Tomorrow Chalabi is meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and then with Treasury Secretary John W. Snow in coming days. Ahmed Chalabi met with senior Iranian leaders on Saturday after which in commenting to reporters, he appeared to distance himself from their Islamist government. In a later quote from an Iranian leader, we see that this was just subterfuge. Meanwhile Laura Rozen at War and Piece: speculates that Chalabi might be "a useful back channel" diplomatic conduit to Iran at a time when Iran is calling for a renewal of nuclear proliferation talks with the EU. The Next Hurrah has it that Condi and Hadley are talking "about Chalabi as a 'plausible' candidate for prime minister."
In the last few hours, Chalabi has made several other headlines in countries bordering Iraq. Monday, he told Iranian media that the MEK, Saddam's Iranian insurgency effort, and darling of the Neocons efforts to destabilize Iran, and technically still on the US list of terrorist organizations, should be expelled from his country. He stated that their protection by the US military was under "murky circumstances." Chalabi told Turkish reporters, in open gesture of support for Turkey's fight against Kurdish PKK, "that Iraqi constitution should guarantee that Iraq shouldn't be a transit point or base for those wishing to destabilize neighbors." This statement was made as Chalabi ended his three-day visit to Tehran and announced that Iran had agreed to consider his proposal for a multi-lateral inquiry -- with British, Iranian, and Iraqi representatives -- into the recent controversy in Basra.
Meanwhile Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat Jay Rockefeller proposed to examine how information provided by Iraqi defectors and exiles, including Ahmed Chalabi, were incorporated into intelligence analyses that led to the Iraqi War. House Republicans, not to out done by their foes in the Senate, invited Chalabi to meet with the House Judiciary Committee "to discuss his role in manipulating the intelligence that led to war with Iraq."
Is this all a political effort of those with interests in Iraq to settle on a favored candidate for Prime Minister for the December 15th Iraqi elections? Perhaps so. But I believe one thing, Chalabi is loyal only to himself. He is not to be trusted.
Emptywheel at The Next Hurrah speculates about what Condi may be up to:
This was a war we thought we were fighting against Saddam (or rather, against a fairly weak enemy we could beat easily--it barely mattered that it was Saddam except insofar as we could invent a reason to go get him). But our primary opponent is not Saddam at this point, it's Iran. (There's a fair amount of evidence to suggest Iran knew it was a war against Iran from the start.)
And while discussions of getting out now or later ARE really important to discussions of civil war in Iraq, what they prevent us from discussing is whether continuing to wage a war we've barely started against Iran is worth it ... and whether we can win it. One of the main reasons we've let things go from bad to worse in Iraq is because the most logical way to bring about stability--vest power in the Shiites--basically means ceding to Iran, or at least vastly increased Shiite influence in the ME. But both primary solutions being discussed--staying with status quo, or leaving gradually--still seem to leave the Shiites in control, and Iran in a significantly strengthened position. That is, neither of the solutions get us what we (BushCo) want--a weaker Iran.
In other words, the problem with all discussions about whether we remain in or pull out of Iraq is that they leave the most important issue unresolved: what are we going to do about consolidated Iranian power in the Middle East? Pulling out and staying both leave Iran much stronger than it was before we started this adventure. And much as the Bush Administration may want to go to war to reverse that condition militarily, only complete idiots believe they could achieve their objectives ... and certainly not without dragging in many more countries and creating all kinds of lethal havoc.
Condi appears to be the person pushing for peaceful solutions to what is deemed to be a Syria problem. Perhaps her belief that Chalabi would make a "plausible and acceptable" prime minister is more of the same, an attempt to stave off Cheney's and Rummy's bellicose tendencies while still placing some check on Iranian power. But to believe it would work, you'd have to believe that a prime minister Chalabi could maintain more independence from Tehran than Jaafari has. You'd have to believe Chalabi's previous willingness to spy for Iran is all in the past, like a long forgotten football career. Me, I don't believe that.
In fact, this, like all of Chalabi's crappy pre-war intelligence, is a case where we know the Bush Administration's hopes to be misguided. Because Iran's leaders are pretty clear, Chalabi would have no more independence than Jaafari. From the NYT:Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's national security council and one of the senior officials who met with Mr. Chalabi, said Iranian leaders held him in high regard. "He is a very wise man and a very useful person for the future of Iraq," Mr. Larijani said.
For their part, Iranian leaders said that they were indeed a primary force in internal Iraqi politics, and that would continue to be.
Last January, after the Shiite coalition's selection of Ibrahim al-Jafaari as its choice to be prime minister, rumors swirled about Baghdad that the Iranians had intervened strongly on his behalf. At the time, Mr. Chalabi was one of a number of Iraqi leaders being considered for the top job.
Asked about this, Mr. Larijani said that the Iranians had indeed intervened strongly with Iraq's Shiite leaders, but that they had not sided with a particular candidate. "We helped them to come to a unity among themselves," he said.
"America should consider this power as legitimate," Mr. Larijani said of his country's role in Iraqi affairs. "They should not fight it."
Larijani (notably, the person issuing calls for renewed talks on Iran's nuclear program) as much as admits Iran chose who would be prime minister last time, and they intend to do so again. They were a primary force in Iraqi politics and they intend to continue to be.
Are you still comfortable that prime minister Chalabi would be any better than Jaafari, Condi? It may not matter. Because not only does Iran intend to continue acting as power broker in Iraqi politics, they're moving forward on plans to bind the infrastructure of Iran and Iraq more closely. From the Beeb:During their talks, President Ahmadinejad also told Mr Chalabi that Iran was willing to offer its experience and expertise to rebuild Iraq. He called for the acceleration of work on setting up an oil pipeline between Iran's city of Abadan and the Iraqi city of Basra.
The US-led reconstruction has failed miserably (in part because of Chalabi's own corruption of the process). But lucky for the Iraqis, there is another country willing to take on the project, willing to step into the vacuum the US has left with its failed attempt to rule Iraq as a colony.
In their unwillingness to face the "catastrophic success" of their Iraq policies, Bush administration officials may be latching onto a Chalabi administration as a way to cut their losses, foster a more moderate Iran, and establish security in Iran. Once again, they're unwilling to see the obvious signs that an alliance with Chalabi won't help them accomplish their goals.
While I don't agree with Emptywheel that the Bush Administration simply "let" the conditions in Iraq deteriorate into an Iranian victory, he identifies the chronic pattern within the Bush Administration. It's wide open to influence by foreign agents (such as Israeli, Iraqi, and Iranian), and tends to follow the course it wants very badly to believe is true. Chalabi must be a very slick player. He may well be one of the men made by the Iraqi war. And we see again, more plainly than before, Iran promoted and won the Iraqi war.
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