The Contestants in the Sandbox -- Ahmad Chalabi

At the moment there can be few men in Iraq who are more disappointed and frustrated than Ahmad Chalabi, yet he still smiles -- a necessity for a man whose game includes playing both ends against the middle.

Two years ago he must've been confident that, with small variations, history would repeat itself and he would become the Lenin of his times. Surely he recalled how, in 1917, Lenin made two triumphal returns to Russia to take charge of the Revolution that had gathered steam during his absences, the first having lasted for 10 years in various western European countries, while he spent his other, much shorter, enforced out -of-country sojourn in Finland in that same momentous year. Chalabi must've expected that he, too, would return to Iraq to be toasted by one and all (except Saddam's people), accompanied by the Anglo-Americans, whom he wanted to be seen as the muscle that he had brought along to liberate Iraq.

There's a saying that I like and that I first saw in a German chessbook. It goes, "Man proposes but God disposes." There has to be an Arabian equivalent. Maybe it is this: "My goat would have gotten to Mecca if it hadn't been for the wolves by the side of the road."

Maybe, however, that isn't Arabic at all, or even Muslim. I got that one also from a chessbook (chess is riddled with unintended consequences), this time written by a Russian and apparently a Jewish guy at that, David Bronstein, though I am only assuming that he was Jewish because of his name. His writings and his reputation are lacking in references to such. But, despite being the World Champion for a year or two, Bronstein was best known for being whimsical, and that ties in with his use of that saying.

--Things haven't worked out well for Chalabi. He lacked the caliber of credentials that Lenin had of having worked for so long with such focus on unseating the czardom and especially one as surefire as having had a brother hanged for taking part in the early days of the revolution. Not many Iraqis have welcomed Chalabi with open arms, and I think that was to be expected.

Despite the decades that they had endured Saddam Hussein, the Iraqis, like humans everywhere, are not generally masochistic, and they weren't happy about the thousands of deaths and the massive destruction inflicted on them by Chalabi's well-armed buddies and by the lawless Iraqis who were left free to pillage and burn in the meantime. I think they would have much preferred that Chalabi had used the great influence he claimed to have on his U. S. friends, to end the hated embargo instead.

And then there's the resentment that has to be expected on the part of people who had stayed in the country and had dealt with Saddam all along, while Chalabi and others comfortably danced through other countries, suckering Republican hawks and engaging in shady deals such as in Jordan, where Chalabi has been convicted of bank fraud.

And now Chalabi has really been brought down some drastic notches. The U.S. has stopped giving his group, the Iraqi National Congress, the cool 340,000 bucks that it had been receiving each month for doing something or another, and Coalition troops have also raided his house, taking away hordes of Chalabi's computers and documents. He is accused, among other things, of giving U.S. military secrets to Iran.

But he is undeterred, and now he is campaigning in the guise of being the truest of Iraqis, crying "Let my people go!" and hoping to claim a major spot for himself in the power vacuum that he sees coming after June 30, when Bush has promised to relinquish much of the control of Iraq.

But I think Chalabi will always be seen by the Iraqis as a confidence man, trying to use them as gulls in his latest scheme.

If you have never seen supreme contempt delivered against a political figure in the most elegant and unapologetic manner, check out the 22 May 2004 post titled "En Kint Tedri" in "Baghdad Burning," concerning an intervew that Chalabi gave on Iraqi television. Riverbend has kept an eye on him for a long time, and her view of this man is an interesting one by an Iraqi "who stayed."

Ahmad Chalabi reminds me of a tire that has suffered a blow-out and has been taken off the car and tossed into a ditch. It is only lightly biodegradable and so has the potential to stay there relatively unchanged for years, and once in a while it will look usable to people passing by -- until they flip it over and see its fatally damaged side.

For that reason maybe Chalabi should be called "Iraq's Rubber Man" -- not that I have anything against rubber.