Prime-Minister Iyad Allawi Guarantees Chalabi's Power

by William O. Beeman

Released: 29 May 2004

The choice of Iyad Allawi as prime-minister designate of Iraq further cements Ahmad Chalabi’s hold on power, virtually guaranteeing that he and his family will be the rulers of Iraq in the future. A look at the post-June 30 government reveals that virtually all of the players are from the Chalabi extended family.

Iyad Allawi is related to Ahmad Chalabi by blood and marriage, and in Middle Eastern terms, is part of his extended family. Though somewhat distantly related by American standards, Allawi and Chalabi would be expected to be in close contact in the tightly knit, almost corporate kinship networks of the Middle East.

Ahmad Chalabi has been the Iraqi leader of choice by Donald Rumsfeld and the American Department of Defense since long before the invasion of Iraq. In him they felt they had a reliable “plumber” who could represent American interests. Since he would be beholden to the United States for his office, he would “cooperate” with the United States in military, political and economic matters. Chalabi was somewhat discredited in recent weeks for having misled the United States concerning the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and for his undisguised ambitions for power. Supporting a surrogate for himself from his own family was diabolically clever on his part, allowing him to bide his time until after the American presidential election, when he could emerge to assume a clear leadership position.

Although Ahmad Chalabi was not present for the vote on Iyad Allawi, his representative cast a positive vote. It is notable that in choosing Allawi, the council also acceded to Ahmad Chalabi’s wish that they not choose the neutral, 80-year-old Sunni, Adnan Pachachi, former Iraqi ambassador to the U.N under the pre-1958 monarchy. Ahmad Chalabi despised Pachachi, claiming that he was both outmoded and irrelevant.

The new prime-minister designate, Iyad Allawi, is related to Ahmad Chalabi through his sister. Chalabi was successful in installing his sister’s son, Ali Allawi as minister of trade, and then minister of defense in the post-June 30 cabinet. Iyad is Ali’s cousin. He does have power in his own right, as head of a political party that opposed Saddam Hussein, the Iraq National Accord (INA), which is full of former military officers. Moreover, the Minister of Interior, Nouri Badran, is married to Iyad Allawi’s sister.

The United States touted Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N delegate charged with setting up the post-June-30 government as the ultimate decision maker regarding the new leadership. Brahimi has opposed Ahmad Chalabi from the beginning. The news reports of the acceptance of the Allawi appointment are somewhat confused, suggesting that Brahimi was in fact taken by surprise by the announcement. The Times of London reported that he approved the choice of Iyad Allawi. Reuters and other news sources reported that United Nations support was much more muted. These contradictions suggest that the United States in fact made the decision, and blindsided Brahimi. Once the decision had been announced, however, he had little choice but to accept it.

Whether Chalabi eventually becomes president, prime minister, or takes on some other important office, there is no question that he will be a major power broker in Iraq’s future government. He was responsible for getting all of these family members into office. Like Joe Kennedy in the United States, if he takes no overt role in government, he will be the power to be reckoned with in the future.

This should please Richard Perle, Bernard Lewis and other neo-conservatives who have continued to champion Mr. Chalabi despite detractors who have tried to discredit him by identifying him as an Iranian operative who tricked the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Larry Johnson, a former senior counter-terrorist official at the state department told the Guardian Weekly on May 24, "When the story ultimately comes out we'll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history. They persuaded the US and Britain to dispose of its greatest enemy."

If the Chalabi family fails in their bid for power it will not be because they are spies for Iran—a rather foolish accusation—but rather that they carry a lot of baggage from former times. Ahmad Chalabi’s grandfather, Abd al-Hussein Chalabi was the only Shi’ite Minister in the cabinet of the Hashemite monarchy, except for his son, Abd al-Hadi al-Chalabi, Ahmad Chalabi’s father, who was minister of Works in 1947. Abd al-Husein Chalabi served as minister of education 8 times, but was thought so little of by the Sunni regime that his own underlings derided him behind his back, calling him the “clown of the cabinet.” The broader Iraqi Shi’ite community hated the family as well, seeing them as collaborators with the British Colonialists who had created the Iraqi state, and established the puppet government following World War I.

It remains to be seen whether the Chalabi family can overcome these political liabilities. U.S. forces may have raided Ahmad Chalabi’s offices and seized a few computers, but this gesture fooled almost no one. Perle and other supporters jumped immediately to his defense, and in a day he was back in business.

The gradual establishment of dynastic power in Iraq by the Chalabis and their cousins, nephews and in-laws will be a wonderful thing to watch in the coming months. The more powerful they become, the greater will be the resistance to their power-mongering. At this point the United States will have to decide whether to cut and run, leaving the nation to certain civil war, or to do what all Iraqis are certain it will do—namely to establish a permanent military presence in the nation, making Iraq virtual the 51st State of the Union.

William O. Beeman teaches anthropology at Brown University, where he is Director of Middle East Studies. He is author of the forthcoming book, Iraq: State in Search of a Nation (Praeger).

Copyright © 2004 William Beeman

Released: 29 May 2004
Word Count: 981 words
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