The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War and Losing the Peace sounds like a must read. It is an insider’s account of how the current administration mis-managed the occupation of Iraq after defeating Saddam’s army.
There's more. . . .
I first heard about this book surfing on Huffington Post. There, it was reviewed by Associated Press writer Charles J. Hanley, who said,
"The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Ali A. Allawi concludes in "The Occupation of Iraq," newly published by Yale University Press.
Allawi writes with authority as a member of that "new order," having served as Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003. As a former academic, at Oxford University before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he also writes with unusual detachment.
As 2007 began, Allawi concludes, "America's only allies in Iraq were those who sought to manipulate the great power to their narrow advantage. It might have been otherwise."
The choice of language in this quoted passage is interesting. Saddam’s regime was merely corroded and corrupt in contrast to the GWB regime which, while corroded and corrupt too, echoing shade of Katrina, compounded the problem by also being inefficient and incompetent. Intrigued, I looked up the book on the publisher's site.
According to the Yale University Press summary,
The Occupation of Iraq examines what the United States did and didn’t know at the time of the invasion, the reasons for the confused and contradictory policies that were enacted, and the emergence of the Iraqi political class during the difficult transition process. The book tracks the growth of the insurgency and illuminates the complex relationships among Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds. Bringing the discussion forward to the reconfiguration of political forces in 2006, Allawi provides in these pages the clearest view to date of the modern history of Iraq and the invasion that changed its course in unpredicted ways.
So I have ordered the book and plan to carefully devour it. It sounds like Allawi will recount a trove of pearls that confirm that Bush, et al could not have made things worse in Iraq had they actually planned it. When I have the book, I'll start posting these pearls.
It will be very interesting to find out which Iraqi’s were quick to ingratiate themselves with the administration and what they got in return. Will we find that Sadr is now a vocal opponent, not out of any deep nationalism or religious conviction but rather because he was turned away at the trough? Will we find that many on our side encouraged the frenzy of corruption to hide their own malfeasance? I really want to understand what happened.
One final point – the title of this book opens the door to an interesting new frame. Should we still be looking for "victory," or, having already won the "war," should we now be waging peace? If we can identify where we screwed up after the major combat ended, can we come up with a way to remedy the situation and put Iraq back to where it should have been? How can we do this using the least amount of military force? Can we even bring diplomacy to bear to create a regional coalition to address restoring peace to Iraq?
I ordered it UPS Next Day so I hope to have it by Wednesday and be able to give a more detailed review starting Friday.