<< Opposing a thorough investigation of the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, an investigation that might show Saddam funneled money from the program to neighboring tyrants. "This issue is really over," he told Al Arabiya."We want to start a new life and forget about the past. We do not want to dig up and discuss the past problems. We as an Iraqi leadership and other leaders in the region need to forget the past." >>
The New York Sun Editorial The Putin-ization of Iraq August 17, 2004 An American president named Bush once presided over American policy during the collapse of a foreign dictatorship and failed to capitalize on the opportunity. What eventually emerged in Russia was a regime, led by a former colonel in the Committee for State Security, Vladimir Putin, that was better than what came before it but that lacks respect for basics like freedom of religion or of the press. Today another American president named Bush seems to be on the road to a similar error in Iraq. The American-installed strongman in Baghdad, Ayad Allawi, is, like Mr.Putin,a veteran of an intelligence service that served a totalitarian state; in Iraq, it wasn't the KGB but the Mukhabarat. Mr. Allawi, like Mr. Putin, is cracking down on his political opponents, by engineering political prosecutions of leaders of the Iraqi National Congress, an Iraqi political party, and by evicting the INC from its Baghdad headquarters. Just as Mr.Putin never fully abandoned the authoritarian tactics of the Soviet communist party, so Mr. Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister, has not abandoned the failed tactics and ideology of Baathist Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Some of Mr. Allawi's most egregious errors occurred late last month while the American press was preoccupied with Senator Kerry in Boston. Those errors include: -- Meeting, on July 24, with President Assad of Syria and pronouncing, according to an Associated Press dispatch from Damascus,"It is clear that our visit here is the beginning of a bright chapter in relations between our two brotherly people." Mr. Assad, like his father before him, is the leader of Syria's Baath Party, the party of Saddam Hussein. Syria is on America's list of state sponsors of terrorism. -- Putting a higher priority on Iraq's relations with non-democratic countries than on its relations with America. Mr. Allawi visited not only Syria but Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. "When I received invitations from Europe and Washington, I apologetically told them I am part of this region and, consequently, I will first visit it," Mr. Allawi said in a July 26 interview in Beirut with Al Arabiya television, an English transcript of which was made available by the Federal News Service. -- Spurning Israel. Mr. Allawi insisted repeatedly, both at a Damascus press conference and in the Al Arabiya interview, "There are no Israelis in Iraq." Asked whether he had lifted the Saddam-era ban on travel to Israel by Iraqis, Mr.Allawi responded that a change made to Iraqi passports "was regrettably misinterpreted as an invitation to visit Israel and open an Israeli embassy in Baghdad." -- Opposing America's decision to dissolve Saddam Hussein's army, which was an important part of the Baathist regime. Mr. Allawi referred to "the mistakes committed by dissolving the military and security establishments." -- Relying on non-democratic Arab regimes to supply Iraq's new army. "I contacted our dear Arab leaders, I contacted President Mubarak, His Majesty King Abdallah, the leadership in the United Arab Emirates, and his majesty the king of Morocco.They all without exception sent us donations," he told Al Arabiya. -- Opposing a thorough investigation of the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, an investigation that might show Saddam funneled money from the program to neighboring tyrants. "This issue is really over," he told Al Arabiya."We want to start a new life and forget about the past. We do not want to dig up and discuss the past problems. We as an Iraqi leadership and other leaders in the region need to forget the past." President Bush must know this can play well only among the opponents of his own leadership in the Battle of Iraq. He has landed a leader in Iraq who seems to want to cover up Saddam's crimes, maintain a hostile policy toward Israel, trifle with freedom of the press, harass his political opposition, and forge friendships with the dictators that Saddam's ouster was supposed to be a step on the way to toppling. It all runs counter to Mr. Bush's stated agenda. Yet in an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Mr. Bush essentially endorsed the Iraqi prime minister, saying,"We've got a great leader in Prime Minister Allawi." Norman Podhoretz, in his already-celebrated article in the September issue of Commentary, recalls how he and George Will criticized President Reagan in 1982 for his tepid response to the imposition of martial law in Poland. The East European dissidents, he said, were not so easily demoralized. "They knew better than to get stuck on tactical details, and they never once lost heart," Mr. Podhoretz writes. Mr. Bush, like Mr. Reagan, has set such a clear moral tone in his rhetoric that his actions are almost bound to fall short of expectations. We maintain a hope that that the Iraqis will stay ahead of the compromises of their leaders -- like the Poles did and the Russians may yet -- and emerge victorious in their own right.
