Chalabi Dies Giving Birth to Another Round of Historical Revisionism

Reactions to Ahmad Chalabi's death show neocons' see history less as a subject to learn and more as a construct to revise. From 9-11 to March 2003 his information about Suddam Hussein helped bush 41 establish regime change as a redemptive endeavor, the template to showcase transforming a dysfunctional and despotic region into terror and chemical free democracies. Obituaries claim that the U.S. zeal to invade Iraq resulted from the prince of propaganda Ahmad Chalabi. Their revisionism occurs here while the U.S. Empire clings to regime change as tools to maintain hegemony. So their revisionism teaches us that while Chalabi was a conman regime change remains a viable means used to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives.

One example of the historical revisionism used in the dual service of denigrating Chalabi's contribution to Neocon Inc while reasserting his disgraced legacy shouldn't damage their otherwise noble regimen of regime change and prolonged military occupation. Council of Foreign Relations Senior Fellow and Neocon shining light Max Boot believes Chalabi's death prompts his asking what if the U.S. acted on Chalabi's advice to overthrow Hussein and quickly exit thereafter:

Such a suggestion beggars the imagination. Remember, the Iraqi army had been disbanded in the spring of 2003; and, yes, that was by order of U.S. proconsul L. Paul Bremer, but it was done at the urging of Shiite power brokers such as Chalabi who had the ear of policymakers in Washington and who argued that all remnants of Baathism must be destroyed. The only force for law and order was the U.S. military, and even it couldn't control the entire country. Without it, what would have happened? [1]

He asks rhetorically because the U.S. disbanding every speck of Baathism created a vacuum filled by a bloody insurgency. This tragic result then by implication discredits Chalabi's hit and run regime change but vindicates prolonged military occupation. Regardless of the merits of Boot's belief in nation-building, his revisionism occurs in this instance by overstating Chalabi's influence with U.S. policymakers. 

Boot claims Chalabi's influence on U.S. policymakers contributed to their decision to execute regime change without demonstrating enough commitment to the taboo policy option of "nation building." Interestingly, another prominent neocon David Wurmser spun his own revisionist tale about the true legacy of Chalabi:

This week we mark the passing of this great man, and his passing seems almost an allegory of what has transpired in the last decade. The liberation of Iraq — which triggered the first, unacknowledged chapters of the Arab Spring, in Beirut in 2005 and Tehran in 2009, by the admission of the leaders of these upheavals — has yielded to an unimaginable darkness. The region’s liberals — seemingly the wave of the future, modern, and emerging Middle East — now hunker down into hiding or retreat into flight. What is emerging is a regional civilization — not individual states — descending into failure with unfathomable misery and a refugee crisis to follow, much beyond anything yet experienced. Left to control the region are a collection of thugs — some Sunni, some Shiite, and a few still Arab nationalist — against a straggling remnant of a more moderate Arab leadership clinging to the few centers of power still left them. [2] 

Wurmser's eulogizes Chalabi as a visionary of the Arab Spring which has thus far failed to transform the region into viable democracies. The implication here is that the center will not hold without more U.S. involvement.

One important point to remember is that any errors in handling Iraq did not result from Chalabi hoodwinking a gullible Bush administration into overthrowing Hussein and allowing other actors to manage the fallout. Before the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003 a significant dossier available to Bush 41 highlighted Chalabi's unreliable judgments.   

This dossier deserves attention today because it shows a tragic precedent of U.S. policymakers using demonstrable frauds like Chalabi as accomplices in their imperialists agenda. This dossier consists of facts that Bush 41 ignored:

In December 1996, Clinton administration officials decided to terminate the CIA’s relationship with the INC (Iraqi National Congress) and Chalabi. “There was a breakdown in trust and we never wanted to have anything to do with him anymore,” CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee.[3]

Yet, the U.S. reconciled with Chalabi and awarded him thus:

However, in 1998, with the congressional passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, the INC was again one of the exile organizations that qualified for U.S. funding. Starting in March 2000, the State Department agreed to grant an INC foundation almost $33 million for several programs, including more propaganda operations and collection of information about alleged war crimes committed by Hussein’s regime. [4]

The U.S. apparently believed their Realpolitick justified cooperating and funding the corrupt Chalabi and the INC. Going forward to the Bush 41 administration: 

By March 2001, with George W. Bush in office and already focusing on Iraq, the INC was given greater leeway to pursue its projects, including an Information Collection Program. The INC’s blurred responsibilities on intelligence gathering and propaganda dissemination raised fresh concerns within the State Department. But Bush’s National Security Council intervened against State’s attempts to cut off funding. [5]

This active and willful support of Chalabi and the INC suggests one conclusion. Bush 41 and the Neocon squad weren't empty vessels whose need for advice was filled by the sinister Chalabi. Rather, they intended to attempt regime change and Chalabi's "intelligence" simply supported such an agenda. They didn't need him, but he was available for their purposes.

