65% WINS IN A DEMOCRACY:

US-named Iraqi council pushes back: Negotiations resume after weekend talks stalled between the Governing Council, CPA, and UN envoy Brahimi. (Nicholas Blanford and Orly Halpern, 6/01/04, CS Monitor)

The 24-member council, a mix of seasoned politicians, exiles, academics, and tribal leaders, appeared doomed to irrelevancy when Brahimi said last month that none of them would appear in the post-June 30 administration. Brahimi, charged with helping to form a transitional government, favored a team of technocrats who could hold Iraq together until national elections, scheduled to be held by the end of January.

But on Friday, the council surprised everyone by announcing that it had endorsed Alawi as prime minister. Now the council has locked horns with the UN envoy and the CPA chief over the choice of president. The council members favor Ghazi al-Yawar, a US-educated Sunni engineer and leader of the prominent Shammar tribe who has expressed criticism of the occupation and US military actions. Mr. Bremer and Brahimi are said to prefer Adnan Pachachi, an 81-year-old veteran Sunni Iraqi politician who is regarded as generally pro-US.

Raja Habib Khuzai, a Shiite member of the council says, "The Americans want Pachachi, but they won't tell us why. If they continue to insist on Pachachi it will create very big problems because all the Iraqis want Sheikh al-Yawar, not just the Governing Council."

Despite his biting criticism of past coalition actions, Sheikh al-Yawar is a vocal opponent of the mainly Sunni-driven insurgency. His influence with Iraq's tribes could help reduce the level of violence, reassuring nervous Sunnis that they will not be marginalized in the new Iraq.

But CPA officials privately concede that Pachachi has the backing of the Americans because he is seen as the one person who will stand by the Transitional Administrative Law during ing the interim period. The law, of which Pachachi was a key architect, was drawn up earlier this year to serve as a temporary constitution until a permanent one is established no later than December 2005. "Everyone else will just ignore it like any piece of paper," says one CPA official.

The law sparked opposition among Shiites, who represent 65 percent of the population. They resented a clause that potentially allowed Kurds and Sunnis to veto a future constitution.

Any arrangement in Iraq is just a piece of paper until the Shi'ites agree to it.

MORE:
'Sovereignty' at issue in final push for Iraq transition plan: Members of UN Security Council are pressing the US to ensure that caretaker Iraqi government has full control. (Howard LaFranchi, 6/01/04, CS Monitor)

Sovereignty is taking on such importance because of deepening concern over whether the Iraqi people will embrace the interim government as legitimate in the crucial months before elections planned to be held by January 2005. "There are going to be problems with any government, especially where the security situation won't allow an electoral process to deliver it," says James Dobbins, a former White House envoy to Afghanistan and Bosnia. "But what is needed is a government that as many people buy into as possible."

The interim government that began to emerge over the weekend is a reflection of a tougher tug of war than anticipated between the US-named Governing Council and UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, entrusted by the White House with coming up with a caretaker government. Charged with forging a leadership made up of a prime minister, a largely ceremonial president and two vice presidents, as well as 26 ministers, Mr. Brahimi sought to deliver something more representative to average Iraqis than the Governing council, which has never enjoyed much public support.

But the council, made up largely of former exiles representing established political parties, balked at Brahimi's first choice for prime minister, nuclear scientist Hussain Sharistrani, a Shiite and senior adviser to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. After imposing one of their own, Mr. Allawi, in that post on Friday, council members also stonewalled candidates that were known to be the preference of Brahimi and the US for other top jobs.

But at the same time Brahimi was believed to have secured three of the six most coveted ministerial positions for two Kurd leaders and one Sunni - the other six going to representatives of the majority Shiites. While some of the top picks of the new government still being drawn up Monday were not Brahimi's first choices, the overall makeup is reflective of the careful balance among Iraq's predominant religious and ethnic populations that the UN envoy sought from the beginning. "Brahimi really has been very clever. He knows that if there is no buy-in from the main communities, the government won't have legitimacy and it can't be successful," says Laith Kubba, an Iraqi expert at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington.

From the beginning, the Governing Council was uneasy with what Brahimi said was his preference for a caretaker government of technocrats who would swear off any role in elections. People close to Brahimi say his talk of technocrats was never a hard and fast rule, but rather a way to discuss the new government's formation. "Brahimi doesn't go in with a vision, he goes in with an open mind and a plan for moving consultations in a desirable direction," says Mr. Dobbins, who worked with Brahimi in Afghanistan.

Now an international security expert at the RAND Corp., Dobbins says any government Brahimi accepts will be one he believes can move Iraq ahead.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 31, 2004 7:48 PM