Conning the Neo-cons

In retrospect, it is not too hard to see how we got here - the allegation that Iran tricked the world's mightiest nation into war on its old enemy. When you are an ideologue that really wants to believe something, not only do the facts fit together like a puzzle only you can see, but those who have something to gain from you seeing it that way rush in to supply the puzzle pieces.

This is the case with the wing-nuttiest members of the neo-con cabal in the White House. In Richard Clarke's book "Against All Enemies," he recounts how he was stunned one day while briefing the principals on terrorism, specifically Al Qaeda. Wolfowitz tried to change the subject to Iraq, claiming that Al Qaeda needed a state sponsor. Clarke's jaw dropped - he realized that Wolfowitz was spouting the "totally discredited" theories of Laurie Mylroie.

Mylroie is a highly accredited academic who nonetheless is apparently regarded as something of a kook by American intelligence agencies. Once an apologist for Iraq, she did what many zealots do and spun a full 180 degrees, around the time of the gulf war. She has spent much of the time since coming up with strange theories that place Iraq front and center at every terrorist act of any notoriety in the last ten years, theories that, to be charitable, are without any evidence at all of any kind. She wrote a book on these theories that many of the leading neo-cons were instrumental in helping her with. When 9/11 happened, it is hardly a surprise (in hindsight) that the ideologues in the White House would convince President Bush that Iraq was behind the terrorist attack: indeed they were quite unprepared to believe anything different, even if all the evidence pointed directly, and only, at Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Mylroie, incidentally, still flouts these theories, trying to resurrect the old canard that Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi diplomat in the Chzech republic in April, 2001, a bizarre accusation that far right rags have swallowed hook, line, and sinker. The problem with this theory is that Atta was already in the United States on a weak tourist visa, and there is no record of him flying anywhere until the mid-summer - he simply could not possibly have met anyone in Prague. But because the theory is attractive to those who see Iraq at the centre of all things, they believe it on faith.

So it should come as no surprise that when a charming Iraqi exile named Ahmad Chalabi, leader of a group with all kinds of anti-Saddam intelligence merchandise implicating him in everything the neo-cons hoped he was involved in, not only did they become true believers, they became his sponsors. They devised plans to overthrow Saddam and instate Chalabi as Iraq's leader long before they came to power on their own, but convinced the Clinton-era government to make it policy. Chalabi's insurrectionist group began to get funding, despite the CIA's serious misgivings (justifiable ones) about the man's credibility.

When your devotion to a world view becomes an idol that you set up to worship, you will do anything to keep up the belief. Will you fall for con-artists in league with Iran, and allow yourself to be manipulated into doing Iran's work for it? Of course - if they can speak the language of your particular brand of idolatry, they become part of your belief system, too.

I hope Americans give serious thought to tossing these people out on their ears in November. The government of the US should operate in Washington, and not bow down to an idol manufactured in Tehran, or by a nutty conspiracy theorist.