Allawi threatens to resign?

Al Arabiya is reporting that Iyad Allawi has threatened to resign over the Najaf conflict; it also reports an intense conflict between Allawi and several key members of his government, including National Security Advisor Mawfiq al Rabii. The only place that I have seen this reported in English is the Tehran Times.

Since Allawi's resignation would more or less mean the complete collapse of the American-brokered "transitional" political strategy, this would seem to be a rather big deal. I wouldn't miss him, personally, since he represents an alarmingly authoritarian trend in the new Iraq, but that's where the Bush administration chose to put its chips. If this story is true (and even if it isn't), the dice do seem to be rolling (and the knives out).

For what it's worth, Al Arabiya is considered (by itself, its Saudi owners, and the Bush administration) to be the more 'moderate' and more 'professional' and more 'objective' alternative to al Jazeera. As with the bin Laden thing last week, I don't know if the English-language media isn't covering this because it isn't true, or if something else is going on. But either way, could some of our well-paid media folks maybe avert their eyes from Swift Boat Liars for a moment and find out?

Comments

[Jonathan Dresner]

I don't think the Bush administration actually has its 'chips' that strongly on Allawi, or else they'd be working harder to back his plays. I think that, after the Chalabi debacle, they're playing it closer to the vest (I'm up to three gaming metaphors in two sentences.... see what you started?) and even if the transitional government collapses, Bush can just say 'look, the anti-war folks forced us to move too quickly' (Ignoring the fact that they've been ignoring their critics entirely for years; we're convenient scapegoats, even though lots of us have been advocating really substantial upgrades to our Iraqi development project instead of withdrawal) and shift more resources to protecting and developing the oil resources.

[paper tigress]

Bush has phoned Putin in Moscow and had summoned Rummy, Wuffy and Condy to the ranch.

After reading historian D. Kaiser's book 'American Tragedy', if DoD behave the anything like the way they did in Viet-Nam, we're looking at a lot of skullduggery, deception, death and destruction. Bush is going to stand at the roulette table until the house closes his account and the bouncers deposit him on the sidewalk.

[J Thomas]

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/archives/2004_08_01_iraqthemodel_archive.html#109329005185662707

Here's a blogger claiming that the new iraqi TV station interviewed Lateef who claimed Allawi isn't threatening to resign.

Make of it what you will.