Chalabi, Ledeen and Iran

A growing number of folks have expressed skepticism about the Chalabi links to Iran -- indeed, about the whole attempt to blame the Iraq war on Tehran. Joshua Marshall thinks that Chalabi really was spying for, in the pocket of, or at least too-close-for-comfort with the Iranians:

From what I'm told, what really cooked Chalabi's goose was that the evidence against him was sufficiently damning that his one-time advocates and protectors inside the government -- folks very high up the ladder -- simply washed their hands of him, wouldn't try to defend him.

Another point: look at these sorta-kinda defenses of Chalabi and you'll often see the argument that Chalabi's main enemies at the State Department and the CIA -- particularly at State -- are hopeless hypocrites because, while attacking Chalabi for his contacts with the Iranians, they are the very ones who endorse fuller engagement with the Iranians. (A finger is often stuck in the eye of Armitage at State.) So why can't Chalabi talk with the Iranians when these jokers have been saying we should do that for some time?

Yeah, but...

The infamous neocon Michael Ledeen remains (last I checked) a die-hard Chalabi supporter. And his was one of the strongest voices for war with Iran, back in the days of "Mission Accomplished," when the Bushites were wondering which nation to bomb next.

So why would a vehement opponent of Iran support a man widely viewed as Tehran's tool? How do we reconcile this seeming contradiction?

More is going on here, methinks, than most believe...