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Time: Allawi gets Baath endorsement: "Iyad Allawi's bid to become Iraq's prime minister again has received an endorsement from an unexpected source: the Baath Party. A spokesman for the exiled leadership of Saddam Hussein's old party told TIME that Allawi 'is the best person at this time to be given the task of ruling Iraq.' He said he hoped that Allawi would pave the way for the Baath Party to 'return to the political life of Iraq, where we rightfully belong.'"
And Marc Lynch has a smart article pointing out that Allawi has been pushed by Saudi-owned Arab media for the past year:
Lots more embedded links in his original piece.While Allawi has only recently returned to the headlines, his bid for a return to power has actually been going on for more than half a year. Allawi's re-emergence dates back to last November, when he began appearing frequently in the Saudi-owned Arab media, and popped up in Amman, Jordan, as a key interlocutor in "secret" talks between the Americans and the Sunni insurgency. ... Allawi has been negotiating widely, including a recent trip to Kurdistan, ostentatiously accompanied by American Ambassador Zal Khalilzad (Kurdish leader Mahmud Othman says that they are "interested", and KDP leader Masoud Barzani today traveled to Riyadh with Allawi). Iraq-watchers these days entertain themselves by counting votes to see if he might be able to somehow cobble together a Parliamentary majority to unseat Maliki (Moqtada al-Sadr hopping on board is the latest, rather unlikely, rumor).
Allawi's return reflects more than his own considerable appetite for power: the fact is that his political profile fits American objectives in the region far better than Nuri al-Maliki, Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, or any of the other major Shia candidates. Allawi is Shia, but, unlike his long-time rival Ahmed Chalabi, does not even pretend to have rediscovered his religious roots. Allawi presents himself as an Iraqi nationalist, able to appeal across sectarian lines and - most importantly - eager to pursue a hard line against Iran. The anti-American edge which he cultivated last December, when he reached out to the insurgency and flirted with Sadr, seems to have faded as American interest in him has grown. And he is much-admired in Amman and Riyadh, key players in the Bush administration's shiny new coalition of "Sunni moderate states" (pro-American dictators on board with the anti-Iranian campaign).
The main objection to Allawi - that he lost democratic elections, winning only 25 seats in the current Parliament - carries less weight these days in a Washington which has lost interest in promoting Arab democracy. At this point, the argument goes, Iraqis care more about restoring security than they do about democracy. Enough time for elections later: Americans may gamble that Allawi would gain popularity by delivering on security and by mobilizing anti-Iranian nationalism. And if he doesn't, well, who in Washington really cares about democracy anymore, compared to containing Iraq's descent into civil war and ramping up pressure against Iran?
So what's the problem?
An Allawi return would signal a return to more overt American custodianship of Iraq at a time when most Americans would prefer to get out. Iraqis would know and deeply resent that America was the only reason for Allawi's return. ...