Chalabi's INC's "intelligence assessments" about Iraq echoed Benjamin Netanyahu's comments delivered to the U.S. Congress in 2002 during which he expressed apocryphal fears about Hussein developing WMDs:

“There’s no question that [Saddam] has not given upon on his nuclear program, not [sic] whatsoever. There is also no question that he was not satisfied with the arsenal of chemical and biological weapons that he had and was trying to perfect them constantly…So I think, frankly, it is not serious to assume that this man, who 20 years ago was very close to producing an atomic bomb, spent the last 20 years sitting on his hands. He has not. And every indication we have is that he is pursuing, pursuing with abandon, pursuing with every ounce of effort, the establishment of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. If anyone makes an opposite assumption or cannot draw the lines connecting the dots, that is simply not an objective assessment of what has happened. Saddam is hell-bent on achieving atomic bombs, atomic capabilities, as soon as he can.”

“Today the United States must destroy the same regime because a nuclear-armed Saddam will place the security of our entire world at risk. And make no mistake about it — if and once Saddam has nuclear weapons, the terror networks will have nuclear weapons.” [6]

Was Netanyahu obtaining his own intelligence assessments from Chalabi? The answer here is obvious.

Why do neocons denigrate Chalabi but not Netanyahu who promoted the same lies about Sudam Hussein during 2002? And, equally important why do neocons including though not limited to Max Boot still support regime change and /or nation building? Instead, Chalabi's death provided a convenient occasion to remind us of his legacy of lies.

Chalabi's obituary in many mainstream media coverage features their repeating his lies about Iraq's WMD program. But, The New York Times has argued that Chalabi was a convenient operative serving Bush 41's agenda to invade Iraq. The most critical lesson here is that prominent neocons Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz continued to prop up Chalabi's image as a potential leader of Iraq as recently as 2014.

Meanwhile, neocons' obsession on regime change shifted to Syria whereon it remains fixated. In this context Syria is not a tragedy resulting from the U.S. using Al-Quaeda to overthrow Assad, but the latest example of it lacking the commitment and fortitude to nation build. Boot asked rhetorically what would have happened if the U.S. had left Iraq after deposing Hussein in 2003? Just maybe one million deaths would have not occurred?????? History will never end because it is constantly revised.

Senator Red Cruz (R-TX) and current U.S. Presidential candidate demonstrates the pervasiveness of historical revisionism during the most recent GOP "debate" hosted on CNBC. Rather than his directly answering policy related questions, Cruz self-righteously ranted that the debate moderators' questions reduced the setting to a spectacle similar to the Democrats debate that in his words amounted to:

questions like who is more handsome. It was basically Bolshevik vs. Menshevik,”

So who would Cruz label Bolshevik and Menshevik? Clinton the former and Bernie Sanders the latter? Does his GOP show less Bolshevik tendencies? 

Neocons resemble Bolsheviks who glorified their revolution while blaming all of its failures on traitors secretly serving the remaining elements of the bourgeoisie.  Thus, failures seen during and after each Five Year Plan showed continued resistance from the bourgeoisie rather than prompting a rethink of Marxism as an organizing principle of society. Neocons exercise a similar hypocrisy when eulogizing Chalabi as a fraud while supporting regime change.

This revisionism if believed diverts our recognizing that Chalabi's lies were exposed prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Chalabi's legacy is more accurately defined as an agitprop character rather than a skillful conman who exploited Bush 41's need to restore peace and order in a post 9-11 world. The dossier on Chalabi warranted skepticism about his reliability. Bush 41 ignored such concerns because his primary objective was expanding the U.S. elite's hegemony in the Middle East. Chalabi was a tool and a stooge for its empire, meanwhile we remain its subjects.  

1. Boot, Max. "Ahmad Chalabi's bad advice on nation-building in Iraq." Los Angeles Times. Nov 05, 2015. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-boot-chalabi-iraq-nation-building-20151105-story.html

2. Wurmser, David. "Ahmad Chalabi, Evangelist for Middle East Reform." National Review. Nov 05, 2015. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426660/ahmad-chalabi-iran-neocons

3. Parry, Robert. "America's Chalabi's Legacy of Lies." Consortium News. Nov 04, 2015. https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/04/americas-chalabi-legacy-of-lies/

4. Ibid. 

5. Ibid.

6. Ravid, Barak. "Iraq 2002, Iran 2012: Compare and Contrast Netanyahu's Speeches." Haaretz. Oct 04, 2012. http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/iraq-2002-iran-2012-compare-and-contrast-netanyahu-s-speeches-1.468213