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Ayad Allawi's government does not have sovereignty in Iraq

By Tariq Ali - posted Thursday, 1 July 2004


And few doubt that the two key demands of any genuinely elected government in Iraq would be (a) the withdrawal of all foreign troops and (b) Iraqi control of Iraqi oil. It is this that unites a large bulk of the country, and I am convinced that the Kurdish leaders at present engaged in dangerous manoeuvres with Israel will be isolated in their own territory if they carry on in this fashion.

Nothing will change in Iraq after the handover. It is a make-believe world where things are made to mean what the occupiers want them to mean and not what they really are. It is the Iraqi resistance that will determine the future of the country. It is their actions targeting both foreign soldiers and corporate mercenaries that has made the occupation untenable. It is their presence that has prevented Iraq from being relegated to the inside pages of the print media and forgotten by TV. It is the courage of the poor of Baghdad, Basra and Fallujah that has exposed the political leaders of the West who supported this enterprise.

The only response the US has got left is to increase the repression but whether Negroponte will go in for the big kill before the US presidential election remains to be seen.

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It might be a risky enterprise.

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This article was first published in The Age on 28 June 2004.



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About the Author

Tariq Ali is a UK-based novelist, historian and political campaigner. He is the author of Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope (2006) and Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq. He spoke at Sydney Ideas, the University of Sydney’s international public lecture series, on Tuesday, 26 June, 2007. He was in Australia as a guest of the Noosa Longweekend.

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