Word: allawi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...INTERVIEW: P.M. Iyad Allawi...
...Islam's holiest shrine surrounded by American troops, tanks and aircraft, he holds a clear political advantage. Although the latest pause in the military effort to dislodge Sadr and his men from the shrine may grate at the morale of the U.S. troops gearing up to do the job, Allawi may have had little choice. The national conference is critical to his own efforts to establish a popular base for his government, and on Saturday it became plain that there was little support among delegates for his action against Sadr. If the delegates wanted another crack at mediating a compromise...
...because the perception of the standoff among large sections of Iraqi society has been shaped by the fact that it involves thousands of troops from an unpopular foreign army attacking Muslim fighters around one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites. The Najaf standoff has seen the U.S. and Allawi widely condemned among both Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis, and thousands of Shiites have flocked to Najaf to act as "human shields" to protect Sadr in the event of a new offensive. Elsewhere in Iraq, Sadr's militiamen continue daily to demonstrate their capacity for disruption, attacking oil wells and pipelines...
...Iraqi allies as a basis to build his own political support. His latest game of brinkmanship may actually boost his chances of playing a central role in the new political order - not the new order as defined by the U.S. via its appointment of Allawi, but the one that will emerge as U.S. influence begins to recede and Iraqi parties compete for power. Sadr's rejection of direct participation in the national conference, for example, was couched not in complete rejection of the idea of a national assembly, but instead on the basis of a demand for such an assembly...
...high stakes game continues. While prospects for a peaceful outcome at Najaf persist, its attainment will depend in large part on Moqtada Sadr's sense of timing - and his, and Allawi's, grasp of the maxim that "politics is the art of the possible...