Friday, December 10, 2004

More on Mikey

I have several thoughts about Ahmed Chalabi to get off my chest, but don't have time to do so right now.
However, let me state that in Michael Rubin's article that I referenced in my last post, I get the impression that his anger at Allawi is based primarily on the fact that he isn't Ahmed Chalabi, whom Rubin wanted in the post.
Most of the arguments he makes about Allawi's lack of support seem to me to be disingenuous, as Ahmed Chalabi doesn't enjoy broad support either (although Rubin has always averred, with no evidence, that the Shiites see him as their standard-bearer), and many of the actions taken by Allawi that Rubin feels lost him support (going after Sadr, "ordering" US troops into Fallujah) seem to be ones that anyone in Allawi's position would have been forced to do by the US. I'm not certain how he feels a Chalabi administration would have been better, and have a sneaking suspicion that if Chalabi had been put into office instead of Allawi and had done exactly the same things, Rubin would have praised him for his "bravery" and would not have used Chalabi's "ordering" of troops into Fallujah as evidence of his commitment to defeating terror. (As it goes, Rubin used scare quotes around the word "order," thus as much as admitting that Allawi was a puppet - had his boy been in Iraq, he would almost certainly not have done so).
Of course, perhaps Mikey Rubin believes the mythos that Chalabi had a great Iraqi army behind him that could have taken care of Sadr and Fallujah for us.

In any case, I find it hard to take lil' Mikey seriously.

That is all.

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