the determining authority about where to use the US forces and what
should be the scope of the use of that force, or the US occupying forces
are running around using overwhelming force at will, and then informing the
diffident IIG, and only as an afterthought. Equally important, there is no
evidence that the IIG is not serving as a willing client entity of the US
occupation forces in their ever-escalating role in counterterrorism. As a
political hack who came to power largely through his US Central Intelligence
Agency connections, Allawi has paid no attention to ensuring that the IIG's
authority and independence regarding counterterrorism be clearly articulated
each time a bombing raid is made in civilian areas.
In addition, there is a serious problem in the use of air power in civilian
areas. More often than not there are innocent civilian casualties, which the US
occupation forces cavalierly dismiss as "collateral damage". Unfortunately,
those collateral damages sow incalculable seeds of hatred from which future
saboteurs sprout, and then are carefully nurtured by the Iraqi insurgents for
future attacks, not only on all symbols of the IIG, but also of the US
occupation.
So Allawi's trip to Washington and New York has no bearing whatsoever on the
scale or the pace of violence in Iraq. It might provide a few moments of
additional media attention, which may or may not help Bush's popularity numbers
in the US. The American populace seems to have been lulled into hearing the
rhetoric of fear. Nothing else seems to matter in the forthcoming US
presidential election. Only Bush seems to think that Allawi has much clout
inside the US political arena. The Iraqis, as in about everything else
that matters about their country, don't share Bush's high regard for the IIG's
premier.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent
strategic analyst.
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