Very Interesting

Atrios posts, posing a very good question. If Chalabi really is the International Man of Mystery we're now hearing he is and has been, why is he making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows tomorrow and not cooling his heels under custody? After all, if this is true, it would mean the war in Iraq was the work of a successful counterintelligence operation by the Iranians. It would mean we'd been hoodwinked, bamboozled, left bothered and bewildered in Babylon, up to our knees in Oh Shit and much much more.

It would, at the very least, call for his incarceration, would it not? And yet, somehow, for some reason, he's being allowed to bring his case out into the public arena, to add his perspective into the media mix. Odd, don't you think?

I've been trying to get my head around this Chalabi development for days. When it first happened, my initial estimate was that is was pure theater, wherein our nefarious hero-villian Ahmed is "disconnected" from and "disavowed" by the Americans, theoretically raising his "street cred" with the Iraqi public, so as to better facilitate his rise to lead the country. The administration and its representatives have floated the need not for a true democracy in Iraq, not just yet, they're not quite ready, but instread need some sort of interim "strongman" to ensure and enforce law & order and allow "freedom to flourish," or some such hoo-ha.

And then came the Iranian allegations. Well, technically, they came first, as Josh Marshall points out:

Chalabi's ties with Iran have been known (and winked at) for years; claims that he was sharing sensitive US info with them have been out there for at least a few months.

Again, if this is true, it means the US has effectively been used as a surrogate army by one third of the Axis of Evil, in order to take out another third. All while Korea, by the way, the final third of Bush's Unholy Trinity, ramps up rhetoric and, many say, production, on their own nuclear Ace(s) in the Hole. It means that beyond their own corruption, their own lies and greed and endless grabs for further power, both here and abroad, they are also perhaps the most idiotic dupes in history. Halliburton and Bechtel, et al, are still scoring huge profits though, for the time being, and perhaps that still appears a victory on a very sick level to some in the administration, but it cannot be seen as anything other than a political disaster. Nor should we allow it to be portrayed as anything but just that. If it is all true.

But if it is true then why, as Atrios puts it:

So, if Chalabi's group really is a front for Iranians why isn't he standing hooded in a dark room with wires hooked up to his genitals instead of, you know, being on every Sunday news show tomorrow?

Something is afoot, my friends, and I think, as usual, Josh Marshall hit at least one key nail right on its head when he wrote:

But what we're seeing here is less the result of new revelations than the outward signs of deep tectonic shifts within the US government -- the discrediting of some factions and agencies, the attempts of others to reposition themselves in a moment of acute crisis and get ahead of the storm, and the freeing up of others to assert themselves for the first time in years.

More as it develops.