Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Chalabi Is Prevailed Upon To Withdraw

Juan Cole 02/22/2005

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Chalabi is Prevailed upon to Withdraw

It turns out that the other members of the United Iraqi Alliance prevailed on Ahmad Chalabi to drop his bid to become candidate for prime minister. It is not clear if Jaafari, the winner, promised him anything in return for stepping down. AP suggests he might be a deputy prime minister for security and economic affairs. I’d say, keep that man away from money and security!

Personally, I think all the talk of withdrawing for the sake of unity is bunkum, and that Chalabi toted up his votes and did not have anywhere near 71, so he withdrew in time to save face and also in time to be offered some sort of consolation prize.

Charles Clover of the Financial Times, who has done some excellent reporting from Iraq, points to a cloud on the horizon. He says that Jaafari is committed to a vigorous de-baathification program, despite his commitment to reaching out to Sunni Arabs, and that the prospective prime minister may not understand the contradiction in his stances. I had assumed that Jaafari’s opposition to the Fallujah campaign indicated he was less of a wild man on the issue than Chalabi, but maybe not. The Dawa Party certainly has reason for a grudge against Baathists, given all those mass graves the latter filled with Dawa Party members.

The press keeps saying that the crackdown on Dawa came in 1982. It was 1980, with the execution of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, and I believe it is 1980 when Jaafari escaped to Tehran, where he stayed until 1989.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....