By Gwynne Dyer, ContributorTHE LAST thing Iyad Allawi needed right now was a photo-op of President George W. Bush congratulating him on becoming prime minister of the 'sovereign' (but US-appointed) government of Iraq.
What he must do in order to survive, not only politically but personally, is to put as much space as possible between the himself and the United States.
So it's just as well that security concerns in particular last week's killing by small-arms fire of a passenger aboard a C-130 aircraft just after take-off from Baghdad -- forced Mr Bush's handlers to cancel his secretly planned trip to Baghdad to do the 'hand-over of power' in person. Allawi doesn't mind at all.
Every Iraqi knows what happened to Nuri Said, 14 times prime minister and London's main instrument for controlling the British-appointed kings who ruled Iraq until 1958.
When Iraqi nationalists rebelled and overthrew the puppet monarchy, they machine-gunned the young king, who was just playing the role he had been born into. But when a mob caught Nuri Said two days later, trying to escape Baghdad dressed as a woman, they tore him apart with their bare hands and left his remains in the road to be flattened by the traffic like road-kill. Iraqis do not like collaborators. The risk of ending up the same way must haunt Iyad Allawi, for his position is quite similar.
According to the latest opinion poll conducted by the Coalition Provisional Authority itself, 92 per cent of Arab Iraqis now see Americans as occupiers, and only two per cent as liberators.
US-CONTROLLED MONEY
Allawi owes his position entirely to the United States, depends on US-controlled money for the day-to-day operations of his government, and must rely on American troops to protect him and fight the resistance. He is actually more compromised than Nuri Said was, and he knows it.
It was the dire security situation in Iraq that prompted the CPA to stage the 'hand-over' two days early, to forestall the avalanche of attacks that were probably scheduled for the announced date of 30 June.
Security is even worse than it was during the uprisings in April, because the rebels in Falluja and the rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr both effectively won their confrontations with American forces. Falluja is now a no-go area for US forces, and it serves as interim capital for the Sunni insurgents who have done most of the fighting against the occupation so far.
Half of the newly recruited Iraqi police and army troops refused to fight fellow Iraqis on behalf of foreigners during the April revolts, and 10 percent actually switched sides and fought for the rebels.
The spectacular co-ordinated attacks of 25 June, when insurgents stormed police stations and government buildings in five cities, killing 85 and injuring 320, show how powerful the Iraqi resistance has now become. To talk of these insurgents as "terrorists" is just name-calling; terrorists do not stand and fight.
Nor are they necessarily "anti-Iraqi forces," as US propaganda always insists; they include many Iraqis who believe, rightly or wrongly, that the Bush administration's plans for Iraq do not include either real democracy or genuine independence.
These are the people that Allawi must convince or marginalise if he is to survive.
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based international journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
