Allawi's selection last week by his colleagues in the interim Iraqi Governing Council testified to his political skills. But some analysts said his campaign in Washington also had been a major help.
Haven't we heard
this story before?
- Member of an Iraqi exile group
- Wealthy British-based Iraqi expat behind the scenes
- Has worked for the CIA
- Eager to carve out power in post-Saddam Iraq
- Cozy with U.S. ruling-party legislators, executives and think-tanks
"It was a bid for influence, and it was money well spent," said Danielle Pletka, a Middle East analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. "Allawi has always assumed, in many ways correctly, that he didn't need a constituency in Iraq as long as he had one in Washington." [emphasis added]
Like many, I don't know Allawi's story well-enough to have a solid opinion on his rise to prime minister, but didn't we just
learn the lesson of trusting a general without an army?
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