‘A page of history has turned’: Ahmad Chalabi, Iraqi nationalist and friend of Iran

Chalabi knew very well that Iraq, even before Syria, was a victim of the hostility between Washington and Tehran, says Gareth Smyth

In November 2005 I went to see Ahmad Chalabi, then Iraq’s deputy prime minister, on the top floor of a large Tehran hotel. It was difficult to have him focus on my questions, as both he and Zaab Sethna, his Zoroastrian Pakistani advisor, were as excited as children in poring over a huge pile of art books.

These had come from Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art, which the pair had visited after president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had asked them, with their meetings finished, what they would like to see. Chalabi had not only been aware of the museum’s many treasures – including Picasso, Monet, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol - he knew the New York dealer who had bought many of them on behalf of Farah Pahlavi, wife of the Shah.