Meet The New Boss; Same As The Old Boss

June 29, 2004

The “new Iraq” looks a lot like the “old Iraq,” doesn’t it? Three more American soldiers killed today in Baghdad, and no doubt there are quite a few unused car bombs that had been rigged to disrupt the June 30 handover and that can now be redeployed more leisurely over the next few weeks.

Now the real bloodshed will begin.

Despite Allawi’s offer of amnesty to resistance fighters, it’s likely that the new “prime minister” will launch the kind of bloody crackdown that even U.S. forces could not have initiated. "Prime Minister Allawi, as head of a sovereign government, may decide he has to take tough measures to deal with a brutal cold-blooded killer," said President Bush yesterday, signaling that the new regime in Baghdad will start to look pretty brutal itself. That statement indicates that the White House will wash its hands of the coming bloodbath by Allawi and Co., making sure that the world gets the message that from now on civil war in Iraq is in Iraqi hands, and Iraqis are to blame. Says The Washington Post:

Allawi has promised to use his new authority to take more aggressive actions against insurgents. He said he would announce new security measures in the coming days. He and some of his cabinet members have suggested that a state of emergency may be declared in violent areas, allowing local authorities to impose curfews, ban public demonstrations, and take other steps to restore order.

Of course, he and his entire government have big bull’s-eyes on their foreheads. Not a single one of them has any credibility with the Iraqi public at large, and certainly not with the resistance. An ad in The New York Times today by MoveOn.org reminds us that in a recent poll Allawi finished 16 out of 17 potential Iraqi politicians, and that number 17 was the new Iraqi “president,” Ghazi Yawar. Perhaps the fact that Allawi is widely known to be on the CIA payroll has something to do with that.

In its editorial, “A Secretive Transfer in Iraq,” the Times notes: “Nobody, including Bush administration officials, can seriously believe that Dr. Allawi and his cabinet are in any position to run Iraq and prepare it for democratic elections… He already seems tempted to look for shortcuts—like imposing martial law.” The Times warns Allawi, vainly, in my opinion, “not to use force to impose a new dictatorial order.”

That dictatorial order, however, will continue to be backed up by 140,000 U.S. soldiers, apparently with more to come. Bush is stuck so deeply in the Iraqi tar baby that he might as well give up struggling to extricate himself before the election in November; he can’t do it. His approval rating, mostly thanks to Iraq, stands at 42 percent, heading down.