An eye on Allawi

Marc Lynch, Guardian

...While Allawi has only recently returned to the headlines, his bid for a return to power has actually been going on for more than half a year. Allawi's re-emergence dates back to last November, when he began appearing frequently in the Saudi-owned Arab media, and popped up in Amman, Jordan, as a key interlocutor in "secret" talks between the Americans and the Sunni insurgency. Last week, as Allawi's name started to flood the local papers, the Fadhila Party split off from the Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance and made noises about joining with Allawi's Iraqi National List. While Fadhila has not formally joined with Allawi, the talk of forming the non-sectarian, anti-Iranian "National Salvation Front" long mooted by the Sunni leader Saleh al-Mutlaq continues to grow. Allawi has been negotiating widely, including a recent trip to Kurdistan, ostentatiously accompanied by American Ambassador Zal Khalilzad (Kurdish leader Mahmud Othman says that they are "interested", and KDP leader Masoud Barzani today traveled to Riyadh with Allawi)...

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