"Chalabi, the Iranians, and Wheels Within Wheels"

Clayton Cramer enters the wilderness of mirrors.

According to the NY Times story, "the Iranian spy service [is] one of the most sophisticated in the Middle East." Why, then, would their Baghdad station chief use a code that might be compromised to tell his superiors that the Americans may have broken the code? That is hardly smart or sophisticated.

One possibility is that the Iranians found out from a different source and decided to incriminate Chalabi.

Update: I see Richard Perle has made the same point about the Iranian "bungle". As does Michael Williams and Bryan Preston.