I checked, and this is not the first diary entry to discuss this book. Doing a search for 'Imperial Hubris' led to these entries
stillwell,
seriously blown cue,
stevelu,
spyral,
greatbasin2. Josh Marshall has pulled excerts out at
talkingpointsmemo.com.
Most have also referred to the article in the Guardian.
But today MSNBC.COM, under the Nightly News with Tom Brokaw section posted an interview with Andrea Mitchell. I found many of the arguments made compelling enough, that I'm going to buy this book when it's released.
That is supposedly August 1, 2004 according to the publisher and Amazon.
Reading this interview is chilling. The author of this book, is a CIA Station Chief. Specifically he's the head of the part of the agency tasked with tracking and understanding Osama bin Laden. Apparently he still works for the CIA, and it is amazing to me that this book has been authorized for release as it is incredibly critical of the Administrations actions.
In his book, titled "Imperial Hubris," he calls the Iraq invasion "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat," arguing against the concept of pre-emptive war put forward by President Bush as justification for the Iraq war.
The arguments as they are laid out in this interview are compelling and question much of the CW spewing around.
He argues that invading Iraq only helped further bin Laden's arguments. That the US is only interested in subduing Islam and stealing their oil, along with some other things.
He mentions the influence of religious discussion on this, and notes that bin Laden relies not so much on religious rhetoric but critique of US policy. The US attempt by Bush to phrase this in terms of not attacking Islam, but assuming bin Laden is promoting a radical form, is misunderstanding the issue.
He's also critical of Afghanistan, insomuchas we win the battles but lose the war.
He notes how Al Qaeda is patient and understands the difference between tactical and strategic. As such he notes it is ridiculous to assume we are winning any war by pointing to the lack of an attack within the US. It's too short-sighted.
He seems to warn about the dangers of the US wearing it's religion on our sleeve. That we are better served by being secular than Christian.
This man isn't arguing for appeasement, he's arguing for agression taken in different directions. He notes that we may have to abandon the oil flow from the middle east, we may have to rethink many other alliances.
But he largely argues that our policies are causing the problems.
It's an interesting mixture of Carter-style leftist thinking, and hardcore hawkish outlook. I find it compelling, because it is largely rational. It also flies in the face of a lot of assumptions that people have today regarding politics.
From my take, from reading Richard Clarke, to understanding Wesley Clark and the other discussions that have evolved during this campaign. What he is advocating is most likely to be introduced into US foreign policy when Kerry takes office in January.
Read the interview, and I encourage everybody to buy this book when it comes out to see what he has to say, as I think it will be important to understand.