Like Bush, Allawi portrayed Iraq as a central battle in the global struggle against terrorism. "If we, God forbid, fail in Iraq, then you will have Washington, New York, London, Paris, Cairo, everywhere, all burn," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Perhaps most important, at least in the eyes of some key Bush advisors, Allawi at every opportunity thanked the American public for the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "That will make people proud of this country and proud of this effort," said one senior GOP strategist familiar with White House planning.
Against that backdrop, Kerry took the unusual step for a challenger of directly engaging a friendly foreign leader. During a stop Thursday in Ohio, Kerry said that though both Allawi and Bush were trying "to put their best face on the policy ... the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations, and the troops all tell a different story."
Kerry aides and other Democratic analysts went further, saying that Allawi had painted such a rosy picture of conditions in Iraq that he would have little credibility with Americans who are exposed daily to reports of car bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. Allawi's assertion that the election would occur on schedule in January, for instance, comes just days after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said "credible elections" would not be possible unless security improved.
"If the plan was to use Allawi as the chief surrogate for the Bush campaign this week, it has failed miserably, because events on the ground undermine his rhetoric," Lockhart said.
Nile Gardiner, a foreign policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, predicted that the Democratic criticism of Allawi would backfire by making Kerry appear pessimistic and petty. "Attacking Allawi directly could be perceived as in some way undermining what he is trying to achieve in Iraq, and that's a major risk," Gardiner said.
The Democratic National Committee inadvertently revealed some dissonance over Allawi. Kerry and his aides were accusing him of sugarcoating conditions in his country, but the DNC issued a statement before Thursday's speech contrasting what it described as Allawi's "honest assessment of the challenging situation on the ground in Iraq" and Bush's "rosy picture of success."
Many analysts caution that Allawi is likely to influence American attitudes about Iraq less by what he says than by whether he can help move his country toward stability. And amid the rising tide of violence, that may be much tougher.
Asked recently what Allawi could do to help Bush in November, one senior European diplomat sympathetic to the war said: "He can keep himself alive until then."
