Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-year History of War, Profit, and Conflict [Hardcover]

Edwin Black (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 25, 2008

In Banking on Baghdad, New York Times and international bestselling author Edwin Black chronicles the dramatic and tragic history of a land long the center of world commerce and conflict. Tracing the involvement of Western governments and militaries, as well as oil, banking, and other corporate interests, Black pinpoints why today, just as throughout modern history, the world needs Iraq's resources—and remains determined to acquire and protect them. Banking on Baghdad almost painfully documents the many ways Iraq's recent history mirrors its tumultuous past.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In emphasizing the symbiosis of oil profits and Western imperialism in the making of modern Iraq, Black (IBM and the Holocaust) and a team of 30 researchers (whom he credits) have unearthed a wealth of historical detail, but not a satisfying framework for it. Temporal balance is also missing: the book's first 6,500 years pass in a 42-page montage of conquest and massacre, with the narrative slowing to a snail's pace during the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods to explore the interminable wranglings among Western oil companies, European governments and entrepreneur C.S. Gulbenkian over Iraqi oil concessions in the first half of the 20th century. Accounts of the Sunni-Shiite schism and the modern recrudescence of Iraqi anti-Semitism are thrown into the mix, but one gets little sense of how all these elements determine the social, economic and political turmoil of contemporary Iraq, especially since the crucial Saddam era flits by in just six disjointed pages. In the end, Black does little more with a lot of undeniably fascinating material than to invoke the "unstoppable repetition" of despotic government and violent exploitation, but his corporate-historical gleanings are more than enough to carry the book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“…worth reading” (Chartest, No.2/3, March – April 2005)

“…builds up a compulsion to study the often wretched history steeped in greed, cruelty and corruption, that has dominated this part of the world for thousands of years.” (City to Cities, No.32, April – May 2005)

Black's work should not be taken to the bank. While purporting to be a 7000-year history of Iraq with related economic implications, it ends up being a work of invective and innuendo, sloppy history, and hyperventilating prose regarding the West's relationship to Iraqi oil over the past 100 years. For example, Black has Britain's King Edward VII signing an oil treaty in 1914, four years after his death. Or he mistakenly devalues the military significance of Lawrence of Arabia in Allenby's campaign to practically nothing when, indeed, Lawrence was first into Damascus. However, Black's pejorative and high-energy language and lack of thoughtful interpretation will make this study highly entertaining reading for less thoughtful readers. Black is an investigative reporter with three similar works (e.g., War Against the Weak) and a novel to his credit. On the history of the Middle East, however, the discerning reader will be better off with the studies of Bernard Lewis or Albert Hourani. Recommended only for public and academic libraries collecting extensively in this area. —John F. Riddick, Central Michigan Univ. Lib., Mt. Pleasant (Library Journal, November 1, 2004)

“…Black succeeds admirably in covering 7,000 years of history…” (Lloyds List International, 26 November 2004)

