President Bush is transforming the Middle East

By turning it into a powder keg. And the fuse is getting shorter and shorter.

Juan Cole also does a blistering takedown of Andrew Sullivan and others on the right who, when faced with criticism of the U.S. military's current activity in Iraq, attack the critic's "moral compass."

Truth in advertising: Sullivan attacked me on his weblog Thursday as having lost all "moral compass" because I dared to point out that the US Department of Defense and its allies are now killing Marsh Arabs around Kut, Amara and Majar al-Kabir--the very Marsh Arabs Mr. Wolfowitz said he was invading Iraq to protect from Saddam, who also used to kill them. In those days they were called the Iraqi Hizbullah. Many of them now are allied with Muqtada al-Sadr. There is an enormous difference in scale between what Saddam did to them and what the Coalition has done since the beginning of April. But it is early days, after all. And in issues of ethics and hypocrisy, scale is less important than principle.

I take it as a compliment that the Right is so afraid of this observation (the recent fate of the Marsh Arabs is not being discussed anyplace but the much-maligned Guardian) that they feel it necessary to resort to character assassination ("unreliable," "no moral compass") in my regard, in hopes of marginalizing me quick before the observation gains traction.

"Saving" the Iraqi Shiites was maybe the last rationale for their war that hadn't been discredited. Since April 2 they haven't been saving them any more. They have been killing them.

It's worth a read if for no other reason than it is a reminder of the bludgeon used by many on the "pro-war" side to silence critics in the run up to this war.

Speaking of a bludgeon. Here's another example (if we needed one) that the writers on the Wall St. Journal's editorial page either do not read or believe what's written in their own newspaper.

Reporters David S. Cloud, Gary Fields and Farnaz Fassihi write:

U.S. intelligence agencies believe Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile once strongly backed by some Bush administration officials, may have passed classified information on the American occupation of Iraq to the government of Iran, officials said.

Recent intelligence, including communications intercepts, suggest Mr. Chalabi, who serves on the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, provided contacts in Tehran with details of U.S. security operations and political plans, the officials said.

The claims appear to be part of a mushrooming number of investigations of Mr. Chalabi and his political party, the Iraqi National Congress. Senior coalition officials said Thursday that an Iraqi judge had issued an arrest warrant for seven of Mr. Chalabi's employees on charges of corruption, kidnapping, torture, car theft and misuse of government property for personal purposes. Iraqi police Thursday joined by personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, raided Mr. Chalabi's Baghdad house and political party headquarters.

"Is there reason to think he provided sensitive information to Iran?" a U.S. official said. "That's absolutely true."

Meanwhile, in "Review and Outlook," an editorial entitled "The Chalabi Treatments" begins thusly:

Someday we hope U.S. officials will explain to us how in scarcely a year they managed to turn one of our closest allies in ousting Saddam Hussein into an opponent of American purposes. We're referring to Ahmed Chalabi, the member of the Iraqi Governing Council whose home and office were raided by coalition forces yesterday in Baghdad.

A coalition spokesman said the raid wasn't aimed at either Mr. Chalabi or his political organization, the Iraqi National Congress. Instead, U.S. sources say the police were looking for evidence as part of an Iraqi-led fraud probe into Iraqis connected to the Ministry of Finance that Mr. Chalabi has supervised as a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. We suspect that distinction will be lost on most Iraqi news reports.

For his part, Mr. Chalabi blamed a political vendetta inspired by U.S. regent L. Paul Bremer. And he claimed the police were hunting for records related to the U.N.'s corrupt Oil for Food Program that he's been investigating. His ties with the coalition are now "non-existent," the businessman and former exile added.

We don't know enough of the facts to take sides. But we certainly think Mr. Chalabi deserves the benefit of the doubt, especially in light of his treatment by many U.S. officials over the past year. Some reporters still refer to him as the Pentagon's "favorite" to rule Iraq. If that's true we'd hate to see what happens to a non-favorite.

He's been vilified repeatedly in background quotes by U.S. "sources," especially by State Department and CIA officials who won't forgive him for opposing their status quo views of Saddam and the Mideast. Far from being anointed as Iraq's version of Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai, Mr. Chalabi was named by Mr. Bremer as just one of 25 members to the unwieldy Governing Council.