The assassination yesterday of Abdul Zahra Othman, known as Izzedin Salim, the largely ceremonial president of the Iraqi Governing Council since May 1st, is another blow to a shaky transition process that is supposed to pass real power to Iraqis in barely six weeks time. Or that is the theory.
The attack on Salim, in which seven died, was a concerted attempt to decapitate the leadership of the United States-appointed advisory body whose members were gathering for a meeting. He is the second member of the 25-member IGC to have been assassinated, following the killing in September of Akila Hashimi, one of its three female members.
An unknown group, the Arab Resistance Movement, claimed responsibility for yesterday's suicide bombing, saying it carried out the operation against "the traitor and mercenary" Salim. It was a warning to the US that its writ still does not run, and to all those who are working with it that they may pay a heavy price for doing so.
Salim, a philosopher, writer, and newspaper editor, was leader of the Islamic Dawa party in the southern city of Basra. The Shia party, the oldest political grouping in Iraq, was established in 1957 and had been a focal point for democratic resistance to Saddam Hussein, suffering brutal retaliations which affected tens of thousands of activists. Its leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al Sadr, was murdered in 1980 and, with many supporters in exile, the party's strength dissipated. But it still retains a significant base among the Shia and its moderating influence could be critical to the success of US plans.
In desperately seeking to cobble together an acceptable caretaker government to see the country through to elections next year, US officials have in recent days, with Salim's support, been suggesting a role for members of the current IGC in what would otherwise be the largely technocratic administration proposed by the United Nations representative, Lakhdar Brahimi. Despite recent polls showing 80 per cent of Iraqis do not have confidence in the US-led Provisional Authority, the injection of some political voices could indeed add some legitimacy to its successor.
The intimidation of such moderate elements poses a real danger to the possibility of a managed transition and will provide comfort only to those determined to plunge Iraq into a sectarian civil war. And, the more difficult and violent the process becomes, the less inclined the US will be to hand over, as it must, the real levers of power to Iraqis - or Iraqis and the UN - most particularly control over the army. Much depends on cool heads prevailing.