More Sale on Chalabi

"Pat:

Some amplification about Chalabi from a former CIA official.

"First and foremost," this guys says, Chalabi wanted "not just to destroy the secular Sunnis, but "especially the secular Shia. That is the reason for the ferocious attack on the Army and the Baath. Demographics would have taken care of the Sunnis, they were only 20 percent of the population, but the Shia were historically secular in Iraq and the majority. The Shia were the backbone of the old Communist party and when the Soviet empire fell, many went to the Baath and many made the only other political move feasible and joint the Iranian-backed religions parties."

"The Baath were the majority Shia and the Baath was the biggest threat to SCIRI and the Da'wa because all of Irq's capable technocrats like Thamir Ghadban, the first Oil Minister, were in the Baath."

"After Op Iraqi Freedom, the initial idea was to form a transitional government perhaps under Gen. Sultan Hashem which would be made up of respected Kurdish, Shia and Sunni elements.which could gjide the country for six months or more until elections could be held. The ide was at a later date, truth and reconciliation process could take over after Iraq was out of transition. The neocons, supporting Chalabi, never would accept elements from the old regime providing the bridge to the future because it would cut out Chalabi and external exiles."

"Clearly the entire idea was vetoed by principals in the Pentagon. The USG was never looking at Hashemi, the agency was.  It was an attempt to preempt the Chalabi claque. Chalabi certainly suspected something was up and had a direct line into Wolfowitz's office.

"There is no doubt of Chalabi's long term connection with Iran and his having been their agent for years, but, in fairness, not everyone there believed he worked for Iran. Many simply considered  him power mad. But I think that the idea that Chalabi was perhaps an Iranian plant from the beginning was more than some people could contemplate."

In any case, Vince Cannistaro has had no doubts: "Chalabi was working for Iran, and Iran took us to breakfast, lunch and dinner."

Hope this helps.

Richard"

Comments

[Comment]

Lupus Maximus still vouches for Chalabi - when he's not too busy fighting to keep his job and his girlfriend's job at the World Bank.

[Old Bogus]

I'm confused. I thought the Baath Party was primarily Sunni. But this says, "The Baath were the majority Shia . . .".

[David Habakkuk]

If in eliminating the Ba'ath Chalabi was seeking to marginalise not simply secular Sunnis but secular Shi'a -- who were of course supposed by his champions in Washington to be his power base -- then the suggestion that he duped the neocons in particular and the Bush Administration in general acquires a wholly new dimension.

Whether or not Chalabi is 'power mad', it is certainly plausible to suggest, as Wayne White did earlier, that Chalabi was pursuing his own personal agendas, and not as it were working as an Iranian agent. But the remarks of the former CIA official quoted by Richard Sale drive home a fundamental point which has been apparent for some time. The relations between Chalabi and the Iranians were rooted in a real commonality of interest, so that the question of whether they or their Iraqi clients needed to trust him was in a sense marginal. Getting rid of Saddam suited both the Iranians and Chalabi. Meanwhile, those Iraqis -- both Sunni and Shi'a -- most likely to oppose Iranian clients were also those most likely to resist any significant role for Chalabi in the new Iraq. But precisely because Chalabi's interests coincided largely with those of Iran, the appearance that they coincided with those of the United States -- or indeed those of Israel -- could only be sustained by creating a fantasy view of political realities in Iraq.

Chalabi is, I think, a past master at identifying what people want to be hear, and telling them it.

Taking the Israeli element in the equation, there is one point on which the neocons are clearly right. Looking longer term, Israel is quite patently under 'existential threat'. Among the many reasons for this is the country's dependence on American support. Doubtless this is reliable for now, but if one looks decades ahead, it is hardly a solid foundation for Israeli security. And if one looks closely at the 1996 Clean Break paper, a central goal is quite patently to create a situation where Israel is no longer dependent on the United States. To achieve this end, however, the 'Clean Break' authors relied upon the exploitation of the current close alliance between the two countries to use American power to remodel the Middle East.

