APPOINTABLE, NOT ELECTABLE:

Chalabi Named Iraq Oil Minister (Jonathan Finer and Naseer Nouri, December 31, 2005, Washington Post )

As a fuel crisis deepened in Iraq, the government replaced its oil minister with controversial Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi, whose poor performance in the Dec. 15 elections was a setback in his recent attempt at political rehabilitation.

Mr Chalabi had four strikes against him in Iraqi electoral politics: he's secular, he's too closely tied to Washington and Tehran, and he left when Saddam was in power. He'd have been an ideal transitional figure ffor us to put in power undemocratically in the Spring/Summer of '03--so long as Ayatollah Sistani agreed--but he never had a shot at winning popular elections.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 31, 2005 1:01 PM