The Trouble With Allawi

A.J. Rossmiller (who, for the record, used to do political intelligence in Iraq for the defense department, so he's not just bullshitting around) has a great post about the myriad problems with the Allawi Gambit, noting such salient facts as how we already installed Allawi as Prime Minister of Iraq once, he performed horribly in office, and he was overwhelmingly booted out in an election. I like A.J.'s conceit that Allawi-love is a kind of Iraqi corollary to Broderism here at home, with both sides suffering the same problem: "Like Americans, Iraqis have preferences about issues."

Jane Hamsher's also reading A.J.:

I still find it mystifying that Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin decided to get out in front of this thing by calling for the removal of Maliki. The danger of winding up once again in a “you broke it, you bought it” situation seem pretty extreme.

I put this alongside the Department of Homeland Security in my "too clever by half" file. The Democrats' basic feeling seems to be that erring on the side of overly castigating Iraqi political leaders is the smart move since it helps evade charges that you're Criticizing The Troops when pointing to lack of success in our Iraq policies. Just keep punching Maliki while walking backwards, and maybe everything'll be okay. But as Hamsher says, there's a danger here of Levin getting what he asked for and Democrats finding themselves re-entrapped into support for a doomed policy.

Comments

Just curious, but does criticizing the Iraqis for their fucked up country actually help Levin or Clinton score any political points? I can't see how it actually helps in any practical sense, so the whole point must be for political point-scoring. Yet I find the whole exercise of castigating Maliki for failing to achieve the impossible to be pretty phony and unpersuasvie. Does that rhetoric actually work on people?

Posted by blah | August 29, 2007 1:11 AM

To blah: sure that kind of rhetoric works on people. In a nation where those who "support the troops" are the ones who _favor_ sending them to war, practically any rhetoric works. In a nation where "our commander in chief" is intoned with the reverence reserved for "our boss" rather than the skepticism appropriate to "our hired temp", it's hard for grown-ups to get a word in edgewise. Any nation that ever heard "we are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" without laughing the speaker off the stage can't be expected to sit still for explanations more complicated than "Maliki failed". Unless it's "Maliki failed because of Iranian meddling".

Posted by Tony P. | August 29, 2007 1:56 AM

This is just one more demonstration of why I am in despair over the democrats. This summer has been like an MRI into their workings and there is not a spine among them. Today I read that Bush expects to get 50 billion more for Iraq. The leading presidential contenders debate the use on nuclear weapons. Allegedly serious analysts blame Maliki for the folly in Iraq. It is so disheartening. FISA reform, Iraq withdrawl in April (due to Army requirements), Israel/Palestine, a new Attorney General and many other important issues will fall by the wayside as the democrats vie to seem to be republicans. At least they can still nominate Joe Liberman as their VP.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | August 29, 2007 6:40 AM

I put this alongside the Department of Homeland Security in my "too clever by half" file.

The Democrats are at their stupidest and weakest when they do what their pros tell them to do. Pros like Dick Morris, who never was a Democrat at all. At times the party seems to be controlled entirely by infiltrating careerists who (besides being complete opportunists on policy questions) don't even care much about the future of the party. Stephanopolous and Estrich have done very well for themselves since they quit pretending to be Democrats. Shit -- even Russert and Matthews used to be Democrats.

Contrast George Will, Bob Novak, Pat Buchanan, William Safire, and the various other Republican elder statesmen of the punditocracy. They all began as Republican operatives, and they've remained Republican operatives. (And then there's Jonah Goldberg and a bunch of other up and coming scum.)

The problem with the media, as Somerby and others have been pointing out for some time, is systemic. It's not incompetence and it's not just "shit happens". The big-money people dumping money here there and everywhere in political campaigns and so on would do a lot better financing some decent media.

Posted by John Emerson | August 29, 2007 6:48 AM

Well, as for why the Democrats would criticize Maliki and the Iraqi government, I don't think there is much of a mystery. The Democrats' strategy for some time now has been to use a "blame the Iraqis" line to justify winding down the war. The idea is to find a way of advocating withdrawal or redeployment without suggesting that we did anything wrong, or have failed or lost in any way. Our troops it will be said, performed brilliantly, did everything that was asked of them and everything necessary to give the Iraqis a shot at "freedom", but those damn crazy Iraqis squandered it. Levin has been trumpeting this line for some time.

With the Petraeus and Crocker reports coming out soon, and a new propaganda push in which the administration is trying to sell the public on the idea that military progress is being made in Iraq, the Democrats are going to try to counter with the observation that there is no political progress in Iraq, and that there can be no military solution to what is happening there.

However, as to why some Democrats would go beyond this posture of criticizing the Iraqi government and advocate particular changes in the Iraqi government which will, if made, invest those Dems in a further commitment to continuing the US effort in Iraq, there are a couple of reasons I can think of.

