Iyad `Allawi, Anti-War Protestor, who Was Once Threatened by Donald Rumsfeld: The Allawi soap opera has officially ended today. AlArabiyya has obviously received complaints for its heavy pro-Allawi propaganda that they have now rushed some short bio-pieces about other men (this is Saudi-funded, remember: women are not permitted in the political sphere) from the pro-American occupation puppets in Iraq. The promos promise these programs "soon." They are being cooked as we speak. I still have some parts of part 6 or 7 or it could be part 8997, I forgot, that I have not seen. (They are on my DVR). So much to say. I was not kidding that the very ill-informed right-wing Lebanese interviewer, Elie Naquzi, began the series with questions about whether it is true that Allawi 1) does not like formalities and 2) whether he really likes Tabbulah salad. Allawi acted impressed with the background research of his interviewer. He ended the series with equally tough questions about whether Allawis likes his family and children, and whether he misses them. Throughout the series, Naquzi did not know basic major news and developments. AlJazeera's Ahmad Mansur, by contrast, would know more about the person, than the person would know. In fact, one AsSafir reporter said recently that Mansur is too prepared (and too much in favor of his Muslim Brotherhood's outlook in his interventions). But comparing Mansur and Naquzi is like comparing potatoes and shoes. What comes out of the series is this: Allawi is the candidate of Saudi Arabia (and the US of course). There is no question about that. He tried so hard to lift up his sagging fortunes in Iraq, that he kept underlining his anti-American credentials, this from this US occupation puppet, mind you. On two occasions, he told the story how somebody in the Pentagon (he implied it was Rumsfeld) threatened him, and threatened his life. According to him, this Pentagon person said in English: tell Allawi that we will "crush him." By the way, now we know why there is resistance in Iraq. Nobody has ever figured it out, except this carbomber/embezzler-in-Yemen/and former Saddam's henchman. He said the first UN Security Council resolution after the American invasion referred to the foreign armies (remember the 38 Macedonian soldiers?) referred to those armies as "occupation forces." That in little Allawi's mind led the Iraqis to think of them as "occupation forces" and that caused the insurgency. I am not kidding you. I did not make that one up. And he blamed the UK ambassador at the UN for the blunder. In other words, if that resolution did not refer to the occupation forces as, well, "occupation forces" the Iraqi people would then have perceived them as mere armed tourists, or as heavily clothed visitors or as armored foreigners, but not occupiers, and would have then greeted them with "sweets and flowers." Naquzi asked him another penetrating question: he asked why have US forces failed to penetrate the "hearts of Iraqis." And Allawi agreed with that, but in this case he did not blame the UK ambassador at UN. He blamed differences of culture, and not the tons of bombs and missiles dropped over Iraqis' heads. Allawi is also running very frequent campaign commercials on the Allawi AlArabiyya TV: and he starts them by saying his name and saying that he is an Iraqi. That is odd. Imagine somebody introducing his/her campaign commercials in the US by reminding voters that he/she is an American. As if there are Chinese and French AND Americans running for office in Iraq. What was that about. And then he mentions that he was subject to several assassination attempts by Saddam, but in the Allawi unending TV saga, he only mentions ONE. And that one was really, from what I heard, a squabble or feud among the thugs of Saddam's mukhabarat (intelligence apparatus). He also kept referring to Chalabi in unfavorable light: he said that he refused to enter Iraq in US vehicles, to be prodded by Naquzi that Chalabi entered in US tanks. He now claims that he was opposed to the war. That was shocking. He was opposed to the war that installed him in power as a senior puppet among puppets. He talked about his intelligence links with South Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UK, but claims that his intelligence links with the US did not begin until January 1993. Naquzi never asked him a simple question: how did he fund himself and his movement all these years. How did he support himself? Now I am sure that he was able to keep some of the budget of thuggery that he controlled as head of the Ba`th "operations" in Europe. He also told stories that he firmly told the Americans that he will not be controlled by them after the occupation. At this very point of the program, you could hear in the background the voice of an American soldier yelling: "Iyad, go brush your teeth, and eat your vegetables", at which point you see Allawi rushing to brush his teeth and eating what looked like vegetables on the floor, without being controlled by the American forces, of course. He maintained his independence and dignity during that scene. He said in one episode that Saddam never expected the battle to take place, and a few minutes later said that Saddam never expected the battle to last for long. Naquzi was dying to get information about high ranking Iraqi Saddam officials who were working for the Americans. Clearly, there were none. The highest ranking Saddam official that he was able to identify as somebody working for them was the Chief of Traffic Police in Al-Karakh. He also (unsurprisingly) is as sexist as the other puppets in Iraq. He was asked whether he wants to push his kids (who he did not dare bring into Iraq of course) into politics, and he said that he encourages his eldest daughter to get into "social and cultural" matters. Real politics is only for men, according to this Saddam henchman, who never thought Saddam's crimes prior to 1975 mattered, and Saddam's crimes began prior to 1968. He seemed to be very favorable toward the Syrian government (fellow Ba`thist comrades?), perhaps because the government hosted and supported anti-Saddam forces evern when the US was supplying Saddam with material and intelligence help. He makes an effort to use Iraqi colloquial expressions, and to project an image of a "simple man." He said he was not a politician, and yet by his admission entered thuggish Ba`this politics in Iraq in his teens. This is like George W. claiming that he was never into...partying. Apparently Egypt was one of the first big sponsor of his "movement" followed by Jordan, even at a time when both of them were kissing Saddam and arming him. Such are the vagaries of inter-Arab politics. The series could have been interesting: the interviewers on AlJazeera sometimes succeed in turning uninteresting figures into interesting narratives. They have such skills (most used to work for the BBC in London). AlArabiyya reporters mostly come from Lebanese militia TVs. In fact, Allawi also revealed that his movement was getting support from the Amal Shi`ite militia, which committed crimes in Lebanon, and fought the "war of the camps" against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in mid-1980s. And Naquzi did not find it racist and silly to ask whether violence in Iraq is due to Iraqi national character itself. The puppet prime minister agreed, as if Lebanese, Sudanese, Europeans, Americans, or Japanese do not have blood, mayhem, and violence in their history.