Politics & Power Quote by Ahmed Chalabi

Chalabi’s sentence is engineered to sound like diagnosis, not blame, even as it distributes blame with surgical care. He calls Iraq’s condition a “long-running tragedy,” a phrase that widens the frame: this isn’t a discrete crisis with a fixable policy lever, but an extended national drama with multiple authors. That rhetorical choice absolves the speaker from offering a tidy solution while positioning him as the adult in the room, reading the whole script.

The triad does the real political work. First, “the legacy of the old regime” nods to Baathist brutality, a safe and broadly acceptable target. Second, “the Americans and their actions that are unsuitable for Iraqi society” threads a needle: it criticizes the occupation without rejecting the idea of outside help outright. “Unsuitable” is polite language for culturally tone-deaf power, a way to frame U.S. decisions as mismatched rather than malicious, keeping doors open to patrons while feeding local resentment toward an occupying force.

Then comes the sharpest turn: “the weakness of national resolve.” That clause moves tragedy from something done to Iraq to something Iraq is failing to do for itself. It’s a subtle bid for legitimacy by moralizing politics: the problem isn’t only institutions or security; it’s willpower, unity, discipline. In the post-2003 context, with insurgency, sectarian competition, and state collapse looming, “national resolve” is code for consolidating authority and tamping down factionalism. Chalabi isn’t just interpreting events; he’s staking a claim to the role of leader who can supply the missing resolve, while making sure no single actor can pin the tragedy entirely on him or his allies.