The death of Ahmed Chalabi is a moment to consider the great man theory of history. He was not a great man, and certainly not a good one; he was an adventurer of astonishing energy and chutzpah. But he may have changed the course of history and had he not existed his life and unique career would have seemed ridiculously improbable.
We tend to think of history as the product of impersonal forces and so to suppose a great catastrophe like the invasion of Iraq must have had great causes. But considered through the lens of Chalabi’s career, it seems more like a bitter farce out of Graham Greene. One man of unlimited ambition managed to recruit the most powerful army in the world to his private purposes. Almost in passing, he wrecked both his own country and much of the wider Middle East.
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