Ayad Allawi's Victory. That's A-l-l-a-w-i. ALLAWI.

I could use a laugh after spending hours following the grim events in Thailand (see the previous post) and this News York Times report just provided it. Gad, it sticks in the Times' craw to even mention Allawi's name but they finally choke it out in the fourth paragraph. LOL

Recount in Iraq Preserves Victory for Maliki Rival
By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: May 16, 2010

BAGHDAD — A dispute over the counting of ballots in Iraq’s parliamentary elections in March came to a tentative end on Sunday, with the country’s election commission saying that a partial recount had preserved the narrow victory of the leading rival to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

The announcement removed a stumbling block in the long-delayed process of forming a new government that will preside over Iraq as the American military withdraws. With the recount over, the country’s highest court can begin ratifying the results, a crucial step in opening the way for negotiations over the next prime minister.

“We hope that no one else appeals so that we can be done with this,” Qassim al-Abboudi, a spokesman for the commission, said at a news conference.

Mr. Maliki’s electoral bloc had demanded the recount after finishing narrowly behind a largely Sunni and secular coalition led by Ayad Allawi, a former interim prime minister. Mr. Maliki’s supporters claimed that numerous cases of fraud had tarnished the vote and that a recount might reverse the results for as many as 20 seats, making his coalition the winner.

But in the news conference on Sunday, Mr. Abboudi said the recount in the populous province around the capital, Baghdad, did not change the initial results. Two candidates lost their seats to candidates from the same party, leaving the breakdown the same as it was in March: 91 seats for Mr. Allawi, 89 for Mr. Maliki.

Mr. Maliki’s supporters suggested that the prime minister would abide by the recount, which found no widespread fraud. Mr. Maliki “wants to speed up the political process,” said a spokesman, Ali al-Mousawi. “As far as I know, he will respect the results.”

His newly conciliatory stance may be due to shifting political ground in the last few weeks, when he formed a post-election alliance with another Shiite bloc, making it the largest coalition in Parliament. It also made Mr. Allawi’s wafer-thin lead in seats over Mr. Maliki more symbolic than practical, because most politicians believe that the new, broader Shiite alliance will take the lead in naming a prime minister. The new Shiite bloc is just four seats short of a majority in the 325-member Parliament.

Mr. Allawi has continued to insist that the right to form a government belongs to his group.

“I really don’t know how it will end,” he said in an interview. “But what I know is that we are not going to accept that the will of the Iraqi people is going to be confiscated.”

Despite Mr. Allawi’s sagging fortunes, Mr. Maliki still faces an uphill battle to return as prime minister. He remains unpopular with the followers of Moktada al-Sadr, a populist cleric whose candidates finished second only to Mr. Maliki’s among Shiite voters.

Even if Mr. Maliki does hold on to power, many Shiite politicians believe there will be an attempt to circumscribe his authority and give greater power to his cabinet, whose positions will be divided among the winners. Negotiations over the new government could last for months, adding to the atmosphere of uncertainty here.

“If the government forms before September, that will put us in great shape,” said Qassem Daoud, a former minister and candidate who lost his race in March. [...]

Ayad Allawi returning to Iraq

He told Wolf Blitzer on CNN that he would be traveling first to "Iraqi Kurdistan" then to Baghdad to fight for his political position.

Wolf questioned Allawi about David Ignatius's claim (made in an op-ed in today's Washington Post) that Allawi is receiving financial support from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Allawi denied the claim, adding in amusement that he only wished he could be receiving funds from those quarters.

(Ignatius also wrote that Allawi was not receiving financial help from the United States, which I think is correct.)

When Wolf asked about the $300,000 Allawi is reportedly paying a Washington lobbying firm, Allawi replied that he is not making the payment. He said the contribution has come from an Iraqi supporter of his party and their anti-sectarian stance. He said that he could not name the supporter who must remain anonymous.

