CHILDISHNESS IN IRAQ
The good news in Iraq is that things are much, much better than the gloomy picture painted daily by the propaganda organ of the Democrat Party, the LME (The Liberal Media Establishment, consisting primarily of Time-Newsweek-New York Times in print, Rather-Brokaw-Jennings-CNN in television, and NPR in radio).
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are directing the military in continuing a superb performance, oil production will soon hit one million barrels a day, and over 90% of Iraq’s population is living under peace and increasing prosperity.
The bad news is that State Department and CIA bureaucrats resolutely continue to be in the way of all of this. This is best exemplified by their personal vendetta against the one man who could lead Iraq out of chaos and into a flourishing democracy: Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress.
State/CIA hate Chalabi the way Democrats hate George Bush: personally, viscerally, and irrationally. They have put their personal emotions before their professional obligations. They have been suckered into the vendetta the Jordanian monarchy has perpetrated against Chalabi ever since he opposed its collusion with Saddam to take over Saudi Arabia.
Yes, you read that right. When Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990, every one thought Kuwait was the goal. Everyone except the Israelis and Ahmad Chalabi.
Chalabi, from Baghdad’s most distinguished Shia family, went into exile when the Baath Party seized power in 1958. He earned a University of Chicago doctorate in mathematics in 1969, and opened the Petra Bank specializing in international commerce in Amman, Jordan in 1978.
Chalabi incurred the wrath of Jordan’s King Hussein by not allowing Petra to help finance Saddam’s war against Iran, resulting in Hussein ordering the bank’s assets seized in 1989 on trumped-up charges.
When Chalabi learned too much of the King’s conspiracy with Saddam regarding his plan to seize Kuwait in 1990, he had to escape from Jordan hiding in the trunk of a car.
What Chalabi knew, he told the Israelis. As Saddam mobilized his army to attack Kuwait in July 1990, King Hussein mobilized the Jordanian Army, freaking out the Israelis who thought the Jordanians were readying an attack upon them to regain the West Bank lost in the 1967 Six Day War.
Mossad agents quickly confirmed what Chalabi told them, however, that the King was not preparing to move his army west — into Israel. He was preparing to move south — into Saudi Arabia. His grudge against the Saudis for taking the Hejaz from his family was far stronger than his grudge against the Israelis for taking the West Bank.
Ever wonder why Jordan is officially called "The Hashemite Kingdom"?
The Hashemites are the Hashem family who traditionally ran the mosque in Islam’s Holy City of Mecca. Mecca is in a region along the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula called the Hejaz, and was part of the Ottoman Empire until WWI.
Since the Hashemites claimed descent from the family of Islam’s founder Mohammad, the British promoted their leaders who promised to be compliant with British influence, to rule various Arab pieces of former Ottoman territory.
They installed one son of Sharif al-Husseini (the Hashem family chief), Ali, to be King of Hejaz, and another, Feisal, to be King of Syria.
When folks in Damascus, organized by the French who thought Syria was theirs, not the Brits’, rebelled against Feisal, another brother, Abdullah raised an army in Mecca and marched towards Damascus. By the time he got to Amman in November of 1920, Feisal was overthrown.
Amman was in a territory decreed by the British to be the Jewish National Homeland as promised by the Balfour Declaration. With Ali running things back home in Hejaz, Abdullah decided to stay where he was, and declared that all of the Jewish National Homeland east of the Jordan River and running thence to the Gulf of Aqaba was now his.
The Jews would just have to settle for what remained west of the Jordan. Britain’s Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, acquiesced to Abdullah’s claim and in 1923 agreed to Abdullah being proclaimed Emir of Trans-Jordan.
(Churchill figured the Arabs inhabiting the territory west of the Jordan would now flock into Trans-Jordan, leaving the western remainder to the Jews. He didn’t figure on the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, but that’s another story.)
The Brits installed Feisal as King of another ex-Ottoman territory now called Iraq. All three Hashem brothers had set up their Hashemite Kingdoms. But then, out of the Arabian Desert came a primitive camel-raiding Bedouin chieftain who spoiled everything.
Leading an army of swordsmen on camel-back, in 1924 Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud seized the Hejaz, kicked out Ali, and declared the Hejaz and the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina to be part of his new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Hashemities never forgave and never forgot. 66 years later, Abdullah’s grandson King Hussein of Jordan, entered into a plot with Saddam Hussein of Iraq (no relation, just the same last name) to dismember Saudi Arabia.
After Saddam consolidated his control of Kuwait, his forces would move down the Saudi east coast to seize the great Dharan oil fields, the world’s largest. Jordanian forces would at the same time move down the west coast and take the Hejaz. The Hashemites would once again rule the sacred land theirs by right and stolen from them by the hated Saudis.
The King’s plans were, of course, foiled by George Bush the Elder. The Gulf War was not just about Kuwait. It was fought to prevent the capture of the Saudi oilfields by Saddam.
And how did Bush 41 know about Saddam’s plans? Ahmad Chalabi.
The Jordanian Monarchy has done everything possible ever since to besmirch Chalabi. The State Department — going back to Strobe Talbot, Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State — and those endlessly clueless folks at the CIA have bought the Jordanian smear whole hog.
Chalabi has earned the respect and confidence of the Bush Administration’s adults, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Yet hey were not able to move fast enough before State/CIA could get in the way of their goal to put Ahmad Chalabi in charge of Iraq after kicking out Saddam.
The Pentagon has forced State/CIA to accept Chalabi as a member of Iraq’s Governing Council. Yet Foggy Bottom and Langley continue to try and undermine him. Iraq would be in far better shape today if they would stop their childish vendetta, and support the one man who can hold Iraq together.