Definitely not the right person to be leading Iraq if you want democracy, freedom and human rights to take root there.
Allawi's opposition group, the Iraqi National Accord ("Wifaq" in Arabic) was on the CIA's dole for many years, and may still be. (It certainly was up until the time of the war.) Allawi used to visit Washington DC for meetings with his masters at Langley. They would put him up at the Ritz-Carleton Hotel in Tyson's Corner, out in the Virginia suburbs. He is not a democrat, and although a Shiite Arab, is as close to a Sunni strongman type that you could get. He always favoured the CIA's "coup option": that Saddam Husein could be assissinated and that a new leader (presumably him) could be installed rather seamlessly. That idea was always unworkable. Allawi is an ex-Baathist, and his group tried to kill a rival opposition leader in 1996 (see above link).
The Iraqi Governing Council apparently approved the nomation of Allawi by a unanimous vote. I'm sure there was some serious strong-arming going on behind the scenes. We'll have to see how this all unfolds, but it's getting harder to see any kind of silver lining in this dark cloud over Iraq.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:32 PM