Many Americans don't understand what they're currently up against. Al Qaeda has often been depicted as the superpower of terrorist and jihadist networks, commanding the allegiance of jihadist groups throughout the world and influencing global terrorist operations through a steady flow of money and recruits. In fact, al Qaeda has become a relatively small operational component of a violent, global movement bent on waging holy war.
This jihadist movement, at the risk of oversimplification, can best be described as four concentric circles. The inner circle consists of the core of the al Qaeda organization, which now largely serves a symbolic, spiritual and ideological role in the greater jihadist movement. The second circle consists of active members and devotees of numerous jihadist groups that are often called "al Qaeda-related." The denizens of the second circle tend to be even more radical and dangerous than their inner-circle colleagues. The third circle consists of those who believe in the jihadist cause or identify with parts of its ideology; they may provide moral support, and some might offer a jihadist group logistical or financial help. The outer circle is the wider Islamic world. While the core of the jihadist movement consists of devoted terrorists, they depend on the less ideologically hardened "outer" circles of sympathizers, which the inner core targets for recruitment and fundraising efforts.
The jihadist threat is uniquely dangerous because it has become simultaneously more decentralized and more radical since Sept. 11. Never before have we faced a threat whose leaders enjoy so much financial and operational independence. Nor have we ever faced a threat whose "membership" can fluctuate daily and whose recruitment rate increases as the United States stages large-scale military and intelligence operations to eliminate them.
Americans also often don't quite grasp how dangerous the Iraq misadventure is. One key to the overall U.S. response to the jihadist threat is understanding how U.S. actions affecting one of these four concentric circles affects the others. Supporting a democratically illegitimate government in Iraq or conducting counterinsurgency operations there that kill significant numbers of civilians may eliminate many al Qaeda members -- but also generate sympathy for al Qaeda and jihadists throughout the Muslim world. That could draw members from the outer circles to the inner ones, giving terrorist operatives better logistical resources, fresh recruits and more money. The lines between the outer and inner circles are also the frontlines of the war of ideas, and the United States needs to pay close attention to how its actions affect the movement among them.
The hard reality is that the U.S. presence in Iraq makes it extraordinarily difficult for Washington to contribute successfully to the battle of ideas within the Islamic world. We are also clearly losing that same battle within Iraq. Popular support for the Iraqi insurgency is increasing not only inside Iraq, but also in the greater Arab world. As the United States fiercely fights insurgents in Iraq's Sunni triangle, it is missing the forest for the trees -- winning tactical victories in Iraq while rapidly losing the global war of ideas.
Noah Feldman, a law professor at New York University and a former senior constitutional adviser to the Coalitional Provisional Authority (CPA), provides a cogent analysis of U.S. efforts in Iraq in What We Owe Iraq. Feldman details the behind-the-scenes power politics of the U.S. occupation and delivers a persuasive appeal for a more grassroots approach to nation building -- that is, an approach seen by most Iraqis as legitimized by local input. He argues that nation-building can be an effective long-term strategy to fight terrorism if its purpose is to create stable democracies. Feldman surmises, correctly, that terrorism festers not only in weak states but also in strong but undemocratic ones such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Feldman's approach offers preventive medicine against insurgency and terrorism as well as a practical strategy for a longer-term global war of ideas. He recognizes that nation-building efforts stained by what is seen as illegitimate governance will be counterproductive. Every day that force is exercised "illegitimately" means many more days spent fighting to gain the ethical high ground. This is not a defeatist's calculus; it's an acknowledgment that successful nation-building requires the consent of the governed. Furthermore, it recommends a strategy that seeks to reduce anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Some may criticize this strategy, arguing that nation-building and the global war on terrorism are too important to be bounded by complaints from Muslim nations. The reality, however, is that the global jihadist movement feeds on the fruits of popular anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism and perceived oppression at the hand of illegitimate governments backed by Washington.
Unfortunately, the nation-building effort Feldman describes in Iraq has not made it a priority to win hearts and minds. He details the absence of any overall plan, coupled with the "shamefully, shockingly low" number of Americans in the CPA who spoke Arabic. He portrays a military whose operations in Fallujah alienated Sunnis who lost relatives in the fighting, had their homes invaded by American soldiers and were searched at daily checkpoints.
Feldman also describes the United States' biggest blunder in the nation-building effort: the failure to send enough troops to ensure public security after the invasion. He argues that the resultant chaos forced citizens to find safety within traditional religious groupings, which in turn provided the initial fodder for the current prolonged insurgency. Feldman's book is insightful, accessible and highly recommended for policymakers and readers interested in understanding the opportunities and hazards that will confront America as the world's foremost nation-builder.
Edwin Black's Banking on Baghdad underlines Iraq's long history of exploitation by Western powers and powerful corporations struggling for advantage and domination. His impressive analysis, which included looking at more than 50,000 original documents and hundreds of scholarly books and articles, provides a comprehensive history of Iraq that explains why the West's record in the region so complicates nation-building there today. Black writes that popular sentiment in Iraq in the post-World War II era is most aptly characterized by "resentment over foreign interference, anti-Zionism, and churning nationalism . . . fused into a rage against the West." Clearly, the West's imperial legacy in Iraq has placed the United States at a major disadvantage in the war of ideas in the Middle East. America's poor understanding of Iraq's history only makes matters worse. "Most Americans had never heard of Najaf," the great center of Shiite pilgrimage, Black points out, "and barely knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis." In one foreboding anecdote, he describes the British effort after World War I to bring Iraq under British colonial control, with limited sovereignty, using "40 handpicked representatives," all of whom were expected to support the British agenda. After Iraqi protests went unheard, the British soon had a protracted, nationwide insurgency on their hands.
Black recounts numerous incidents of exploitation in intricate detail; his analysis of how Iraq's oil has greased the treads of war throughout modern history is particularly noteworthy. He writes that Iraqi crude fueled the tanks, warships, submarines and airplanes that helped fight for ultimate control of Iraqi territory during World War II. Well into the Cold War, Iraq remained a strategic outpost, even as its people remained "largely destitute, significantly unemployed, and detached en masse from the nation's oil wealth." Black's book is thoughtful and meticulous, though many readers may find the breadth of analysis too ambitious and, at just fewer than 500 pages, a bit tedious at points. His analysis, nevertheless, highlights the deficit of legitimacy the United States faces in Iraq and the wider Middle East.
Since so few Arabs will seriously listen to arguments about democracy from the U.S. government, the war of ideas will have to be fought by nongovernmental organizations, governments other than the U.S. administration, and friendly leaders in the Islamic world. Washington could, however, play a role in st... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Dialog Press; Updated edition (January 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0914153129
• ISBN-13: 978-0914153122
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #733,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars 50 out of 7000, May 22, 2008

