Salon.com News | Saudi Arabia's man in Baghdad:
The neocons are fuming, but the choice of Ghazi al-Yawar as Iraq's interim president may be one of the White House's few smart moves.
June 25, 2004 | The interim Iraqi government is only four days old, yet numerous challenges already threaten to undermine its success. The infamous Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- a Jordanian militant believed to be connected to at least two beheadings of foreigners -- has declared open season on senior officials, including a plan to assassinate interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Continued devastating attacks like the ones last week by suspected Sunni insurgents in five cities across the country left hundreds of Iraqi citizens dead or injured. Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, the interim president, who is less familiar to people outside Iraq than Allawi is, is one government official whose credibility with political and religious leaders in the region offers a glimmer of hope for the achievement of stability in the months ahead.
As I watched the new Iraqi government take shape earlier this month, I couldn't help noticing that the person with a cherubic face smiling serenely beside U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi wore garb much like that of a member of the Saudi royal family. He was wearing a bisht, the traditional black robe with gold trim that is de rigueur for senior royals, big-time businessmen and some religious leaders. One Saudi friend described the outfit as 'a cross between a tie and a business suit.' Another Saudi noted that his iqal, the Sunni headdress also common in the Arabian peninsula, was jauntily tilted at the same angle as Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah's.
The new president of Iraq not only dresses like a Saudi but carries a Saudi passport, was educated in Saudi Arabia, is married to a Saudi (from the same al-Rasheed tribe that the crown prince's mother belongs to) and sends his four children to study in the kingdom. Is it any surprise that the Saudi government was among the first to congratulate him on his new position?.......
Born in Mosul, Iraq, in 1958, the same year the 13-year-old Chalabi left for a very comfortable 45-year exile abroad, Yawar completed his primary and secondary education in Iraq. He then went to the prestigious University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. His father was the leader of the powerful and ubiquitous Shammar tribe, which reaches from Iraq into Syria and Saudi Arabia. Composed of both Sunnis and Shiites, the Shammar are generally religiously and politically moderate. "My mother would take me to visit the holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala, in addition to the Sunni mosques in Baghdad and St. Mary's Church," Yawar told the Iraqi paper Al-Zaman.
Yawar's uncle, the current Shammar tribal chief, refused to sanction Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and went into exile in London. In retribution, Saddam seized huge tracts of Shammar lands throughout Iraq. Yawar, who was then a graduate student in engineering at George Washington University in Washington, returned to Saudi Arabia after completing his master's degree, eschewed politics and instead established a successful telecommunications company with his uncles. He returned to Iraq at his elder uncle's insistence, and after the assassination of Iraqi Governing Council President Izzedine Salim on May 16, he was overwhelmingly elected to replace Salim.
After he was chosen as Iraq's president, Yawar dominated the Sunday morning talk shows in this country. For a man with none of Chalabi's Washington experience or P.R. machinery, he deftly handled veteran verbal jouster Tim Russert. When Wolf Blitzer asked if he would run for elected office in Iraq, he responded, "Well, we'll wait and see ... how things go. If the law allows me to do so, and if the grounds are working for the noble cause of rebuilding Iraq, I would be honored to serve my country." Blitzer said it sounded like he had answered yes, to which Yawar responded, "A political yes." And this guy has no media handlers? Although his lead assistant and spokeswoman, Hind Al-Shannen, may have had something to do with his performance, he seems to be gifted with a natural ability to exude calm and confidence, qualities that could well inspire his fractured nation in the coming months.
On the liberation of Iraq from Saddam, Yawar is characteristically self-effacing. He was recently quoted in an Arabic newspaper as saying that Chalabi and others may "think they are entitled to a role [in the Iraqi government] because they believe they overthrew Saddam Hussein. [But] it was the United States that overthrew Saddam while we were eating TV dinners." "
The neocons are fuming, but the choice of Ghazi al-Yawar as Iraq's interim president may be one of the White House's few smart moves.
June 25, 2004 | The interim Iraqi government is only four days old, yet numerous challenges already threaten to undermine its success. The infamous Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- a Jordanian militant believed to be connected to at least two beheadings of foreigners -- has declared open season on senior officials, including a plan to assassinate interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Continued devastating attacks like the ones last week by suspected Sunni insurgents in five cities across the country left hundreds of Iraqi citizens dead or injured. Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, the interim president, who is less familiar to people outside Iraq than Allawi is, is one government official whose credibility with political and religious leaders in the region offers a glimmer of hope for the achievement of stability in the months ahead.
As I watched the new Iraqi government take shape earlier this month, I couldn't help noticing that the person with a cherubic face smiling serenely beside U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi wore garb much like that of a member of the Saudi royal family. He was wearing a bisht, the traditional black robe with gold trim that is de rigueur for senior royals, big-time businessmen and some religious leaders. One Saudi friend described the outfit as 'a cross between a tie and a business suit.' Another Saudi noted that his iqal, the Sunni headdress also common in the Arabian peninsula, was jauntily tilted at the same angle as Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah's.
The new president of Iraq not only dresses like a Saudi but carries a Saudi passport, was educated in Saudi Arabia, is married to a Saudi (from the same al-Rasheed tribe that the crown prince's mother belongs to) and sends his four children to study in the kingdom. Is it any surprise that the Saudi government was among the first to congratulate him on his new position?.......
Born in Mosul, Iraq, in 1958, the same year the 13-year-old Chalabi left for a very comfortable 45-year exile abroad, Yawar completed his primary and secondary education in Iraq. He then went to the prestigious University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. His father was the leader of the powerful and ubiquitous Shammar tribe, which reaches from Iraq into Syria and Saudi Arabia. Composed of both Sunnis and Shiites, the Shammar are generally religiously and politically moderate. "My mother would take me to visit the holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala, in addition to the Sunni mosques in Baghdad and St. Mary's Church," Yawar told the Iraqi paper Al-Zaman.
Yawar's uncle, the current Shammar tribal chief, refused to sanction Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and went into exile in London. In retribution, Saddam seized huge tracts of Shammar lands throughout Iraq. Yawar, who was then a graduate student in engineering at George Washington University in Washington, returned to Saudi Arabia after completing his master's degree, eschewed politics and instead established a successful telecommunications company with his uncles. He returned to Iraq at his elder uncle's insistence, and after the assassination of Iraqi Governing Council President Izzedine Salim on May 16, he was overwhelmingly elected to replace Salim.
After he was chosen as Iraq's president, Yawar dominated the Sunday morning talk shows in this country. For a man with none of Chalabi's Washington experience or P.R. machinery, he deftly handled veteran verbal jouster Tim Russert. When Wolf Blitzer asked if he would run for elected office in Iraq, he responded, "Well, we'll wait and see ... how things go. If the law allows me to do so, and if the grounds are working for the noble cause of rebuilding Iraq, I would be honored to serve my country." Blitzer said it sounded like he had answered yes, to which Yawar responded, "A political yes." And this guy has no media handlers? Although his lead assistant and spokeswoman, Hind Al-Shannen, may have had something to do with his performance, he seems to be gifted with a natural ability to exude calm and confidence, qualities that could well inspire his fractured nation in the coming months.
On the liberation of Iraq from Saddam, Yawar is characteristically self-effacing. He was recently quoted in an Arabic newspaper as saying that Chalabi and others may "think they are entitled to a role [in the Iraqi government] because they believe they overthrew Saddam Hussein. [But] it was the United States that overthrew Saddam while we were eating TV dinners." "
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