The strongman of Baghdad

13 November 2004

Andrew Gilligan on the murky past of Iyad Allawi, who this week cleared the way for the attack on Fallujah

The trouble, you see, with wafting in a British passport-holder from Wimbledon as your chosen leader is that he has no genuine political capital in Iraq to spend, no popular support to withstand the inevitable crises. Recognising this, Mr Allawi is at last trying to build some support. He has voiced his first real criticism of his former US paymasters, castigating their incompetence for allowing dozens of Iraqi police to be ambushed and killed. And the people in charge of the war crimes tribunal trying Saddam Hussein say that the Prime Minister is trying to seize control of it to orchestrate a crowd-pleasing trial in time for the elections.

Allawi’s defenders say that no Iraqi politician has clean hands, democratic credentials or indeed much popular support. What, they ask, is the alternative? Well, there was an alternative: Hussein Shahristani, the former Iraqi nuclear scientist preferred by the UN’s Brahimi. Closely associated with the real political force in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, completely unassociated with the exiles or the Baath, and, crucially, a long-suffering opponent of Saddam and of the invasion alike, Shahristani’s rejection by the Governing Council may come to be seen as among the most serious mistakes yet made in post-war Iraq.

For now, Allawi’s, and the Americans’, most important task is to realise that they cannot behave as if they hold the keys to the kingdom. In Patrick Cockburn’s words, they are ‘only two of many powers in Iraq’, trying to crush their enemies where they would do better to increase their friends. Unfortunately, there are few signs yet that Iyad Allawi has been able to break free from the authoritarian habits of the past. He may want to be a strongman, but he is not operating from a position of strength.