WP: Consensus Emerging on Iraqi Premier

[kskiska]

Jafari, a Shiite and Interim Vice President, Called Front-Runner for the Post

BAGHDAD, Feb. 15 -- Iraq's interim vice president, a soft-spoken physician and former exile who leads the Dawa party, emerged as a surprise front-runner Tuesday to assume the powerful post of prime minister, several Iraqi officials said, although they cautioned that the frenetic negotiations among parties on forming the next government were far from complete.

Ibrahim Jafari, 58, was considered one of four candidates from the United Iraqi Alliance, a largely Shiite Muslim coalition tacitly backed by the country's most influential religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The coalition won 48 percent of the vote in Iraq's Jan. 30 elections for a 275-member parliament. Under a complicated formula, it is expected to hold a slim majority with 140 seats, and in negotiations this week, it has tried to come up with a consensus choice for a position that will become the government's public face.

"There is an initial agreement to nominate Dr. Ibrahim Jafari," said Adnan Ali, a spokesman for the Dawa party.

Another official involved in the negotiations and two officials with a nongovernmental organization supporting the political process -- all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity -- said they, too, believed Jafari was the front-runner.

"It is already basically decided," said one of the officials, who then added, "there is still a lot of horse trading to do."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26990-2005Feb15.html

[MGKrebs]

1. I hope the "horse trading" includes exiling Chalabi.

[moggie12]

2. I'm so confused -- the WP article says Chalibi is still in contention

Wasn't he arrested six months ago for fraud? How does this guy keep popping up?

[MGKrebs]

3. I know! I thought he was "wanted"

and hiding out in Tehran. Perhaps the boy emperor gets to make up the rules as he goes along.

Did W not get to play with a GI Joe when he was a kid or something?

[heyphillip]

4. Iraqi elections

Heard this morning on the news that this Jafari is in favor of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq and the Bush administration is elated. kind of funny that people are wondering after the so called seccessful elections when we can start with drawing some of the troops from there that the Bush Aministration is excited that this Jafari is in favor of keeping troops there. the question is whats in this for the Bush administration for keeping troops in Iraq.

[Disturbed]

5. Why the U.S troops will stay.

The troops will stay to protect the new Iraqi Govt and to protect the 14 U.S. bases and last but certainly not least to make damn sure that the U.S. gets top priority on the oil flow.

[leftchick]

7. A Permanent Presence in Iraq is what bush** has wanted all along

What a better place to control ME oil and fight wars in Syria and Iraq from our bases in Iraq? It is the PNAC agenda come to fruition..

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2281&ncid=742&e=5&u=/thenation/20050118/cm_thenation/132132

<snip>

While the exact figure may change, suspicions of undisclosed US imperial plans--exemplified by permanent military bases--rightfully linger. Before the war, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested moving US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia into Iraq. In October, a survey by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes found that two-thirds of respondents disapproved of a permanent military presence, even though more than half thought the US would build the bases anyway.


Now comes a report in the New York Sun by Eli Lake revealing that the Pentagon (news - web sites) is building a permanent military communications system in Iraq, a necessary foundation for any lasting troop presence. The new network will comprise twelve communications towers throughout Iraq, linking Camp Victory in Baghdad to other existing (and future) bases across the country, eventually connecting with US bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan (news - web sites).


"People need to get realistic and think in terms of our presence being in Iraq for a generation or until democratic stability in the region is reached," Dewey Clarridge, the CIA (news - web sites)'s former chief of Arab operations (and Iran-contra point man), told the Sun.


The fabled "exit strategy" may be not to exit. Thomas Donnelly, a defense specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, said the new communication system resembles those built in West Germany and the Balkans, places where American troops remain today. "The operational advantages of US bases in Iraq should be obvious for other power-projection missions in the region," Donnelly wrote in an AEI policy paper.


Next time the Bush Administration hints at withdrawing troops, keep these grand plans in mind.

[leftchick]

6. Read here about Juan Cole's take on Jaafari...

http://juancole.com/

~snip~

If this speculation turns out to be correct, Jaafari's victory over Abdul Mahdi may be the second largest Bush defeat after that of interim PM Allawi.

USA Today called Jaafari a "secularist," by which it apparently means that he wears Western business suits and is married to a physician. He is not a secularist. He is the leader of an old-time revolutionary Shiite party that has for 48 years worked toward an Islamic republic in Iraq. In an AP interview he said,



' “Islam should be the official religion of the country, and one of the main sources for legislation, along with other sources that do not harm Muslim sensibilities . . . '


Although he also says he is for women's rights and the right of a woman to be a professional and to hold high political office, many in his party want women's testimony to be worth half that of a man's and want girls to inherit half what their brothers do. Islamic law is a dynamic tradition and Jaafari is perfectly entitled to have his own, modernized, version of it. But it is not clear that he can carry his party along with him in this regard. In Iran after the 1979 revolution, Mehdi Bazargan was something of an Islamic modernist, but Khomeini and his hardliners quickly outmaneuvered him. Jaafari isn't even the leader of the entire Dawa Party, which is divided into factions. Abdul Karim al-Unzi, who is a somewhat shadowy figure, leads the Islamic Dawa Party, which was reputed to have as many seats in the UIA as Jaafari's branch.

Jaafari is on record opposing the establishment of a specifid timetable for a US military withdrawal from Iraq.

...he also wants to bring Al-Sadr into the fold!
curiouser and curiouser...