Ayad Allawi

Ayad Allawi (born May 31, 1944, Baghdad, Iraq) is an Iraqi politician who was involved in the Iraqi National Accord, a party opposed to Saddam Hussein, and who later served as prime minister (2004–05) of the interim government in Iraq. He also was a vice president (2014–15; 2016–2018).

Allawi was born into a middle-class Shiʿi family. His father was a physician, and his mother came from a well-known Lebanese family. He joined the Baʿath Party in 1961 and became active in the Iraqi National Students’ Union while studying at the College of Medicine in Baghdad. In 1972 he was sent to England to pursue advanced medical studies and to head the Baʿath National Students’ Union there. He received a degree in neurology (1982), but he never practiced medicine, preferring politics.

In 1976 Allawi broke with the Baʿath Party and reportedly established ties with the British intelligence service MI6. Two years later he and his wife survived a brutal assassination attempt, presumably perpetrated by the secret police of Saddam, who was leader of the Baʿathists. Allawi recovered but sustained serious scars and thereafter walked with a limp. In 1979 he began organizing a political group composed of disaffected Baʿathists, which by 1991 had metamorphosed into the Iraqi National Accord (INA).

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The Persian Gulf War (1990–91) opened new horizons for Allawi. Seeking Saddam’s overthrow, the United States began to look for Iraqi exiles with ties inside Iraq and by 1992 had established contact with Allawi, who had been living in exile since the early 1970s. He was favoured by the CIA and some other agencies as a counterweight to Ahmad Chalabi, then a more prominent Iraqi exile opposition leader. During the 1990s the INA was responsible for attacks inside Iraq aimed at destabilizing Saddam’s regime, including a failed CIA-sponsored coup in 1996. After the U.S.-led invasion in early 2003, Allawi was chosen as one of the 25 members of the U.S.-backed provisional governing council. (See Iraq War.) Allawi was not known to have a charismatic personality; he was a reserved man who sought to avoid confrontation. His Baʿathist training, however, made him a behind-the-scenes operator and a political survivor.

On June 28, 2004, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority officially transferred sovereignty in Iraq to the newly chosen Iraqi leadership. To the surprise of many, Allawi was named prime minister of the interim government. As prime minister, Allawi adopted a policy of trying to reconcile with Baʿathists who had not been involved in criminal acts during Saddam’s regime. Allawi held out the prospect of pardon for all rebels—Shiʿi or Sunni—willing to lay down their arms, though he remained tough on insurgents and supported the U.S. assault on the city of Al-Fallūjah.

The INA finished third in the January 2005 election, and Allawi was succeeded as prime minister by Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Allawi subsequently helped form the Iraqi National List, a secular coalition of Shiʿis and Sunnis. In the parliamentary election held in December 2005, the party won just 25 seats; Allawi protested the results, charging election fraud. Allawi and his coalition fared much better in the March 2010 parliamentary election, securing more seats than any other group and winning a narrow victory over the coalition of incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. In 2014 Allawi was appointed one of the country’s three vice presidents, but those offices were abolished the following year after parliament approved a reform package. A legal battle resulted in the posts being reinstated in 2016, and Allawi returned to office and served out the remainder of his term.