I Cogitate
| Recent Posts | My Best Blogs | Archives | Favorite Quotes | Links | Contact |
David Ignatius strikes again
David Ignatius is considered a very knowledgeable person in the field of foreign affairs. He is a Washington insider, yada yada yada.
But then why does he fail to detail certain information at just the right moment in his August 30 column in The Washington Post?
Such as was Ayad Allawi financially berift in the run-up to the 2005 Iraqi elections? The likely asnwer is no. He's been on the payroll of Britain, the United States, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia at various times and may still be today.
And, why couldn't Allawi draw together Sunni benefactors throughout the Middle East to fund his candidacy?
Allawi is a politically secular Muslim best known for fronting the Iraqi National Accord (INA) while in exile. He also served as a Governing Council member and as interim prime minister.
The reality is that the INA polled 14% in the January 25 election, totaling 40 out of the 275 seats in Parliament.
In the December 2005 election, Allawi's group earned just 25 seats and 8% of the vote. For the mathmetically challenged, this is a downward curve.
The reasons for his unpopularity is that he lacks a popular base: Iraqi religious leaders don't see Allawi as one of them, he remains a Baathist in the eyes of many and his connection with security agencies of various countries taint him in his effort to be seen as a leader representing Iraq and Iraqis.
All this is also why Allawi has resorted to hiring a lobbyist agency in a silly attempt to influence the debate surrounding current Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remaining in the position. Another question to David Ignatius: where is Allawi getting the funding for this futile attempt to influence American opinion?
The real bottom line -- one also neglected to be put in print by Ignatius -- is that no amount of outside funding was going to make a difference in getting Allawi or any other U.S. selection elected. The Iraqis were going to elect someone palatable from the majority religious group, the Shia, who constitute 60% or so of the population. Iraq will live under Shia rule although an internecine political rivalry and power struggle remains between various Shia figures and parties. To what degree Sharia law will be the law of the land and what such actually means remains to be seen.
In Ignatius' column, you'll read what Iran did to sway the Iraqi elections -- efforts that were morally wrong. Conversely, what the U.S. did was right in this matter. As for the latter, it certainly hasn't always been that way throughout our history but that's for another blog entry.
But did the Bush Administration actually have a choice in the matter after so heavily and publicly investing in the clarion calls regarding the genuine benefits of Iraqi freedom and democracy? For the Bushies to do otherwise would have contributed to Iraq being an even greater disaster than it currently is and something no amount of spin control could have shaped. This is one decision that must have escaped the purview of Karl Rove because it would have been a no-brainer for him.
Bush's Lost Iraqi ElectionGo here for the complete column.
David Ignatius
The Washington Post
August 30, 2007; Page A21
Ayad Allawi, the former interim prime minister of Iraq, hinted in a television interview last weekend at one of the war's least understood turning points: America's decision not to challenge Iranian intervention in Iraq's January 2005 elections.
"Our adversaries in Iraq are heavily supported financially by other quarters. We are not," Allawi told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "We fought the elections with virtually no support whatsoever, except for Iraqis and the Iraqis who support us."
Behind Allawi's comment lies a tale of intrigue and indecision by the United States over whether to mount a covert-action program to confront Iran's political meddling. Such a plan was crafted by the Central Intelligence Agency and then withdrawn -- because of opposition from an unlikely coalition that is said to have included Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who was then House minority leader, and Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser.
As recounted by former U.S. officials, the story embodies the mix of hubris and naivete that has characterized so much of the Iraq effort. From President Bush on down, U.S. officials enthused about Iraqi democracy while pursuing a course of action that made it virtually certain that Iran and its proxies would emerge as the dominant political force.
The CIA warned in the summer and fall of 2004 that the Iranians were pumping money into Iraq to steer the Jan. 30, 2005, elections toward the coalition of Shiite religious parties known as the United Iraqi Alliance. By one CIA estimate, Iranian covert funding was running at $11 million a week for media and political operations on behalf of candidates who would be friendly to Iran, under the banner of Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The CIA reported that in the run-up to the election, as many as 5,000 Iranians a week were crossing the border with counterfeit ration cards to register to vote in Iraq's southern provinces.
top
RSS feed
| Recent Posts | My Best Blogs | Archives | Favorite Quotes | Links | Contact |