By 

Declan Trott - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflict (Paperback)

Banking on Baghdad claims to tell the story of Iraq for the last 7000 years.

It is very light on the first 6900 and the last 50. Over 99% of recorded history is reduced to meaningless cliche laced with pointless adjectives and adverbs - "the inherent prize of greater Mesopotamia essentially powered all the death and destruction that wracked the land" - and mind numbing repetition - "Mesopotamia never recovered from the Mongols. Never. Its civilisation had been robbed for the last time. This time it was permanent. After Hugalu, Mesopotamia descended into an age of desolation."

The book begins and ends with the US invasion of 2003 as experienced by a Lieutenant Colonel Hughes. Hughes is an orphan, in that he has no discernable relationship to anything or anyone else mentioned by the author.

The real focus is on the period from the late 19th century to the end of WW2, when the oil industry was getting off the ground and the Great Powers were jostling for position. And it is a great story - the British, French, and Germans all jockeying for position as the Ottoman Empire falls apart, and "Mr 5%" Calouste Gulbenkian getting a piece of the action no matter who ends up on top.

Especially interesting is the quick shift from Ottoman imperialism and the resented policy of "Turkification" of the Arab population, to British imperialism and a policy of "Indianization" (rule by the Indian Civil Service and plans to repopulate the region with Muslims from India). Thus many Iraqis rapidly switched from supporting the British in WW1 to the Germans in WW2.

Even in this period, though, Black makes some disturbing errors. Greece and Serbia were not Ottoman territories during the Balkan Wars, and Asquith was not British Prime Minister in 1918. These mistakes do not bolster confidence in Black's supposedly painstaking archival research. (Did you know that the Internet allowed people on opposite sides of the world to cooperate? Amazing, isn't it. And he tells you all about it. "MP George Lloyd", though, is a real person, not a reversal of the actual British PM in 1918.

If you are still interested, my advice is to borrow the book from your local library, and read the middle half.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Connected All the Dots, November 11, 2004

By 

Lauder - See all my reviews

This review is from: Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflict (Hardcover)

How is it possible that the full story about Iraq has never been presented as it finally has been in this extraordinary book. Clearly, Mr. Black has conducted exhaustive research within the oil company archives and governmental records, revealing the real reason we have been in Iraq for 90 years--and that is: oil. The Red Line Agreement printed on the inside front cover is reason enough to purchase this compelling book, which I admit, I could not put down. Banking on Baghdad connected all the dots for me, and the picture was not pretty.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Goose bumps to tragic horror; thoughtful, gripping, September 29, 2004

By 

David Arnold (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflict (Hardcover)

Iraq's present is a painful recapitulation of its past. Certainly it is history not forgotten but repeated none-the-less in sweeping rehearsals across 7,000 years. Edwin Black brings people to life with crisp reality, from our goose bump inspiring contemporaries struggling to keep the peace, like Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, to Genghis Khan, whose only interest was retaliation and retribution which he meted out with gruesome methodical dispatch. Iraq's history is that not only of those who began life there, but often of others who sometimes accidentally and sometimes deliberately became entangled there--sometimes as a cross roads and sometimes as a destination. Award winning author Edwin Black brings an exacting demand for verified and original source materials -- indisputable facts -- together with the richness, complexity and idiosyncrasies of the major players into a comprehensible and well founded look at what it is that we are doing in Iraq today, within a 7,000 year understanding. Both the scope and detail combined to make this a very special experience. What better way to prepare for thoughtful consideration of our nation's future relations and role in Iraq?