This is interesting. Yesterday it was reported that the U.S. government has cut off relations with Ahmed Chalabi, the man as responsible as anyone else for the invasion of Iraq and the early candidate put up by the NeoCons and the Bush administration to take over Iraq and replace Saddam.
The Bush administration quickly abandoned their idea of turning the government over to him when it became clear that Chalabi had no base of support in Iraq and could not fulfill his extravagant promises. Instead they sent Jerry Bremer and his American Enterprise Institute kiddy corps to create a government and a free market economy.
Today we get the reason WHY the U.S. has, at long last, cut off relations with Chalabi. It is reported by McClatchy that Maliki told the U.S. to abandon him because Maliki sees Chalabi as a pretender to the throne in Iraq and wants the competition eliminated.
This is more clear than to say that Chalabi was being cut off because he has had contacts with the Iranians. The U.S. government has known that for years, and the State Department and the CIA both objected to the manner in which the Pentagon supported Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress even before the invasion of Iraq because it was believed that he had strong contacts with Iran. There has long been a debate about whether Chalabi is an Iranian agent. So his contacts with Iran are not new news. So why finally cut him off now? The news that Maliki wanted him out makes sense.
The earlier news that the Iranian government has decided to abandon their support for Muquatada al-Sadr and instead support al-Maliki suggests that Maliki's Shiite government of Iraq is strengthening. Since both the U.S. and Iran want to stabilize Iraq, this all makes sense.
As always, I am not a middle east expert nor an expert on Iraq in any way. The best I can to is keep up with the news and some of the personalities as best I can and comment on the obvious implications. Chalabi has been the Bush administrations Iraqi-on-the-ground since before the invasion of Iraq, so this is probably representative of a very significant shift of power in that sad nation.
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