THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VII, Issue # 254, November 22, 2005
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
AHMAD CHALABI -- IRAQ'S COMBACK KID:
CHALABI KEEPS HIS EYES ON THE PRIZE
By Michael Rubin
IRAQI SOCIETY, CULTURE, & POLITICS: AHMAD CHALABI'S SUCCESSFUL EXERTION OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE &
LEADERSHIP IN POST-SADDAM IRAQ, DESPITE THE FACT THAT DISDAIN FOR CHALABI RUNS DEEP IN THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
STATE, THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, & THE U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND -- FAILURE OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT & THE
CIA TO ACCURATELY ASSESS THE IRAQI POLITICAL SCENE -- A SERIOUS AMERICAN HANDICAP IN IRAQ: INABILITY TO
UNDERSTAND IRAQ'S POLITICAL CULTURE, INCLUDING THE SOURCES OF POLITICAL LEGITIMACY IN IRAQ
FULL STORY:
On November 8, 2005, Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi arrived in Washington, D.C., for an eight-day visit. His agenda
included meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser
Stephen Hadley. To many pundits, Chalabi's visit marks a change in fortune for an Iraqi politician not long ago dismissed as
irrelevant by diplomats and intelligence officials alike.
Disdain for Chalabi runs deep in the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and U.S. Central Command. As an advocate of
both regime change and democratization, he became a lightning rod for criticism among proponents of the status quo.
Both before and after Iraq's liberation, State Department officials criticized Chalabi as an exile with little connection to his own country.
CIA analysts seconded such pronouncements. On September 6, 2004, for example, Judith Yaphe, a former CIA Iraq analyst now at the
National Defense University, told the Associated Press that "over the years, [CIA favorite Ayad] Allawi's contacts were proven to be
real while Chalabi's were never what Chalabi told us." Former Defense Intelligence Agency official W. Patrick Lang described Chalabi
as "basically an émigré politician" and told an Australian radio station that the CIA and State Department "didn't trust what he said
[and] didn't think he understood Iraq, really." General Anthony Zinni, head of U.S. Central Command, belittled Chalabi and his Iraqi
National Congress as "some silk-suited, Rolex-wearing guys in London."
But, in the months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, Chalabi returned to Iraq. And after liberation, he became an irritant to
Washington policymakers. While Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator L. Paul Bremer sought to run Iraq by diktat, Chalabi
agitated for direct elections and restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. He clashed with Meghan O'Sullivan, now Deputy National Security
Adviser for Iraq, when she worked to undermine and eventually reverse de-Baathification. He undercut White House attempts to
internationalize responsibility for Iraq in the months prior to the 2004 U.S. elections when his Governing Council Auditing
Commission began to investigate the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal.
In a West Wing meeting, then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice called Chalabi's opposition to the ill-fated Fallujah Brigade
"unhelpful." Soon afterward, she directed her staff to outline ways to "marginalize" Chalabi. There followed espionage and
counterfeiting charges — the former never seriously pursued by the FBI and the latter thrown out of an Iraqi court. Following the June
28, 2004, transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, John Negroponte — then U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and now the Director of National
Intelligence — refused to meet Chalabi. Cut off from U.S. patronage and without any serious Iraqi base, the analysts said, Chalabi
would fade away.
He did not. Nor has he simply reinvented himself, as a State Department official suggested following Chalabi's November 9 address at
the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Rather, his relevance has remained constant. Unlike those of other Iraqi
figures embraced by various bureaucracies in Washington, Chalabi's fortunes have not depended on U.S. patronage. His survival —
and, indeed, his recent ascent against the obstacles thrown in his path by Washington — underlines the failures of diplomats and
intelligence analysts to put aside departmental agendas to provide the White House with an objective and accurate analysis of the
sources of legitimacy inside Iraq.
While the CIA has politicized its intelligence products to support its own proxies, its analytical failures go beyond institutional axe
grinding. Most analysts are in their 20s and 30s; recruited fresh out of college or graduate school, few have significant experience in
the countries to which they are assigned. Security officers look with suspicion on anyone with too many foreign contacts and too
much time spent in adversarial countries. While many CIA analysts gain book knowledge of their subjects, they lack cultural
understanding. They study politicians, but have no sense of personalities. Too often, their products reflect mirror imaging of the
analysts' own thought processes into their subjects. Cultural equivalence, too, pollutes analysis: Family may be important to
Americans and Iraqis alike, but it means much more for Iraqis. To Americans, genealogy is a hobby. To Iraqis, it is honor.
