BAGHDAD, 9 August 2004 — The prime minister of Iraq’s transitional government Iyad Allawi loves to present himself as a strong man and an efficient crisis manager.
In car bomb attacks in which many are killed, he does not hesitate to hurry to the scene and pledge resolute action against the terrorists.
Yesterday, he went to the Shiite pilgrimage city of Najaf in order to back up the provincial Governor Adnan Al-Sorfi, whose headquarters lie a safe distance from the historical city center controlled by militants of the so-called Mahdi army, which is setting up new battle positions.
Allawi did not seem at a loss for the right rhetoric Yesterday. “The lawless ones” — as he called the Mahdi army, militants of the Shiite preacher Moqtada Al-Sadr — must leave the city “without delay”.
Allawi’s political room for manoeuvre is, however, more limited than he would like.
The young Al-Sadr, scion of a highly regarded Shiite ayatollah clan, whose animosity to the Saddam regime earned it many martyrs, is considered a political outsider in the new Iraq.
Yet in the times such as bloody Shiite uprising in April and May when he unleashed his black-clad supporters against foreign troops, his star rises even among the moderate segment of the country’s 60— percent majority Shiite population.
That puts pressure on the Shiite center parties, who are prominently represented in the US-inspired transitional government.
Iraq Deputy President Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, who is also the head of the Shiite Dawa party, reprimanded the actions by the Iraqi and US troops against the bellicose Al-Sadr militants.
“The killing of Iraqi citizens is not a civilized way to build the new Iraq,” Al-Jaafari told the BBC.
Karbala, second largest pilgrimage city in Iraq, has not yet been touched by the current violence, but has seen members of the Dawa and SCIRI parties demonstrating side by side with Al-Sadr members, demanding for the resignation of Allawi’s Interior Minister Falah Al-Naqib and the Najaf Governor Al-Sorfi.
Allawi has attempted to get around the impending powerlessness of his Cabinet with a nearly impossible balancing act.
In a press conference in Baghdad on Saturday, he announced to near universal amazement: “We believe that the criminals and gangsters in Najaf have nothing to do with Moqtada Al-Sadr, and are merely hiding behind his name.”
Allawi called on Al-Sadr himself to enter the political process and take part in the first free elections that are planned at the latest for end of January 2005.
