Saudi Arabia's Man. With several American politicians declaring that Iraq should dump Maliki and speculation about the forces pushing former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi as a possible successor, it's worth reading this article by the NY Sun's Eli Lake from last August, 2006. It raises the question of whether the intermediate forces behind Allawi, who David Ignatius, Nibraz Kazimi, and others essentially say is Saudi Arabia, and Sunni Gulf countries, have tried to install their man before. Lake, August 2006:

The government of Iraq is secretly holding a Baathist cabal of military officers it claims attempted a coup against Prime Minister al-Maliki.

The plotters were rounded up July 5 with the help of American military authorities after the Iraqi government's security warning center sent word to Mr. Maliki, who was in Kuwait on his first official visit as head of state, two highly placed Iraqi sources said.

The prime minister quickly canceled a scheduled trip to Amman, Jordan, and returned to Baghdad to attend to the matter. At the time, Mr. Maliki's staff told reporters that the prime minister was cutting his trip short because of Iraq's "security situation."

In an interview last night, an adviser to Mr. Maliki and a member of parliament in Baghdad, Mithal al-Alusi, said a coup attempt indeed took place last month. He said the mutinous attempt to replace the elected government of Iraq was organized by military officers loyal to Saddam Hussein.

"The Baathists were trying to have this coup, and people have been arrested and it has been stopped. There have been a lot of rumors as to who is behind this," Mr. Alusi said, referring to speculation that the plot may have involved a former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, whose men worked with the CIA in 1995 to oust Saddam in a military coup.

Kazimi, formerly with the INC, offers his thoughts on why this Allawi political coup will never happen. "These are the usual amateurish stunts that US diplomats and spooks resort to when trying to arm-twist a Middle Eastern ‘flunky’; Washington is panicked by the Sunni withdrawal from the government whilst their current policy can be summed up with “Give the Sunnis everything they want”—including arms and protection to former insurgents who’ve been killing Americans and Iraqis for the last five years. By spreading this rumor, the Americans would like to spook Maliki into giving the Sunnis all that they want too—their current demands being the Presidency, and the Oil, Defense and Finance ministries and the Intelligence Service, in addition to their current portfolios—and fall into line with policy. Here’s a series of reality checks ...."

Also worth reading Walter Pincus' summary of Allawi's comments about his Iraqi lobbying benefactor in an interview with CNN today. Likely Allawi benefactor is perhaps former Iraqi defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, based in London, and fighting charges of embezzling $1 billion in government funds. (Shalaan, for his part, accused Iran of concocting the evidence against him).

This 2005 piece also worth rereading if only for the realization that Maliki and Allawi have been so personally at it for a while. And a usual player in the dispute is the de-Baathification commission's Chalabi, who can only come out the winner from them finishing each other off, as long as everyone has essentially conceded that traditional electoral democracy was overrated anyway, and is contemplating the public relations challenges and strategies for tolerating a possible junta of national salvation.

Posted by Laura at August 26, 2007 11:51 PM