Allawi also pointed out that other Iraq political parties are spending many more times that amount on purchasing media outlets - TV stations, satellite time, press, and so on.

Allawi refused to be drawn into criticizing Maliki; he said that the problem is not with one person but with the "system" of sectarianism. Throughout the interview, he returned to the anti-sectarian theme.

Allawi also said that a drawdown of US troops in Iraq could realistically occur within 2 to 2-1/2 years provided the Iraqi government worked in "partnership" with the US one.

Over at NBC's Meet the Press, Richard Engel repeated what he said last week, which is that Maliki's government is on the verge of collapse. Engel believes the government will collapse; he said that it could be replaced by a series of weak governments.

Also, Michael Gordon, the author of Cobra II, told Tim Russert that he will be publishing his observations on the surge in next week's New York Times magazine. He said that he saw progess from the counterinsurgency strategy. He also said that the strategy of the US military forming alliances with Sunni tribes is having success and that building up these coalitions is still in the early stage, but promising.

Interestingly, Gordon said flatly that the US military is not arming the Shia or Sunni militias in Iraq.

State's patience with Maliki worn thin

The Washington Post, that weathervane for US State Department winds, has decided to publish an editorial by Ayad Allawi. That in itself is news, although a somewhat mixed message because the Post published the editorial on Saturday -- traditionally a dead day -- instead of the 'don't miss' Sunday editorial fest in the Outlook section.

In his op-ed Allawi sends a clear message to the Middle East's Arab states: de-Baathification is the sticking point, and overturning de-Baathification cannot move forward under Maliki's government.

Allawi notes that Maliki has stalled the passage of March legislation to reverse de-Baathification but I find this the key passage:

Iraq's security forces need to be reconstituted. Whenever possible, these reconstituted forces should absorb members of the sectarian and ethnic militias into a nonsectarian security command structure.

Translation: the insurgency will continue until 'reformed' Baathist soldiers are reabsorbed into Iraq's military.

Allawi also takes a dig at General Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy:

Empowering militias is not a sustainable solution, because it perpetuates the tensions between communities and undermines the power and authority of the state.

Well, we're fighting a war against Qaeda so we do what we must. Would we need to fight this way in Iraq if the government declared a nationwide state of emergency and enforced it? That's Allawi's recommendation, which seems out of reach while Maliki holds the reins. And in the present state of affairs, I really don't see how even the combined Iraq and US security forces could make a state of emergency stick, countrywide.

There are so many fighting factions that it's hard to tell the security militias from the insurgents, Southern separatists, and Qaeda. So, reversing de-Baathification would be a forest clearing operation. Top of the list, bring all those disgruntled guys back into 'their' military.

I recall Rajiv Chandrasekaran's account of a furious military ex-commander, booted under Bremer's de-Baathification edict, telling Rajiv that the Iraqi army had been around before Saddam Hussein; that the army was for Iraq, not any one political party.

There are a lot of spitting mad military men in Iraq who would agree, although they couldn't have expressed their feelings while Saddam was their commander-in-chief. One such Iraqi told Rajiv that if he was wondering where all the military men had gone since de-Baathification, they'd gone to join the insurgency.

There has been some side-door easing of the de-Baathification edict since then, on the simple recognition that Iraq's army couldn't function with all its experienced soldiers gone. But the reversal needs to be made official and accompanied by genuine reaching out in all sectors to Iraqis who have recanted the Baathist line.

Can that happen under Maliki? Allawi thinks not.

The big question is whether Allawi can do enough coalition-building to force a showdown with Maliki by September. I think State is hoping so.

Note re Pundita's rendering of Allawi's first name: "Iyad" is closer to the Arabic translation but, according to Wikipedia, Ayad is the Iraqi pronunciation for Iyad. Pundita will probably continue to publish whatever spelling a source provides, which makes for inconsistency. If by some miracle Allawi ends up in Iraq's top post, the spelling of his first name in the press will surely standardize.