First, the dump Maliki agenda is just one part of the broader anti-Shia, anti-Iran campaign being waged vigorously and furiously now on behalf of Israeli, Saudi and Gulf States interests in the Middle East. Backers of this new regional Cold War, designed to roll back Iran and its Shia allies - particularly Hizbollah - are trying to re-align the US with Sunni interests in Iraq, and destroy the Shia-dominated government as a way of diminishing Iranian influence in Iraq.

And Iran hawks need the US to stay in Iraq. Iraq is the ultimate tripwire for an attack of Iran. If an attack on Iran comes, it is going to follow several weeks of ratcheting up claims about alleged Iranian attacks of US troops in Iraq, alleged Iranian IED's, Iranian assistance for anti-government extremists in Iraq, etc. It has been an inconvenient fact for these hawks that Iran has actually been backing the very same government of Iraq that we purport to support. But of course that will change if someone like Allawi comes to power. Some Shia groups will then begin attacking government forces and assets, and those attacks can be conveniently blames on Iran.

As for Clinton, perhaps her strategy is to continue to criticize the war, which is the Democrats' best issue against the Republicans, while at the same time working to prolong the war so as to guarantee that nobody takes that issue away before November 2008.

Finally, Washington seems rather desperate for this Iraqi oil law to be passed. I can't claim to understand all of the political factors involved, but I think there are at least two: getting US oil companies into Iraq has long been part of the plan for paying for the war. The war has been a treasury buster, and unless we get some new revenue windfall the next president is going to be working with a broken budget and a shitty economy. Also, In think there is the concern by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States - and their US allies - about long-term political control of OPEC. Iran and a closely-aligned Iraq would have the decisive votes on the bulk of the oil reserves in the Middle East.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 29, 2007 8:21 AM

Clinton continues to unimpress, and this latest 'it's Maliki's fault' line that she is pimping moves me more and more away from her to focus on Edwards or Obama. She is simply too 'establishment' for my tastes. Edwards is my choice if I had to vote today.

Posted by terraformer | August 29, 2007 8:33 AM

It's one thing or another. Thug Republicans. Craven Democrats.

Shame on us.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | August 29, 2007 8:44 AM

Hearing criticism like this, I really don't understand why people think a Democratic Administration would be any better than the current administration as far as politicizing a war and not dealing with it truthfully. Democrats have a pretty sorry history as far as making stupid foreign policy decisions so as to provide evidence they are not soft on communism (or terror or whatever) but rather tougher in a different way than Republicans. Scapegoating the Iraqis for failure in war would seem to fall right down that alley.

When conversation goes to Allawi, he is generally spoken of as secular, tough, and effective. Rossmiller does a good job of deflating those claims. What I don't hear in this conversation is relations with Iran. Maybe, I am too conspiracy minded, but I wonder if Allawi is considered as a way to line up an Iraqi government that will be more pliant to American concerns if and when an attack on Iran occurs. Maliki may be disposed because of his ties to Iran and Shia groups rather than incompetence. That would not explain Carl Levin, though.

Posted by Space Monkey | August 29, 2007 8:48 AM

, I really don't understand why people think a Democratic Administration would be any better than the current administration as far as politicizing a war and not dealing with it truthfully. Democrats have a pretty sorry history as far as making stupid foreign policy decisions so as to provide evidence they are not soft on communism (or terror or whatever) but rather tougher in a different way than Republicans. Scapegoating the Iraqis for failure in war would seem to fall right down that alley.

Space Monkey: why do you assume that all Democratic candidates would do this?

Obama on the call for Maliki's ouster:

I think this is a distraction — this whole notion of 'is Maliki the right guy?' We can replace Maliki with four, five other guys, but if the underlying political dynamic is not changing, then we will not see progress in Iraq.

Does that not sound like someone dealing with the war "truthfully"?

Posted by mopper | August 29, 2007 10:26 AM

I like Allawi, and I understand why he's a US punditry darling. He represents Iraq as they'd like it to be, and frankly as I'd like it to be, at least until it transitioned to being like, say, Sweden. If had hadn't been PM already, I'd say fine, engineer a coup and put him in...I mean, we're occupying the country anyway, so why not put in the leader we think would work? But the fact that he *was* the PM already, and didn't do a very effective job, seals the deal against trying him again.

Posted by Rich | August 29, 2007 11:56 AM

mopper:

Mostly because I think Hillary will win the Democratic nomination.

Posted by Space Monkey | August 29, 2007 2:18 PM

Hillary's nodding towards Allawi because he's perceived as being able to offer a quick-and-dirty way for her to deal with the manure heap that Bush will leave for whoever takes over in January 2009.

That he's also perceived by his main US backers as the ideal person in charge while Bush goads Iran? By the by.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | August 29, 2007 5:03 PM