In an excellent synopsis of the neocons cultivation of Chalabi, Salon's John Dizard's lends support to Fukuyama's confession, oops, I mean defection, by pointing out the preconceptions which made the neocons "blind" to Chalabi prevarications. Of course, every good neocon knows that being willfully credulous is just as good an excuse as being unwittingly duped, but that's something Chalabi new as well from his tenure with the neocons at the University of Chicago:
"Why did the neocons put such enormous faith in Ahmed Chalabi, an exile with a shady past and no standing with Iraqis? One word: Israel. They saw the invasion of Iraq as the precondition for a reorganization of the Middle East that would solve Israel's strategic problems, without the need for an accommodation with either the Palestinians or the existing Arab states. Chalabi assured them that the Iraqi democracy he would build would develop diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, and eschew Arab nationalism. . . .
The neocons were deeply disturbed by the Israeli government's "land for peace" negotiations with the Palestinians. The usefulness of the West Bank for "defense in depth" was less important than it would have been from the '40s to the '70s, given the increase in Israel's relative technological and military advantage over the Arabs. However, the idea of giving up what Israel's right-wing Likud leaders and some of the neocons themselves believed to be Israel's God-given lands on the West Bank of the Jordan River was anathema to them. The solution to Israel's strategic dilemma, in their view, was to somehow change the Arab governments.
The neoconservative strategy for Israel was laid out in a 1996 paper called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," issued by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Jerusalem (but written by Americans). The principal authors for the paper were Douglas Feith, then a lawyer with the Washington and Jerusalem firm of Feith and Zell, and Richard Perle, who until last year was the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory committee for Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
In the section on Iraq, and the necessity of removing Saddam Hussein, there was telltale "intelligence" from Chalabi and his old Jordanian Hashemite patron, Prince Hassan: "The predominantly Shi'a population of southern Lebanon has been tied for centuries to the Shi'a leadership in Najaf, Iraq, rather than Iran. Were the Hashemites to control Iraq, they could use their influence over Najaf to help Israel wean the south Lebanese Shi'a away from Hizbollah, Iran, and Syria. Shi'a retain strong ties to the Hashemites." Of course the Shia with "strong ties to the Hashemites" was the family of Ahmed Chalabi. Perle, Feith and other contributors to the "Clean Break" seemed not to recall the 15-year fatwa the clerics of Najaf proclaimed against the Iraqi Hashemites."
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