If it were not for all awfulness in the news coming out of Iraq, it would be almost impossible to suppress some glee at the fork-tongued Ahmed Chalabi’s current predicament. With a host of enemies in his homeland, and Bush allegedly telling King Abdullah he could “piss” on him, Chalabi now has to contend with armed searches of his house in the dead of the night.
As a result of the raid, Chalabi says he has
cut off relations with the U.S.-guided Coalition Provisional Aurhority.
"I am America's best friend in Iraq;” Chalabi said, and “if the CPA finds it necessary to direct an armed attack against my home, you can see the state of relations between the CPA and the Iraqi people."
Uh-huh. And I have a bridge over the Euphrates I’d like to sell you.
Internet teacups are brimful with speculation today over what Chalabi’s troubles mean. Over at Talking Points Memo,
Josh Marshall says several of his readers claim that the raid was actually an attempt to enhance Chalabi’s mojo among Iraqis by giving him some credibility as a foe of the Occupation. Josh isn't buying it.
I don't doubt that some of Chalabi's Washington supporters have encouraged him to take a more oppositional stand toward the occupation authorities to bolster his own popularity. But there are many US government players in Iraq right now. And many of them really are hostile to Chalabi.
Something quite that orchestrated would, I suspect, be far too difficult to pull-off. And are we dealing here with smooth operators? Answers itself, doesn't it?
One other point: You only have to look next door to see what happens to American puppets after they have their fallings-out with the Americans. Clue: They don't get embraced by the other side. In fact, that guy from next door was lucky to get out of the country in one piece.
Professor Juan Cole reminds us that Chalabi always has money in mind no matter which sucker he’s currently gaming. But, as always, the professor isn’t content to paddle around in the shallows of conventional wisdom:
Rumors are swirling in Baghdad that Chalabi had been taking a percentage of some contracts or that he had been trying to transfer government assets to the Iraqi National Congress before the transfer of sovereignty on June 30. There are also rumors that his militia, which Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had flown into Iraq last year on a Pentagon aircraft, has engaged in coercive or extortionate activities. The problem is that these sorts of rumors have been swirling in Baghdad for many months. So why did the US move now?
Chalabi is charging that the crackdown on him is an attempt by the United Nations to squelch investigations into the bribes Saddam had paid UN officials under the oil for food program, and on which Chalabi had information. The Pentagon had quite outrageously turned over to the Iraqi National Congress the intelligence files of the old Saddam government, which Chalabi has threatened to use to blackmail officials of neighboring governments. Chalabi's charge is implausible and he is just trying to waft some smoke into the public's eyes.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the special UN envoy, had made it clear over a month ago that he would not appoint Chalabi to the caretaker government. In response, Chalabi has become increasingly critical of the US. He complained that rehabilitating the Baathists after the siege of Fallujah failed was tantamount to putting Nazis in power. …
One problem with the way the US has been behaving in Iraq, whatever the merits of this case, is that it is alienating all major political forces in the country. First its radical debaathification (so that a high school teacher out in Ramadi who had joined the Baath party but never done anything criminal was fired and excluded from civil society) alienated the Sunnis. They have not been mollified by recent steps belatedly to reverse this policy. Then the US came after Muqtada al-Sadr and began alienating a lot more Shiites. Now it has turned the Iraqi National Congress against it. The INC, whatever one thinks of it, has strong Kurdish and Shiite allies. What happens to a ruler without strong allies? Can you say Louis XVI?
And then there’s Andrew Cockburn’s take on the situation over at Salon.com
Ahmed Chalabi's failed coup
The U.S. raids his home and headquarters in Iraq to foil his plot.
Why did the Bush administration turn against its former favorite Iraqi? Almost certainly because it realized that Chalabi, maddened by the realization that he was being excluded from the post-June 30 hand-over arrangements, was putting together a sectarian Shiite faction to destabilize and destroy the new Iraqi government. "This all started since [U.N. envoy Lakhdar] Brahimi announced that Chalabi would be kept out of the new arrangement," says an Iraqi political observer who is not only long familiar with Chalabi himself but also in close touch with key actors, including U.S. officials at the CPA and Iraqi politicians.
"Ahmed is gathering groups to bring this new government down even before July 1. He is in a very destructive phase, mobilizing forces to make sure the U.N. initiative -- due to be announced in 10 days -- fails." Chalabi has reportedly been inflaming his recruits with reports that veteran Algerian diplomat Brahimi is part of a Sunni conspiracy bent on undermining the rights of Iraqi Shiites to hold power in Iraq. …
Fanatic neoconservatives like Richard Perle and Michael Rubin may have continued to champion Chalabi, insisting that the United States should have imposed him as Iraq's ruler right after the invasion, but elsewhere in Washington his stock has been dropping like a stone.
This week the Pentagon finally cut off his $340,000 monthly subsidy. Chalabi himself has been denouncing the U.S. occupation since last fall, partly in an effort to win some credibility with the Iraqi masses. In private, his aides spoke of occupation administrator Bremer as an "anti-Arab and anti-Muslim who doesn't understand a thing about Iraq," but Chalabi was not yet ready to cut all ties. Only when it became apparent that the United States was giving full support to Brahimi, who in turn made no secret of his contempt for Chalabi, a convicted embezzler who faces a 22-year sentence in Jordan (Brahimi's daughter recently married a Jordanian prince), did Chalabi's rhetoric turn viciously sectarian. At the same time, he began preparations to destroy the political structure that the United States is desperately trying to assemble. As Chalabi's old acquaintance told me today, "I think the U.S. moved against him because they realized he is a gambler, ready to bring it all down."
Finally, if all this potential intrigue is just too … uh … Byzantine for an afternoon read, here’s a taste of what
Fanatical Apathy thinks might have been discussed during the search of Chalabi’s house:
SOLDIER: So, where is it?
CHALABI: Where is what, my friend?
SOLDIER: The $27 million we've given you over the past couple of years.
CHALABI: I know of no such money. And it's already spent.
SOLDIER: On what?
CHALABI: Important intelligence operations, naturally.
SOLDIER: Look, you've given us nothing of value, and we could really use that money right about now. So pony it up.
CHALABI: Look - out the window, in the street - isn't that an open vat of VX gas?
So. Patriot? Crook? Coupster? Democrat? Opportunist? America's best friend in Iraq?