Iraq's Allawi warns against Islamist rulers

[ECH1969]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Thursday that if the Shi'ite Islamists now in power are returned to office in a December election sectarian strife will deepen and destabilize the whole Middle East.

"Religious rule would cast Iraq into problems with a beginning but no end," the secular Shi'ite told Reuters, saying in an interview he would campaign hard to win back the power first handed to him under U.S. occupation last year.

"It will not stop at the borders of Iraq. It will spread. "The battles and problems and secret movements and chaos would prevail across the entire region." "As for SCIRI we are friends with the Hakim family. But we have different political goals. I don't believe politically in an Islamic state," he said.

Sitting in the heavily fortified headquarters of his Iraqi National Accord movement, Allawi, a former member of Saddam's secular Baath party, said Iraqis must stop defining themselves in terms of religion or ethnicity or risk sliding into anarchy.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051013/wl_nm/iraq_allawi_dc_1

[joemurphy]

1. Um...did we lose nearly 2000 men for an Islamic Republic of

Iraq? Nice work, Mr. President. So much for democratizing Iraq.

[acmavm]

2. What Mr. Allawi is saying is "HEY, put my ass back in and I'll put bullets

in a few more brains for you. Wasn't I your golden boy? I thought I had a job for life. What happened?"

[Missy M]

3. So Allawi wants to put Iraq right back where it was before we invaded...

and he wants to head the country instead of Saddam, who he helped depose.

[Roland99]

9. Technically, he can't lead Iraq, can he?

[enigma000]

4. Take your pick

A pro-Iranian Shiite theocracy

OR

A secular de-centralized republic run by a pro-Western strongman

[LatinoSocialist]

5. how about I don't play this slot machine

the choices ain't too nice...

hey, what do you mean I can't get my quarter back? (quarter = 2,000 American dead, 10,000+ wounded, 300 billion dollars wasted)

[enigma000]

6. you pays your monies, you take your chances n/t

[hiabrill]

7. Its a foregone conclusion........

If the majority are Shiite, there will be a religious (shiite) government in power in Iraq.

I remember the Iraqi Ayatollah ordering who his followers should vote for....!! Fuckhead has created another Iran. Once the Iraqi leaders are "democratically" elected, we have to live with our creation.

A free and democratic Islamic country is a Religiously Fundamentalist Nation.

Wasn't it the CIA that created Bin Laden as well...... We also had Rumsfield selling weapons to Saddam Hussain.


What have we now created....?? And when will the tables turn against us, AGAIN...?!?

[enigma000]

8. Hey, life happens

The West also supplied the Soviet Union back in WWII and look what that got us: a four decade long Cold War with a slice of potential nuclear annihilation. Sometimes its just not worth the trouble of getting up in the morning.

Still, the Iraqi Ayatollah (al-Sistani) is no longer backing any political party for this December's elections. This may give the secular parties a chance. And don't forget the Sunni Arabs (who are far more secular) will, in all likelihood, participate this time.

We have to live with our creation - but its not ready quite yet.