Friday, May 21, 2004
Neo-Conned
This article by John Dizard, a columnist from the Financial Times, provides a comprehensive background and historical context for the rise and fall of Ahmed Chalabi. Dizard details how Chalabi spun fairy tale yarns for the eager neo-conservatives in order to achieve his policy aims, the toppling of Saddam Hussein, and personal aspirations, to take over as leader of Iraq post-invasion.
He also makes the point that the neo-cons should have known better, given Chalabi's checkered past and propensity for double-dealing. He is, after all, a convicted felon who has had financial dealings with groups like Hezbollah and individuals like Saddam Hussein himself.
Furthermore, the neo-con's acceptance of Chalabi's outlandish predictions betrays a distinctive lack of knowledge of the region's history, people and political movements. As Dizard points out, the neo-cons, acting on the narrative Chalabi fed them, made errors of policy and forecast that would have been obvious to a competent history teacher with a specialization in the Middle East region.
Dizard speculates that there will be casualties from within the Bush team resulting from the disastrous and myopic relationship with Chalabi, particularly Douglas Feith and possibly even Paul Wolfowitz.
The rest of this extremely informative piece can be found here (you have to watch a 5 second Web advertisement in order to get access to Salon.com but it is well worth the wait)
He also makes the point that the neo-cons should have known better, given Chalabi's checkered past and propensity for double-dealing. He is, after all, a convicted felon who has had financial dealings with groups like Hezbollah and individuals like Saddam Hussein himself.
Furthermore, the neo-con's acceptance of Chalabi's outlandish predictions betrays a distinctive lack of knowledge of the region's history, people and political movements. As Dizard points out, the neo-cons, acting on the narrative Chalabi fed them, made errors of policy and forecast that would have been obvious to a competent history teacher with a specialization in the Middle East region.
Dizard speculates that there will be casualties from within the Bush team resulting from the disastrous and myopic relationship with Chalabi, particularly Douglas Feith and possibly even Paul Wolfowitz.
The rest of this extremely informative piece can be found here (you have to watch a 5 second Web advertisement in order to get access to Salon.com but it is well worth the wait)
