Word: allawi
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...last-minute compromise candidate; as a member of the Shammar tribe, which includes Shi'ites and Sunnis, he was acceptable to both. In the first months of his tenure al-Yawer was rarely seen or heard in Baghdad, overshadowed by the tough-talking Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi. Some criticized al-Yawer for spending too much time in other Arab capitals. But those weren't pleasure trips. Says a Western diplomat in Baghdad: "If you asked the leaders of neighboring countries who they'd be most comfortable doing business with in Iraq, they would all point to al-Yawer...
...Unlike Allawi, al-Yawer has at times been critical of the U.S., questioning, for example, the strategy of using massive force to bring the insurgency to heel in cities like Samarra and Fallujah. "Since the attack on Fallujah," he told TIME, "violence has escalated everywhere, even in Mosul, where things were quite calm before." His criticisms have won him admirers in the Sunni triangle, where government figures are regarded with scorn. Even the radical Association of Muslim Scholars, which is calling for a boycott of the election, offers guarded praise. Al-Yawer, says association spokesman Abdul- Salam al-Qubaisi...
...Blood-and-thunder rhetoric aside, now that the makeup of Iraq's government is being put to the vote, Allawi and his allies certainly have reason to fear the Shiite-dominated mega-list that enters the race with the blessing of the spiritual leader to Iraq's Shiite majority, who has also issued a fatwa proclaiming voting on January 30 a religious duty. Fearful that intra-Shiite political rivalries would dilute the impact of the Shiite vote, Sistani mandated a top aide to broker the deal that put the major Shiite religious parties, and many secularists and independents, under...
...National Assembly - particularly given the fact that substantial numbers of Sunnis are expected to stay away from the polls, thereby amplifying the power of the Shiite vote. Not all Shiites will vote for the UIA list, of course, but it is well-placed to carry a majority of them. Allawi has the advantage of greater access to the government-controlled media, but the Shiite list may have an effective counter in the mosques...
...while Shaalan's suggestion that the IUA is an "Iranian list" smacks of partisan mudslinging - the SCIRI and Dawa, after all, participate at cabinet level in Allawi's government, and served in the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council before that - both groups are certainly closer to Tehran, where they were based during their years in exile, than they are to Washington. U.S. officials have drawn comfort from the fact that Sistani, and much of the Iraqi Shiite clerical establishment, opposes the Iranian view that clerics ought to hold political power. Leaders of both SCIRI and Dawa have been somewhat ambiguous...