YOU cannot fault Iyad Allawi for optimism, of a particularly combative kind.
On a brief dash out of Iraq to Britain and the US, the country’s interim Prime Minister berated the world, and the media above all, for not “looking at the bright side and what has been achieved”.
“We are succeeding against the forces of evil,” he said in London, after one of the blackest weeks since the war. “We are adamant that democracy is going to prevail in Iraq.”
That was presumably the message that Tony Blair, standing beside Dr Allawi, was also trying to give. Yet Mr Blair did his cause no favours by declaring his determination in words so bleak that he seemed to be describing a different country from Dr Allawi, one where Britain is still “at war”, and which is the “crucible” that will determine the future of terrorism.
Defiance he managed, certainly. But not quite hope, of the kind which Dr Allawi had just called for.
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What should we make of Dr Allawi’s upbeat message at such a black time? Foolish denial of the reality? Frustrated railing at countries who have done less than they promised? Or solid claims which deserve a greater international response? For a start, we should note that his remarks are highly political; they have one very precise target — to get the United Nations more involved. This week Dr Allawi will make that pitch in person in New York.
As a warm up in London, in very pointed remarks, he implicitly criticised the UN for its reluctance to get involved again in Iraq after the bombing of its headquarters in August 2003.
Iraq needs the UN and its agencies to hold the elections due in January, and then to rebuild the country, Dr Allawi said, in a theme which is only likely to get louder.
He is right. In Iraq, the agencies are conspicuous by their absence. Normally in a conflict, they are part of the landscape, their white vehicles running everywhere.
All the same, he is unlikely to get a rapid response from New York. The shock to the UN of last year’s blast can hardly be overstated.
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It is rare for the UN to experience the direct hostility of the local population (at least, some of them).
The remarks by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last week — that the Iraq war was illegal and that elections could not be held if violence was at the levels of last week — have been taken as a gratuitous insult by British and American officials.
They will also put a wedge between the UN and Iraq, as they undermine Dr Allawi’s efforts to hold the elections.
Those polls are the cornerstone of his argument that Iraq is making progress. The coalition and the interim government are determined to hold them early next year.
They know that there is enormous public support for the elections, if only because they would stand as a symbol that Iraqis were taking back their own country. What remains to be tested is whether Iraqis are as clear about getting political parties and a constitution off the ground.
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Coalition optimists argue that the signs of this beginning are there. Political debate, of a sort, is starting to take place in the new National Council, which Dr Allawi created.
The voter education campaign is beginning in the Iraqi media this week, telling people not just how to vote, but how to form parties, and that they need only 27,000 votes to get a seat in the new parliament.
After last week, above all, Dr Allawi needs to answer the question about how people will be able to vote, given the violence. He has done this in part by saying that elections will begin in the stable parts of the country.
Coalition officials also have plans for people to be able to vote in districts other than the one where they are registered, provided they are on the list.
So far, Dr Allawi would be the first to acknowledge, Iraqis have not seen the benefits of reconstruction money. But coalition officials say that improvements in electricity and water have been made, and that without them, disruptions to supply this summer would have been far worse.
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This amounts to a slender case: an embryonic political culture, a trickle of money into the worst bits of public services, a plan for getting to the elections — and above all, public desire to have those polls.
As a scoresheet, it isn’t quite zero. But everything now hangs on the elections, without which, this progress, slight as it is, will count for nothing.