Iraqi Council Vote Postponed

It seems as if the Coalition Provisional Authority and the UN are interfering with the Iraqi Governing Council’s choice for president of Iraq:

Most members want Ghazi Yawar, a U.S.-educated tribal sheik who holds the council’s rotating presidency, to assume the largely symbolic presidency of the interim government that will take limited power on June 30. But the members said the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, favors another candidate, Adnan Pachachi, an 81-year-old former exile who served as foreign minister in the 1960s, before Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party took power. (snip)

The Bush administration has said it would allow U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to select the interim government, a task Brahimi has said he is performing through consultations with Iraqi leaders and the occupation authority. But council members insisted that Brahimi’s role has been subordinated by U.S. officials who want a new government that is closely allied with Washington. (snip)

Brahimi had said he wanted to form an interim government made up largely of politically independent technocrats who would act as caretakers until national elections are held early next year, effectively minimizing the role of politicians from the council. Although the U.N. envoy had intended to consult with the council in shaping the new government, he did not intend to give it veto power over his selections — a position supported by the Bush administration — on the grounds that it lacks broad legitimacy in Iraq. (snip)

Of course, because it is the United Nations that is doing most of the legwork in providing a poltically neutral government, the criticism from the liberal press has been muted somewhat. What I don’t understand is why you would want a politically disinterested IGC in charge? Maybe the UN doesn’t want to repeat what happened to the Russian Federation in the 1990s (technocrats, billionaires and all) in Iraq.

But frankly, that may be what the country needs – politically motivated technocrats and billionaires too interested in letting the good times roll rather than allowing the country to devolve according to the interests of radical clerics like al-Sadr.

Not necessarily a defense of the current Russian economic situation, but again I think planners in Washington may be miscalculating and/or misunderstanding the Arab mind. They are businessmen first – let them be businessmen. Political motivation is going to help, political weakness or disinterest only serves the more violent opportunists in the long run.