A Scenario for Gulf War II
More details unfold on Iraq-Chalabi-Iran. See Laura Rozen. The most impressive new elements are:
- those erstwhile Chalabi defenders who have been allowed to see the new evidence against him are rushing to distance themselves from him. They have long known about relationships between Chalabi and his supporters, on the one hand, and the Iranians on the other--but the new evidence is truly new and very serious.
- building on Josh Marshall's observation that Aras Karim, "Chalabi's now fugitive intelligence chief who has headed the Pentagon-funded Information Collection Program," has long been suspected of working for Iran, senior Bush officials have put a dangerous amount of trust in these people for a long time.
"How did this happen? Who signed off on Karim at the Office of the Secretary of Defense? How was he let in in the weeks after September 11 into the inner sanctum of the secretive US intelligence operation being assembled in the Pentagon? Is that not out and out treason?"
(See also newer Josh Marshall here and here).
It actually makes sense that Chalabi has been working for the mullahs in Iran from the beginning, and the Bushies put more or less complete trust in Chalabi until very recently. The apparent lack of any U.S. strategy or planning, the implausibility of the official rationales for war, are a stark contrast to the fact that everything that has happened in Iraq has benefitted Iran. Saddam is gone, the pro-Iran mullahs in the Shiite south have become major players, and if anything like democracy comes about in Iraq the mullocratic Shiites will probably dominate the Sunnis.
By contrast, the U.S. seems to have been surprised by everything that has happened. It may still turn out that some of their wishes will come true, but they are not likely to get a high proportion of what they wanted, and the little that they get will have been unplanned and unanticipated. They were surprised that Chalabi on his own was so unpopular--had such a small following. They were surprised at the strength of the Sistani movement--indications that a group of mullahs would be major players in any new government in the Shiite south. They were surprised at the Sadr movement, and even more by the way the mullahs, while making clear some disagreements with Sadr, were respectful and even deferential to him insofar as he was trying to get the Americans out of the country. They were surprised by Fallujah, and the extent to which Baathists, insurgents, and foreigners--whoever they are--were willing to join in the Sadr uprising.
As Kevin Drum's timeline shows, Americans have been consistently surprised and disappointed at Chalabi's behaviour--even before the recent evidence (still secret) that he handed over top secret information about U.S. operations in Iraq to the Iranian mullahs. Almost from the day he set foot in Iraq, he was not particularly pro-U.S., pro-Israel, and pro-Western, but pro-mullah and pro-Iran.
Some might argue that Chalabi's willingness to antagonize his American sponsors shows his innocence or integrity. It might simply show that once Saddam was overthrown, the Americans had fulfilled their role in Iran's plans. Chalabi's intelligence chief, Aras Karim, is apparently now in Tehran.
Recently Bush has responded to every specific question about the future of Iraq by saying "we'll leave that to Brahimi" (the UN advisor). In effect, until about January of this year they kept saying, in response to similar questions, "we'll leave that to Chalabi." Why did they believe so fiercely, or pretend to, in the WMD stories? They trusted Chalabi more than they trusted the CIA.
(I still think it's possible they didn't expect any of their forces to come under attack by WMDs, either because these weapons couldn't be deployed quickly, or because they didn't exist at all. This would fit the "Chalabi tells us everything will be smooth sailing" explanation of events. In this case, lies about WMDs were for the media and the public, not for decision-makers.)
Rumsfeld was surprised by the scale of the insurrection last fall. There were suddenly more Iraqis willing to stand and fight U.S. troops than there had been in March and April of 2003. It is because of this development, we have been told, that Rumsfeld agreed to extend some of the interrogation methods of the anti-Al Qaeda campaign to Iraqis--some of whom were innocent of any wrong-doing. The U.S. might have gotten away with torturing people who knew something about Al Qaeda--or might have known something--for a long time. For a liberator to torture Iraqis, willy-nilly, is something else again.
This was probably the time when they began to suspect that everything Chalabi had told them was a lie--except when he chose to give up Baathists and other Iraqis that he wanted to give up for reasons of his own. After months in-country, they were totally in the dark--yet they had paid Chalabi a fortune for intelligence.
Underneath all the b.s., the U.S. presumably had some minimal goals they wanted to achieve in Iraq. A new permanent military base, showing the entire Mid East and Gulf regions that the U.S. meant business, and could take action as needed. Some kind of decent, stable, constitutional Iraqi government, which would not interfere with the U.S. military installation (the Okinawa model). Finally, as Matthew Yglesias has said, they were probably sincere in wanting democracy, but not if it interfered with the first two.
They probably believed they could install Chalabi, with his alleged popularity, as interim President for quite some time--years. When elections were eventually held, they would somehow go the way Chalabi and the U.S. wanted--a secular government, not objecting to a huge U.S. military installation, pro-Israel, etc.
The U.S. has suffered higher casualties than they hoped or intended. They have no clear exit strategy. It seems unlikely they will have much to say about the make-up of an Iraqi government that both enjoys popular support and lasts for a while. And it seems unlikely that a sovereign Iraq, no matter how it is governed, will accept any kind of permanent U.S. military presence.
Iran will have gotten perhaps 90% or more of what it wanted. The U.S.: a much lower percentage.
If all of this is true, it may also not be the first time the Iranian mullahs have gotten the better of the U.S. As I have said, I hope someone looks again at Iran-Contra in the 80s, in which some of the same neo-cons were very much involved.
UPDATE: Peter Galbraith says the Kurds would be happy to have a U.S. military base in Kurdistan. (My guess is this is due partly to their fear of the Turks). So that is one strategic goal that is still in sight for the U.S. Questions remain: did Saddam's Iraq threaten any U.S. citizens, anywhere in the world, at the beginning of March 2003? Are any U.S. citizens safer because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq?
Among many points Galbraith makes about how this war has actually hurt the national security of the U.S., is this one: "The United States does not now have the military or diplomatic resources to deal with far more serious threats to our national security....At the beginning of 2003 Iraq posed no ... danger [of disseminating nuclear weapons technology]. As a result of the Iraq war the United States has neither the resources nor the international support to cope effectively with the very serious nuclear threats that come from North Korea, Iran, and, most dangerous of all, our newly designated 'major non-NATO ally,' Pakistan."
By comparison, Iran has achieved some significant objectives for their national security, at minimal cost (the U.S. bearing the costs).
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