US Foreign Policy: Biting the Hand that Feeds You

Chalabi, Chalabi, Chalabi. All Chalabi, All the Time. It's all over the news and even here.

I have to admit that I simply collapsed with laughter when I read this passage from today's NY Times editorial, entitled"Friends Like This":

Before the war, Ahmad Chalabi told Washington hawks exactly what they wanted to hear about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and the warm welcome American troops could expect from liberated Iraqis. They responded in kind, picturing Mr. Chalabi — who has lived most of his life outside Iraq and who was convicted in absentia in Jordan for bank fraud — as exactly the kind of secular Shiite to lead a new, democratic Iraq. Now reality has come crashing down on both sides, and the friendship has crumbled along with self-delusion. ... Lately, Mr. Chalabi — who has no genuine political base — has concluded that anti-Americanism is the key to political popularity. ... Many people in the Bush administration have been growing angry at the way Mr. Chalabi keeps biting the hand that fed him so well for so long.

"Biting the hand that fed him." HA! That is, quite possibly, an encapsulation of the whole history of US foreign policy: Putting money and material in the hands of people who come back to bite the hand, and several other aspects of the American anatomy, that feeds them. From Hussein himself to the mujahideen in Afghanistan ... this country has a remarkable track record. Let's see what new"friend" the US will climb into bed with in the coming months.