http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,701375,00.html?cnn=yesFor the White House, Thursday's visit by Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi couldn't have been more timely. Just as President Bush's relentlessly optimistic campaign-trail spin on Iraq was coming under fire not only from John Kerry but also from heavyweight Senate Republicans, here was an authentic Iraqi voice validating the Bush position. In response to critics charging that his rhetoric was hopelessly optimistic, Bush stood alongside Allawi and responded, "What's important for the American people to hear is reality. And the reality's right here in the form of the prime minister. And he is explaining what is happening on the ground." And, of course, Allawi's explanations jibed neatly with those of the Bush administration; the insurgency is the work of international terrorists who must be stopped; it is limited to small parts of the country; elections will go ahead as scheduled; Iraq is free and well on the road to democracy. You don't have to take my word for it, President Bush appeared to be saying. You can hear it from "the prime minister of a free and sovereign Iraq."
Whether or not American voters choose to believe the President; or to accept John Kerry's charge that Allawi is simply reading from the administration's script and distorting the reality; in the eyes of Iraqis and most of the international community Allawi does not personify the democratic will of a free people. That's because Allawi owes his appointment last June not to the Iraqi electorate, but to outgoing U.S. administrator J. Paul Bremer. And his authority in Baghdad rests primarily on the backing of some 130,000 U.S. troops that remain in the country, and whose presence is viewed by many Iraqis as a sign that despite Bremer's departure, they remain under occupation. And on a number of key security decisions, ranging from the extent of an amnesty to be offered to insurgents to the question of whether to release two imprisoned women who'd served Saddam's germ warfare program (and whose freedom had been demanded by terrorists as the price for sparing the life of a hostage), the U.S. embassy appeared to have veto power. Despite the president talking up Allawi's credentials as the voice of a new Iraq, the former exile has yet to prove that his political standing along the Potomac can be matched along the Euphrates.
It is precisely because Iraq does not yet have a government whose legitimacy has been established among its own people that the question of the election scheduled for January has assumed so much importance. Allawi insisted that the election would go ahead; although, he warned, it would be imperfect; despite the suggestion by "some" that security conditions for holding a credible election simply don't exist right now. "Some" may have been a reference to the likes of Senator John Kerry and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, but ironically the suggestion that elections might have to be postponed for security reasons had first been mooted by Allawi himself upon taking office at the end of June. Still, now the prime minister remains "on message," reiterating that the election will be held in January, come what may.
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