Chalabi's unstoppable rise.

Ahmed Chalabi, the convicted embezzler who headed the neocon-backed Iraqi exile group the Iraqi National Congress. was shut out in his effort to win a seat in the new Iraqi parliament. However, as a January 2 Knight Ridder news analysis noted, "The former exile who helped spur the U.S.-led invasion by feeding false intelligence to Washington about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and who returned to Iraq after Saddam's fall to craft himself into a political leader, still has more cards to play. Characteristically, Chalabi, 61, could land on his feet in a high government post even though he failed to win even a minimum of votes from the Iraqi people."

Just before New Year's Day, Chalabi, who was appointed Deputy Prime Minister largely on the strength of his neo-con connections, was chosen as a "temporary" replacement for Iraq's outgoing oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum. This placed Chalabi at the head of Iraq's energy sector just as the nation falls into an energy crisis precipitated by years of rationing and price controls and the sudden end of energy subsidies.

Chalabi's move "is akin to Stalin's becoming Party Secretary in the waning years of Lenin's life," comments Charles Featherstone, a petroleum industry analyst with deep and detailed knowledge of the Persian Gulf and its politics. "So here is my prediction--within 18 months, Ahmed Chalabi will effectively be president of Iraq, in either name or in actual power.... It does not matter that Chalabi has no votes.... I won't bet against Chalabi until he is cold, dead, and has a stake driven through his heart."