Tragically for Israel -- in my view -- precisely the availability of unquestioning American support encouraged the belief that one could avoid the difficulties of dealing with the Middle East as it was, and create a new Middle East, in which leaderships hostile to Israel were replaced with ones friendly or at least accepting. And it was in large measure this fantasy which created openings for Chalabi's myth-making talents. At the heart of the 'Clean Break' paper there was the remarkable conception of the Iraqi Shi'a welcoming a Hashemite restoration in Iraq because King Hussein was a direct descendant of the Prophet. This was then supposed to lead to the Shi'a of South Lebanon being weaned away from Hizbullah, and the end of all Israel's problems. Subsequently Chalabi switched tack, and sold the neocons a new vision of the Shi'a as unqualifiedly secular (remember Wolfowitz on the absence of holy cites in Iraq?) and prepared to welcome him as their de Gaulle. The new secular Iraq was supposed to recognise and cooperate with Israel, and also to become a dagger pointed at the Tehran regime, and perhaps also the Saudi regime, leading on to the collapse of Hizbullah and Hamas -- and again, the end of all Israel's problems.

As strategies based on fantasy often do, this 'Clean Break' strategy backfired dramatically. The kind of preemptive military action the paper recommended was tried against Hizbullah, which however saw off the Israeli attack. It appears that Hizbullah is now constructing a system of fortifications north of the Litani which are likely to make Israeli air power even less effective -- and from which, as increasing accurate missiles become available, larger and larger swathes of Israel can be attacked. Against Iraq, the strategy of preemptive war has led to a vast increase in the power of Iran. It has also maximised the incentives for the Iranians to acquire nuclear capabilities, while rendering it far more difficult for the United States to prevent them doing so. So the supposed 'clean break' has tended to produce the precise reverse of the results intended. The combination of Hizbullah missiles and an Iranian nuclear capability threatens to turn the 'existential threat' to Israel from a longer-term to a relatively near-term possibility, and indeed to lead to the kind of 'eroding national critical mass' which concerned the 'Clean Break' authors. As the Deputy Defense Minister Ephram Sneh said last November, a 'dark cloud of fear' could easily lead to emigration -- particularly among the highly educated elites on whom the country depends, whose skills are much in demand in safer places, like the United States or Britain.

Unsurprisingly, Sneh expressed scepticism about the effects of international sanctions or diplomacy in curbing Iran. But the effect of the strategies which were supposed to benefit Israel has actually been to not only to make military options far more problematic -- but to make the use of military threats in support of diplomacy difficult. In effect, these strategies have left both Israel and the United States boxed into a corner: caught between the rock on which they could be easily be wrecked should an attack on Iran misfire, and the hard place of accepting there is no effective way to prevent a nuclear Iran. If the kind of fantasies of easy solutions underpinning the attack on Iraq lead to an attack on Iran and this goes badly wrong, the damage to American -- and Israeli -- interests -- could dwarf that already incurred.

I think it is perfectly possible that with the wisdom of hindsight people will look back on the 'Clean Break' paper as a kind of suicide note. And while I would agree with the tusked one (Walrus) that one should be cautious about assuming that rhetorical agendas are real ones, I do think that the suggestion that the current shambles is the product of 'deliberate policy' is implausible -- because actually this shambles is not in the interest of the United States or of its Israeli 'client'.

I do think it is actually difficult to exaggerate the sheer ineptitude of Feith, Perle, Wolfowitz et al. The contributions by Richard Sale and the discussion of his first posting seem to make amply clear that by the time of the invasion of Iraq, it should have been clear to anyone reasonable rational in Washington -- or indeed in London -- that one became involved with Chalabi or his associates (including Kanan Makiya) at one's own risk. Today this should be even clearer. Moreover, the fact that Chalabi's interests mesh with those of the Iranians and their clients, rather than those of the United States, should by now be indisputably clear. The suggestion by Wayne White that in impeding rehabilitation of elements of the Ba'ath Chalabi is seeking to cultivate his political constituency among the Shi'a seems eminently plausible. My only caveat would be that Chalabi is both unlikely to acquire a mass constituency of any kind -- but also may not actually need one. So long as the Iranians and their Iraq clients are convinced that his objectives and their own run in parallel, his vast accumulated expertise and contacts can be very useful to them -- and surely he can expect, as quid pro quo, to find Iraq a fertile ground for his business ventures?

And of course this means that precisely what many of the neocons want -- an American attack on Iran -- is what Chalabi cannot afford to be seen to countenance. One would accordingly have thought that there would have been a clear split between Chalabi and his erstwhile allies among the neocons, and other elements in Western security establishments who were diddled by him. But, remarkably, this seems only to have happened to a limited extent.

