There is little to be gained from further recriminations about Chalabi’s role in the Iraq War. But policymakers could certainly learn from this episode. Though Chalabi was perhaps the most prominent example in recent history, the role of exiles on the political scene is not new. Nor is their influence limited to Washington: groups such as Boris Berezovsky’s London-based group of Russian exiles have attempted to influence British policymakers to oppose the Putin regime. The appeal of such exiles to Western policymakers is obvious: these individuals promise insider information about some of the world’s most closed regimes, like the Soviet Union of old, Libya, or North Korea.
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