Juan Cole [Informed Comment] Monday, March 19, 2007
quote:Juan Cole [Infomed comment] Saturday, March 17, 2007
Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Iyad Allawi, the ex-Baathist former appointed prime minister of Iraq, conducted talks in Cairo with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Sunday. He expressed his hope that Arab states would push Iraqi interests at the upcoming Riyadh summit. Allawi said that reconciliation in Iraq would require concessions from all parties and joint action for national interests. Mubarak is said to have emphasized the need for Iraqis to prefer their national interests as citizens to their sectarian interests.
quote:Allawi Maneuverings Continue [Informed Comment] By Juan Cole - Sunday, March 04, 2007
Reuters reports that the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of Shiite fundamentalist parties, is regrouping after the defection from its ranks of the small Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila), which has 15 seats in parliament. UIA spokesmen seemed confident that the rest of the party would hold together. It groups the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Islamic Call (Da'wa) Party of PM Nuri al-Maliki, the Sadrists, the Islamic Action Council of Ayatollah Mudarrisi, and some Shiite independents. This article's optimistic tone is strange given that al-Maliki has announced that he will purge his cabinet of 5 of the 6 Sadrist ministers, and that the Sadrist bloc in parliament, 32 members strong, have threatened to withdraw from his coalition if he does so. Al-Maliki stays in power, in the case, only because of Kurdish backing. If the UIA breaks up, and if the Kurds change their minds, Iyad Allawi is waiting in the wings to take over Iraq. An ex-Baathist secularist who criticizes Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and has bad relations with Iran, Allawi is alluring to the Bush administration. But cutting the majority Shiites out of power would certainly accelerate their move toward a provincial confederacy in the south and could cause turmoil and break up the country.
quote:
Al-Hayat reports that Iyad Allawi, a secular ex-Baathist Shiite who leads the Iraqi National List (25 seats in parliament), visited Kurdistan on Saturday. He is attempting to convince the Kurdistan Alliance to join his new coalition in parliament. Allawi has said that his list will leave the 'national unity government' headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Allawi's list is small and he is deeply disliked by most of the religious Shiites that dominate parliament. I can't imagine that he can actually form a government given the present distribution of seats. But al-Hayat reports that Allawi was accompanied on his trip to Kurdistan by none other than US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, which the daily read as a sign of US support for dumping al-Maliki and trying to install Allawi as Prime Minister. (Allawi served as interim prime minister in 2004, having been appointed by the US and UN for this purpose. He is an old CIA asset.)
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Faire l'amour, pas la guerre
Make love not war
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