Dictator in Waiting (Iraq's new Prime Minister) - MSNBC

[Eloriel]

Dictator-in-Waiting?
Iraq’s new prime minister will do whatever needs doing to impose order on the current chaos. Let’s not pretend he’s a nascent democratWEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Christopher Dickey
Newsweek
Updated: 10:34 a.m. ET June 30, 2004

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5326366/site/newsweek/

June 29 - Iraqis don’t grow bananas, but why should that keep the Bush administration from treating Iraq like a banana republic? The overwhelming invasion, the ill-conceived occupation, the obliviousness to what’s thought of as native culture, and the tendency to trust only those folks who know how to talk and act (and make us think they think) like us—hey, that’s the way we’ve been coming and going in the fever ports of Central America and the Caribbean for well over a century.

So, too, the handover of paper sovereignty yesterday, which took place ahead of schedule and in semi-secrecy, as if departing pro-consul Paul “Jerry” Bremer was embarrassed by what he’d done for the last year, or afraid for his life, or both. “Let freedom reign!” President Bush wrote in the margins of Condoleezza Rice's handwritten note about the handover. But is this any way to treat a great, sovereign nation?



Left in charge as prime minister is a smooth-talking former Baathist, Ayad Allawi, groomed in exile by the Central Intelligence Agency since the early 1990s. Unlike his erstwhile rival, Ahmad Chalabi (who was groomed by the Defense Department, but always remained a bit too much the wily oriental gentleman for American public tastes), Allawi comes across as more of a regular guy, maybe even a potential golfing partner. He understands what the Americans want, and as long as we’re behind him with our troops and our billions, he may be able to get it. But let’s not pretend he’s a nascent democrat, even if he manages to hold some cosmetic elections

Allawi is best understood as the anointed dictator in waiting. His job is to do whatever needs doing to impose order on the current chaos. Martial law, ruthless repression, you name it. With American firepower to back him up, he’s more than ready to take the blame for any rough stuff. Allawi’s defense minister proudly vows to chop off the hands and heads of terrorists. As Franklin Roosevelt is supposed to have said about an infamous Nicaraguan dictator, “He’s a son of a bitch, but at least he’s our son of a bitch.”

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