A quick note to announce that comments can only be posted after one creates a user account. Apologies for this, but after deleting 1,500 spam comments from the moderation queue today I’m left with no other option.

The latest on Iyad Allawi’s plan to re-take Iraq via Prof. Cole:

Al-Hayat reports that Iyad Allawi, a secular ex-Baathist Shiite who leads the Iraqi National List (25 seats in parliament), visited Kurdistan on Saturday. He is attempting to convince the Kurdistan Alliance to join his new coalition in parliament. Allawi has said that his list will leave the ‘national unity government’ headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Allawi’s list is small and he is deeply disliked by most of the religious Shiites that dominate parliament. I can’t imagine that he can actually form a government given the present distribution of seats. But al-Hayat reports that Allawi was accompanied on his trip to Kurdistan by none other than US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, which the daily read as a sign of US support for dumping al-Maliki and trying to install Allawi as Prime Minister. (Allawi served as interim prime minister in 2004, having been appointed by the US and UN for this purpose. He is an old CIA asset.)

Read the rest.

Simply nothing will come from this; it’s mostly a non-story. What is worthy of note, however, is that Amb. Khalizad is joining Allawi on this ill-begotten souljourn, which highlights the Bush administration’s inability to give up on installing a secular government in Iraq. But, also, it suggests that the administration is no longer interested in working with the religious Shi’a parties. (more…)