Who will rule Iraq?

The Economist printed this article about the questions facing the US and UN about who will rule Iraq - especially following the murder of Izzedin Salim.

The article is short - but, whether you choose to read it or not - what do you think?




Who will rule next?

May 20th 2004 | BAGHDAD AND BASRA
From The Economist print edition


The UN's special envoy is finding it hard to choose an interim government

Reuters


Farewell to Izzedin Salim

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A SUICIDE-BOMBER'S assassination this week of Izzedin Salim, president of Iraq's Governing Council (GC), has darkened the mood in Baghdad's ruling circles but has not stopped the frenetic preparations for a transfer of power to Iraqis at the end of June. Yet the subdued reaction to the assassination among ordinary Iraqis highlights one of the main obstacles to a smooth handover.

Most Iraqis disdain the GC. Many of its 25 members, like the unfortunate Mr Salim, are returned exiles. Few have a popular mandate. Since the Americans set up the council last July, few of its members have tried hard to drum up support in Iraq, preferring instead to travel the globe and to dispense their patronage in the ministries awarded to GC members' parties.

Yet it now seems likely that Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy, who has been entrusted with choosing an interim government of Iraqis to take over in July, will pick many of its new members from the ranks of the GC and will not?as he at first intimated?select a team of technocrats generally unaffiliated to political parties.

Like the Americans before him, Mr Brahimi has had difficulty finding leaders capable of appealing beyond their own narrow sectarian constituencies. Moreover, given the dangers (Mr Salim was the second GC member to be murdered and several more have survived attempts on their lives), many good potential candidates have been reluctant to come forward.

Hence Mr Brahimi may feel he has no choice but to fall back on the GC and on current ministers to find a new team. Several are being touted as a possible prime minister. One, Thamir Ghadban, the deputy oil minister, is indeed a technocrat. Other more plainly political candidates include Mehdi al-Hafez, the planning minister, an old friend of Mr Brahimi; Ibrahim al-Jaafari, head of the Shias' Dawa party, which may be the country's most popular; Ayad Allawi, head of the Shias' Iraqi Nation Accord; and Adel Abdel Mehdi, of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Adnan Pachachi, a venerable Sunni who was once foreign minister, is still tipped to be the interim president.

Most parties represented in the GC have packed the ministries awarded to them with their own members and allies. Mr Allawi's cousin, for instance, is the defence minister. The Americans' latest catchword is ?continuity?. Mr Brahimi, it seems, feels obliged to adopt it too.

Many officials in the ruling Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) admit that they have been distracted by the insecurity of the past two months. But the Americans' decision to accommodate the rebels in Fallujah, to the west of Baghdad, seems to have been replicated elsewhere?and has had some success in ending the worst violence. The idea is to isolate hot spots and pour cash into safer areas. But Iraqi outrage rose this week after Americans killed 40-plus people at what locals said was a wedding, while the Americans said they had hit a nest of foreign fighters.

The Americans seem, for the moment, to be containing Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia firebrand who has stirred revolts across the south and centre in the past month or so, boxing him and his Mahdi Army into their holy redoubts in Najaf and Karbala, occasionally clobbering units of it.

It is still unclear, however, just how the transfer of government will take place?and how much power will actually be handed over. On the face of it, the Americans' current proconsul, Paul Bremer, will fly out on June 30th after passing the reins of power to an Iraqi interim prime minister. CPA managers are worried that smaller but nonetheless vital projects may fall by the wayside if unfinished by June 30th. However, an American-created body, the Programme Management Office, will continue to award contracts to take advantage of the $18.4 billion which Congress allocated to Iraq for the current year.

Crucially, it is also unclear what control, if any, it will have over the multinational security forces now trying to suppress the insurgents. Colin Powell, the American secretary of state, stated again this week that if the new Iraqi authorities ask the Americans and their allies to leave, they will do so.

In the south, which has been calmer, British officials fear that aid money may be wasted. ?It's going to be a balls-up,? says one of them. ?Not enough has been done to prepare for the changeover?but we're just going to have to get by.? It is a sentiment that echoes across the country.