FROM KURDISTAN TO K-STREET….Over on our home page today, Laura Rozen tells the story of Shlomi Michaels: former Israeli counterterrorism commando, owner of a coffee/chocolate shop franchise, lobbyist and contractor for Iraqi Kurds, and, it turns out, friend of intelligence service chiefs from Moscow to Tokyo to Washington DC. It is definitely not set in the foreign affairs world that we normally see on TV:
This is a story of the other world, the one whose real power players never show up in the CNN headline crawl. It’s the story of a man with a habit of popping up, Zelig-like, at the nexus of foreign policy and the kinds of businesses that thrive in times of war — security contracting, infrastructure development and postwar reconstruction, influence and intelligence brokering.
It’s also the story of how this entrepreneur and middleman, in the shadowy environment created by the 9/11 attacks and Washington’s advance on Iraq, seized the opportunity to propel himself from small-time businessman into global player. The trajectory of Shlomi Michaels is testament not only to one man’s driven intensity, but also to the opportunities the war on terror has presented to those with the information, connections, and ambition to seize them.
The eternal search for WMD programs in Iraq makes an appearance too. The whole story is here.