In the piece by Dexter Filkins on Chalabi that appeared in the NYT last November, Richard Perle said the question was 'is he fooling the Iranians or are the Iranians using him?' -- and went on to suggest that 'Chalabi has been very shrewd in getting the things he has needed over the years out of the Iranians without giving anything in return.' As Iran's great enemy Saddam has been destroyed, and as the U.S. continues to fight the Sunnis who are the implacable opponents of the Iranians, and also appear implacably hostile to the most 'nationalist' of Shi'a leaders, al-Sadr, Perle's remark is simply surreal. One really has to ask what it would take to persuade Perle that Chalabi might have given the Iranians as much as he has got out of them -- American generals taking direct orders from Tehran, perhaps?

The fact that Perle still cannot grasp that he has been richly and royally fooled by Chalabi is testament to the extraordinary combination of arrogance and imbecility which has characterised neocon policymaking from the start. That the Iranians and Chalabi were both using each other, for essentially complementary purposes, also seems evident. How far the gains achieved by the Iranians were the product of a deep-laid Machiavellian strategy is of course another question. But I think one can say that one is rather more likely to find effective Machiavellianism today in Tehran, than in Washington or London.

[Antiquated Tory]

"After Op Iraqi Freedom, the initial idea was to form a transitional government perhaps under Gen. Sultan Hashem which would be made up of respected Kurdish, Shia and Sunni elements.which could gjide the country for six months or more until elections could be held...."
That's a mouthful right there. It's obvious that the only chance Op Iraq Freedom had of a positive outcome was to keep as much of the functional, technocratic parts of the Baath government as possible while busting the Tikriti mafia at the top. Also, it's pretty much a historical principle that exile groups are never, never to be trusted. They have their own axes to grind, they generally don't have the networks in their countries of origin that they claim to have, and if they return with money, they are inevitably resented like Hell.

[ckrantz]

Col, all:
A question for Richard Sale. There should have been enough information in the CIA and state files on Chalabi and his activities before 92 to ask some serious questions. Chalabi was still chosen to head INC and coordinate the activities of various anti-Saddam groups. An obvious question is if he was chosen for his Iranian contacts and the ability to bring in the SCIRI and al-Dawa. Which makes me wonder if a decision was made to work informally at least with Iranian assets as early as 92 to bring down Saddam? It's either that conclusion or that the decision makers where and are incredible stupid not knowing who they where dealing with.

[jedermann]

Chalabi is the ultimate opportunist. As such he can turn on a dime, take contradictory positions and hold multiple allegiances without causing any internal cognitive dissonance. His ruthless pursuit of his own ends springs from a different place than a hegemon’s ruthless pursuit of its own ends. The arrogance of the neo-con masters of the universe compromises their shrewdness. They may even be possessed of a kind of residual American naiveté that smugly mistakes for weakness the cultivated illusion of loyalty in those they seek to manipulate. Chalabi suffers from no lack of shrewdness or surfeit of loyalty and he will always out-maneuver anyone foolish enough to think they own him.

He will continue to insinuate himself into fluid and potentially lucrative situations until he pisses someone off so much that they decide to kill him and someone else so much that they let it happen.

[walrus]

Col. this is a fascinating website, thank you for hosting such discussion. I also would like to thank David Habakkuk for what I think is a tour de force of the current situation and Chalabi's role in it, that leaves me very little to add.

In reference to Davids comment, my observation regarding public and private agendas has a slight further twist, because I believe that Governments always achieve the exact reverse of their stated intentions.

There is also the old sod's law: "Never believe in a conspiracy if the situation can be explained by stupidity".

What has shaken my faith in Sod's law is the breathtaking scale that such stupidity must have achieved to get us where we are today, that I simply can't believe it. It is simply too wide.

The stupidity has been all pervading from the beginning, for example, I know from friends who have been to Baghdad that the pre-invasion bombing targetted infrastructure - sewerage, water, gas and electricity. How stupid is that?

According to my own pet law, we will succeed in nation building in Iraq - and build a nation united in their hostility to everything we stand for.

Israel, through its usual stubborn-ness is going to seal its own doom through demography. Don't they understand that prosperous people don't have as many kids, and that this will apply to Palestinians just like anyone else?

I am a great believer in Lord Melbourne's (Queen Victoria's Prime Minister for many years) approach to diplomacy and strategy.

"I just do nothing, and nine times out of ten the problem either solves itself or disappears."

Wars for no good reason are one form of Arnold Toynbee's "Suicidal Statecraft" that destroys nations.

[Babak Makkinejad]

David Habakkuk:

Your observation: "the availability of unquestioning American support encouraged the belief that one could avoid the difficulties of dealing with the Middle East" is equally applicable to Georgia, Batlic States, etc. and with the same results.

[Miriam]

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