How long will it be B4 Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid, etc. start saying that the Shiites are more open, gracious and bipartisin than the GOP?

The Shia alliance won a bare majority with 140 out of 275 seats. The vaunted Al-Sadr got 0.8% and the Iraqi Communists, who were touted as being the true face of Iraqis, received a rousing 0.6%. This makes them a greater force in Iraqi politics than Pat Buchanan in American politics, but less of one than Ralph Nader.

The Shia Alliance is far from unified, there will be no Shia Tom DeLay to hammer recalcitrant Alliance members into line. Thus, there will be pressure for them to make deals across party lines, which will be good in the short run as it will have the effect of forcing these disparate groups to work together in a peaceful fashion.

It will provide opportunities for sleazy operators to play all manner of self-dealing games, lining their own pockets, but is Chalabi worse than Pierre Laval, or Giulio Andreotti let alone Saddam?

I don't get the comparison. Chalabi is a hero.

Chalabi is neither the hero that his admirers make him out to be, nor is he the villain his enemies make him out to be, and if he were he would still be light years better than Saddam. He is the sort of character that nascent democracies need and who arise in situations of near-chaos. I would refer you to Conrad's Nostromo. The developing world is full of them, many from ethnic and religious minorities like Greeks in Sudan or Somalia, Arabs in West Africa, Jews in Latin America or Chinese in Southeast Asia.

Chalabi's main interest is Chalabi. Guys like this can be destructive if they see that the chaos is so bad that only a psychotic can make a go of things, e.g. Pierre Laval and his loyalty to Petain and Hitler. But if there is a real possibility that more or less rational governance can occur and if it does it will inure to his benefit, then he can be a real force for good.

Henry Clay's mansion with the silver doorknobs didn't build itself and he was in public office at the time.

Slick dealmakers can keep governments going when all the parties are closer to 'going to the mattresses' rather than making a go of things. Andreotti certainly played that role in postwar Italy, keeping the disparate factions of the anti-Communist coalition from killing each other.

At the end of the Cold War his usefulness ended and his greed became even too much for the Italian political class to ignore. Also, his party, the Christian Democrats, which was a melange of factions, atomized when it lost its raison d'etre, anti-Communism.

Then why did he topple Saddam?

The US toppled Saddam, Chalabi was along for the ride sensing an opportunity to profit from the enusing disorder. If he can help in creating a more or less stable, more or less democratic, an Iraq more or less respectful of individual liberty and not involved in international terror, then he will deserve a place in history. But the notion that he is anything other than an operator looking for his next big score is laughable. A nice Swiss bank account for Chalabi is a small price to pay for the results I've outlined.

But sometimes such people are necessary and sometimes they can accomplish great things. Let us refrain from looking at their motives however and focus solely on results.

Chalabi did all the spadework while we fretted about Y2K and our 401ks.