The rise, fall and resurrection of Ahmad Chalabi is symptomatic of the Iraq Affair, an affair run by protagonists on both sides who, in ordinary times, would face the courts or at least human rights tribunals. Think only of the U.S. soldier who shot dead an unarmed and wounded Moslem fighter in a mosque and that in front of a camera. The soldier was acquitted of any wrongdoing. On Guatanamo Bay American interrogators allegedly flushed the Koran, each book sacrosanct to Moslems, down the toilets of prisoners to taunt them. Goodbye Geneva Convention, welcome the era of barbarity. Perhaps the law will yet catch up with some of these villains at some future date. America has a way of purifying itself periodically by denying it ever happened.
Now Chalabi is a convicted crook. Though like most crooks he pleads innocent. For years he has played the role of a human chameleon adopting different colors to survive and prosper. He has done well. He manipulated the U.S. into the disastrous war with Iraq by supplying the serial liars who claimed to have knowledge of Saddam Hussein’s WMDs and his links to Al Qaeda. He was adopted and then dropped as the Bush administration and the Pentagon’s favorite candidate to replace Saddam. When the WMD excuse went sour even the CIA, Chalabi’s long time mentor, bad-mouthed him. He allegedly siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayers’ money into an ineffective anti-Saddam opposition he controlled and milked. During the sack of Baghdad members of his gang were accused of atrocities and looting. There are allegations he counterfeited Iraqi dinars after Sadam’s ouster.
But today Chalabi, the great manipulator, ex playboy, ex convicted banker, ex guerrilla gang-owner, ex U.S. MIT graduate and British citizen, is Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister in the U.S.-created new ‘democratic’ regime in Iraq. His nephew is the Finance Minister. The nomination may be a travesty but in a perverse way it is also a credit to the single-minded perseverance of one man’s dark ambition and the influence of a corporate America who sees Chalabi as ‘Our Man in Baghdad.’ Corporate America is not interested in the presidency or the premier’s job, only in oil. And only the gullible still doubt the U.S. administration does not call the shots behind the ‘democratically elected’ government of Iraq.
Chalabi had set himself a single goal in life: To become the leader of Iraq, a country from which he and his affluent family had been kicked out and dispossessed. Now he is only one step from his goal on which he embarked with diabolical efficiency. He was convicted, in absentia, for embezzlement in Jordan after a bank he ran collapsed with $300 million in missing deposits. Sentenced to 22 years in jail he has not served a single day. Instead he reinvented himself as the leader of a phantom-like Iraqi opposition, the Iraqi National Council (INC), a loose association of exiles whose common aim was to overthrow Saddam with U.S. aid. In the process Chalabi hoodwinked (or was allowed to hoodwink) the most powerful nation. Indirectly his informants can be held responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, the destruction of Iraq, the specter of a civil war, religious division, a split in the western world and the sell-out of Iraq’s oil wealth.
This is the man most likely to eventually succeed Saddam with American help.
The lesson from Ahmad Chalabi’s case should not be lost. After all he represents the moral decline that has infested our own governments and their financiers, the corporate world. The cancer has seeped into our system over decades as we supported other Chalabis, dictators, bullies, killers and ambitious generals under the guise of national security. In reality however these favorite sons became our puppets, people who sold and still sell their country’s resources to the commercial interests of the colonizer. For the sake of huge profits, we tolerated and still tolerate their lies, their manipulations - even their crimes, all for the sake of the bonanzas coveted by politicians, corporate executives and shareholders. We convert these villains into heroes, saviors, icons and friends. Once their usefulness is exhausted we discredited them.
Watch out Ahmad Chalabi.
We accept the Chalabis so a tiny minority in our society can accumulate fabulous fortunes. We promote the Chalabis, we finance them and, if necessary, crown them. In this game for gains the cost in human lives, in misery and destruction, has become irrelevant. Only a positive financial balance sheet counts.
In spite of our oft-lauded era of enlightenment, with emphasis on human rights, gender equality and an end to racial discrimination, not much has changed since colonial powers placed shady individuals on thrones as complacent partners in the rape, pillaging and exploitation of acquired colonies. Our greed has not diminished, only our methods have changed. Now, in the era of mass communication, we make our ‘partners’ palatable to the public or, when we are ready to dump them, unpalatable.
In the Chalabi case we followed a biblical strategy: We hailed, vilified and then resurrected the man. Even Israel jumped aboard. After all, Chalabi may be an Arab, but his regime will ensure Iraq poses no further threat to the existence of the Jewish State. At least so he has promised. This is Realpolitik. As for the U.S.: Under Chalabi’s tutelage Iraq’s vast oil resources will be privatized. The main beneficiaries, surprise, surprise, will be American oil concerns. The oil barons have already envisaged a bonanza since the current Iraqi oil production can be tripled, even quadrupled. This offers the world a few additional decades of carbon dioxide poisoning, our oil giants a new lease on life and alternative energy sources the coup d’grace. Far more important: Washington, already in control of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, will be able to determine who obtains the oil and at what price.
And that’s the way the System works.
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