Ayad Allawi Subverting Two Democracies At Once
Iraq opposition dude Ayad Allawi is campaigning for the ouster of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki the old-fashioned way: paying a foreign lobbying firm with close ties to the leader of his country's occupying power to back him. Democracy! There's just a slight problem -- no, not the "making a mockery of all claims of Iraqi sovereignty" bit. It's that he's in violation of US lobbying laws!
While chatting with Wolf Blitzer the other day, Allawi revealed that a friendly Iraqi patriot was footing Barbour Griffith & Rogers' substantial bill for him, "wholeheartedly, without any strings attached."
Whoops! That means that the documents BGR filed with the Justice Department naming Allawi as their "sole foreign principal" were kind of a lie! And now they're in violation of the ominously named "Foreign Agents Registration Act"!
Who the hell does this Allawi think he is, a pharmaceutical company? If you want to convince the US government to overthrow your ostensibly fairly elected government and install you as leader, you betterdamn wellmake sure your paperwork is filled out correctly.
It is, after all, a little-known fact of history that the Diem brothers forgot to get their official requests for US support notarized, and we know what happened tothem.
Analysts: Lobbyists Must Name Allawi's Backer [IraqSlogger]