What Were the Neo-Cons Thinking? 

What Were the Neo-Cons Thinking?

If this proves true, it will be the most amazing revelation about Gulf War II:

"Was the real back story to Gulf War II not that a group of neoconservatives tried to realize their grand strategy for the Middle East, but that a bunch of academics playing spy games got duped by Iranian intelligence?" (Laura Rozen via Kevin Drum).

Let's spell it out a bit further. The neo-cons and others had put implicit trust in Chalabi for many years. (The whole Iran-Contra fiasco, also referred to by Rozen, needs to be re-examined now.) Post-9/11, they had a tremendous enthusiasm to do something about terror, and a dissatisfaction with simply getting rid of the Taliban and tracking down Al Qaeda members one by one. (Something they have apparently done with some success, although of course they let too many people go during the main fighting in Afghanistan).

They wanted something bigger, more noble sounding. The President didn't want to "swat flies," like Clinton. They wanted an approach totally different from Clinton's, and they were ready with their papers and slide decks. An allegedly Wilsonian approach, winning the hearts and minds of distinct "nationalities" or peoples by means of democracy and idealism; always linked to Plan B, an allegedly Jacksonian approach of acting first and thinking later, if at all.

If the stories now emerging are true: Chalabi, acting for the Iranians, played them like musical instruments.

Iran's goal may have been to install a pro-Iran (pro-mullah) government in at least the southern part of Iraq. They seem well on the way to doing that. The Kurds, more or less by luck, may end up basically with an independent Kurdistan. The Sunnis, Baghdad, and roughly the middle of Iraq, are perhaps the least known factors right now.

A decent, stable regime may still emerge in Iraq--or different regimes in three or more regions. But the situation is likely to be very different from anything planned or promised by the U.S. If the main U.S. goal, underneath all the fantastic spinning, was to install a substantial military base in Iraq, that is increasingly less likely to be achieved. Any kind of sovereign Iraq is likely to demand the withdrawal of all U.S. forces.

So among many possibilities still in play (including, of course, a long and violent civil war), one is that Iran gets what it always wanted, the U.S. does not get what it (most) wanted.