And here Chalabi has an advantage. Chalabi's grandfather built modern Kadhimiya, a sprawling Shiite town that has since been
absorbed into modern Baghdad; his father was President of the Iraqi Senate during the Monarchy. Genealogy gives gravitas. In
contrast, even as Iraqis suffered under Saddam Hussein's rule, they expressed disdain for Saddam with reference to his uncertain
paternity. (In post-liberation Iraq, the CIA's blind eye toward genealogy has been evident in its embrace of powerful Baathist families
— the Bunias and al-Janabis, for example — even as many Iraqis dismiss such figures as déclassé and embarrassing beneficiaries of
Saddam's largesse.)
The charge that Chalabi was an out-of-touch exile also turned out to be off the mark. One out of six Iraqis fled the country during
Saddam's rule. But — unlike the case of Chinese mainland exiles in Taiwan, for example — there were no genetic differences between
Iraqis living in their homeland and those abroad. The diaspora remained integrated with the Iraqi nation. Far more important to Iraqis
than their politicians' continued residency in the country is that the politicians remain independent and untainted by Baathism. The
true Iraqi power brokers — Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leader and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani; Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim; firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr; and Chalabi himself — all live outside the heavily
protected "Green Zone" and operate without U.S. security. While all the other Governing Council members appropriated large houses
abandoned by officials of the previous regime, Chalabi returned to his family's home — and the symbolism was clear to Iraqis. Ayad
Allawi, in contrast, hemorrhaged support after accepting a house in the Green Zone and employing American security contractors.
Still, diplomats continued to brand Chalabi irrelevant, citing polls showing him to be among the least popular Iraqi politicians. Polling,
though, does not translate well across cultures. Americans and Iraqis approach polling questions differently. Americans view
popularity in terms of like and dislike. Iraqis are more likely to complain about effective politicians. Irrelevant figures are not worth
condemning. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi television poured vitriol upon Chalabi, not upon Allawi or al-Hakim. Chalabi was the threat;
the others a mere nuisance. The same polls that found Chalabi unpopular suggested that elder statesman and State Department
favorite Adnan Pachachi was popular. But in the January 30, 2005, elections, it was Chalabi who was victorious; Pachachi's forces won
not a single seat.
The roots of Chalabi's legitimacy have also been obscured by American analysts' failure to understand the religion factor: Most of
American officialdom remains blind to Iraq's network of religious patronage, which has no parallel in Western society. A great deal of
Chalabi's political base rests in his connection to the Kadhimayn Shrine. The resting place of both the seventh and ninth Shiite Imams,
Kadhimayn is, after Najaf and Karbala, the holiest pilgrimage site in Iraq. Its proximity to Baghdad has made it a focal point of
Shiite-Sunni sociopolitical and religious interaction. Chalabi's father financed the shrine's renovation.
While many other Iraqi politicians were trying to ingratiate themselves to Bremer, Chalabi spent his time outside the Green Zone
fishbowl, revitalizing his family's Kadhimayn network of both Shiites and Sunnis. While Allawi trumpeted his Washington ties in quest
of legitimacy, and al-Hakim turned toward Tehran for both guns and butter, Iraqis have seen Chalabi hold fast to Iraqi nationalism.
Chalabi's American detractors may wring their hands about his U.S. visit. Pundits may speculate about the White House's pragmatism.
Conspiracy theorists may suggest that Chalabi's rise is part of a preconceived plan. But, in reality, Chalabi has made no comeback: The
sources of Chalabi's legitimacy have remained constant. What has changed is the growing realization that neither Langley nor Foggy
Bottom has accurately assessed the Iraqi political scene. Part of the problem may be that reality did not mesh with their political
agendas, but a far more serious American handicap has been an inability, more than two and a half years after the fall of Saddam, to
understand the sources of legitimacy in Iraq. Washington may run the Green Zone but, for Chalabi, it is the rest of the country that
matters.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, is Editor of the Middle East
Quarterly.
The foregoing article by Michael Rubin was published in National Review, November 29, 2005, and can be found on the
Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
November 20, 2005
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