America's favorite in trouble
America’s preferred candidate in the Iraqi national elections last week didn’t do nearly as well as he expected, according to more preliminary results released today. America will not have the pro-western, democratic leaning strong man it wanted here.
Ayad Allawi, the only Iraqi running on a secular, multi-ethnic, multi-religious platform, might end up with just enough power in parliament to make him a player, but not anything close to the powerful bloc he’d hoped for.
Instead, the Shiite Islamic list, despite the horrible performance of the Shiite-led government led over the past eight months, did much better than generally anticipated.
Sunni Arabs faired a bit worse than experts had predicted, and far worse than the unrealistic impression they had of themselves; many Sunnis believe they are the majority in this country.
One insider said Allawi ended up competing with Sunnis for seats, instead of taking power from the Shiites.
In the end, it looks like we can expect a Shiite prime minister from the Islamic bloc close to Iran. The big battles will be over the defense and interior ministries.
One tough police chief in Fallujah
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