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2 Iraq needs a strongman. Allawi is
waiting By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - For four years, former Iraqi
prime minister Iyad Allawi has been a voice of
reason in Iraq. He always stood out against
religiously driven Shi'ite hegemony over Iraqi
politics, although he himself is Shi'ite (but a
secular one) and has refused the partitioning of
Iraq and the sidelining of Iraqi Sunnis after the
downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Sunnis
need to be given a bigger and more realistic and
proportionate role in the new Iraq, he argues. An autonomous
Shi'ite district in the
south, something coveted by many fellow Shi'ites,
is non-negotiable. He is in favor of strengthening
Iraq's ties to the Arab world, has strong
friendships with numerous Arab heads of state, and
categorically opposes militia rule, which has
become widespread during the reign of the two
prime ministers who succeeded him in office,
Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Nuri al-Maliki.
Allawi makes no secret his ties to the
United States, unlike Maliki, who speaks
anti-Americanism at home, but cuddles up to the
Americans at every opportunity. For some time now,
Allawi has been silent, seeing a slim chance in
making a comeback to the premiership, given the
unconditional support Maliki has received from the
US.
Maliki's good days, however, are
nearly finished, as his relationship with the US
administration strains. Sources at Maliki's office
said last week that officials at the US Embassy in
Baghdad had given him an early-June deadline to
get his act together, or be ejected from office if
he does not bring substantial security to Iraq.
Not only has Maliki's era given the
Americans a bad name, he has repeatedly backed out
on his promises, and refused to disarm the
militias, either because they were allied to him
(as is the case with the Mehdi Army of Muqtada
al-Sadr) or to Iran (such as the Badr Brigade of
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution,
SCIRI).
An Iraq with Shi'ite militias is
safer as far as Maliki is concerned than an Iraq
with no Shi'ite militias and only Sunni ones.
Allawi sees only one future for Iraq: an Iraq with
no militias. Period. He does not tolerate armed
violence and believes that the US occupation will
not end through armed resistance.
There
was talk last April of a US-backed coup in
Baghdad, to oust then-prime minister Jaafari and
the Iran-backed Shi'ite team that supported him
(the United Iraqi Alliance that still backs his
successor Maliki). Allawi, who holds 25 of the 275
seats in Parliament, would return as prime
minister.
This coup, it was believed back
then, was the product of a conviction that Iraq
was not ready for democracy in 2003. The new
system only led to chaos and sectarianism. The
only solution was to replace the existing regime
with a strong central government, one that cared
more so for security and the rule of law than such
trappings of democracy as a free press and
parliamentary elections. The rumored coup of 2006
was a military one, to be carried out by pro-US
elements in Iraq.
That ambitions idea was
dismissed as nonsense back then. It resurfaces
today as not a military coup, but a political one,
chaired by none other than Allawi. He recently
returned from a trip to regional Arab countries,
all allies of the US, headed by Sunni regimes that
are opposed to Iraq becoming a puppet state for
the Iranians. They included Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Egypt and Jordan. He sold them his vision for a
new Iraq.
His fans argue that although a
coup is undemocratic, Allawi's motto, when
returning to office, would be "security first,
democracy second".
Allawi has several
serious obstacles at making a comeback to office.
Prime on the list is that he does not have a
parliamentary majority, and in a country torn
apart by sectarianism, he does not enjoy a wide
power base because of his secular views. His
constant criticism of the new government,
describing it as a thinly disguised theocracy,
almost like the one in Iran, has created many
enemies for him in Baghdad, especially within the
Shi'ite community.
The Sunnis support him,
however, and so do the Kurds. Last week, he spoke
to the Associated Press and heated up his campaign
against Maliki, saying that the Baghdad Security
Plan of February had not been successful. "It
seems to me even the surge, unfortunately, is not
working efficiently yet," Allawi said. He added,
"Security, as you can see, is still deteriorating
in the country and sectarianism is unfortunately
prevailing. We are witnessing wide-scale
atrocities throughout the country."
The
reasons for Iraq's plight, he said, can be found
in its current prime minister. He criticized
Maliki for refusing, despite rhetoric, to conduct
serious talks with Iraqi Sunnis. Precisely because
of Maliki's hostility to the Sunnis, whom he
blames for the wrongdoings of Saddam's era, the
Baghdad Security Plan "is not going to succeed",
said Allawi.
He described the
Shi'ite-dominated government and Parliament as
"biased and sectarian-based", claiming they were
damaging the country. He explained his future
vision this way: "I'm definitely trying to pull
together an alliance of moderates in Iraq. I
strongly believe that sectarianism and terrorism
are both signs of extremism. And really what we
need in Iraq, as well as the region, is the
creation of moderate camps."
The solutions
for Allawi are, simply, the fall of the government
and the resignation of Parliament. This would have
to be done on orders from the United States, and
Maliki's team would be replaced with a cabinet of
national unity (headed by Allawi) that would
restore order and disarm the militias. Last year,
speaking to the London-based daily Al-Hayat,
Allawi said a US-style democracy was not
applicable to Iraq.
He said: "One cannot
bring American democracy to a country that is
occupied like Iraq, and whose infrastructure, as
well as military and governmental institutions,
have been destroyed." He added, "I warned the
Americans repeatedly [against] trying to model
Iraq on the social and administrative system in
the United States."
Allawi was saying that
a military coup was not desirable, but neither was
the chaos existing in Iraq today. The chaos under
Jaafari, he said, "where the government turned a
blind eye to the militias ... has led Iraq to a
disaster". This week he elaborated, saying: "I
always thought that the first steps toward
democracy were not to have elections. The first
steps are [to create] the rule
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