Customer Reviews

Unintended Consequences: How War in Iraq Strengthened America's Enemies

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Peter Galbraith, a State Department professional and insider (who just coincidentally happens to also be the son of the famous Harvard economist), claims in this critique of the Iraq war that "Bush's folly," is the classic case of what can go wrong when a nation embarks on an ill-conceived "one-part plan" whose execution requires "several other missing parts."

The book makes clear that it is one thing to sketch out on the war room drawing board an idealized scenario of a war that theoretically has winnable objectives, and quite another to proceed to the battlefield before "filling in" the minimum required implementing details. Usually even if the stated reasons for going to war, appear to be sound on the surface, as was the case in Iraq II -- that is to say, to strengthen democracy in a troubled region, to rid Iraq of WMD, to change the regime of a brutal dictator, to serve as a warning and to undermine emerging nuclear states and undemocratic despots in the region, to support our only democratic ally in the region, to wrest control of the oil pipelines from anti-U.S. and anti-Western forces, and to enhance U.S. military presence and influence in the region -- having only idealized goals without clearly thinking through the implementing details is what might best be described as "how to fight a dumb war, dumbly."

Galbraith's main point here in this cleanly written "no-holds barred" critique is that "fighting a dumb war" only can have the worse of unintended consequences, and did exactly that in Iraq II. He gives a laundry list of the unintended consequences of the Bush Folly into Iraq.

The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld War fought dumbly resulted in the following unintended consequences:

--It handed Iran its greatest strategic triumph in four centuries by facilitating the construction of a Persian run Shiite Super-state in a country that for the past four centuries had been dominated by the Ottoman installed Sunni Muslims. U.S. troops now fight to support an Iraqi government led by religious parties intent on creating an Iranian-style Islamic Republic.

--As part of the surge, the United States created a Sunni militia led by the same Baathists the U.S. invaded Iraq to overthrow. Their return would cancel out the only collateral objective accomplished, regime change and the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

--It caused Iraq to be divided, de facto, into three informal partitions: with the Iran backed Shiite majority controlling most of the country, but also with the much feared Baathist Sunnis controlling the Center of the oil wealth, and the Kurds maintaining a semi-autonomous region in the North (just as Democratic Senator from Delaware Biden had predicted would happen);

-- It greatly weaken the U.S. military, draining the U.S. of valuable resources needed at home, including its treasure of men and women, which so far as resulted in the deaths of 4, 000 plus U.S. soldiers and 30,000 plus injured, as well as nearly a million Iraqi soldiers and civilians killed and injured. The U.S. voluntary army is stretched so thin that the U.S. cannot meet its normally stated military commitments, and our enemies are well aware of this weakness.

--It resulted in the discovery (and to great embarrassment to the USG) that the UN inspectors had been right all along: there were no WMD;

--It enhanced al Qaeda's recruitment and helped spread terrorism from Iraq to Afghanistan, as well as to many other regions of the world.

--It has not resulted in a democratic Iraq, or a more stable Middle East, but rather a corrupt and dependent run Iraq, one ripe for either a return Baathist take over, or for sustain and long-term Iranian control, neither of which is in U.S. long-term interest.

--It enabled the spread of WMD to rogue states via Pakistan, and the DPRK, to Iran, Libya, and Syria. The Bush administration gave Iran and North Korea a free pass to advance their nuclear programs, and both did so.

--It changed Turkey, a key NATO ally, long considered a model pro-Western Muslim democracy, into one of the most anti-American countries in the world.

--It undermined, rather than enhanced U.S. influence and prestige around the world, to the point that today it has reached an all-time low.


Clear, concise, to the point, without rancor or ideological undercurrents: Easily five stars

The war to eliminate the threat of Iraq's nonexistent WMD ended up with Iran and North Korea much closer to deployable nuclear weapons, given Iran a role in Iraq it has not had in four centuries, helped the terrorists, made Turkey among the most anti-American countries in the world (from 60% favorable opinion in 2000 to 7% in 2007), and cost the GOP control of both houses of Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008.

Further, the surge was fortuitously timed - Al Qaeda had overplayed its hand by assassinating local Sunni chieftains and forcing marriages between their daughters and Al Qaeda fighters. The chieftains went to General Petreaus for help and received funding for their militia and subsidies for their leaders. This also limited Al Qaeda's ability to foment sectarian violence. The Mahdi army stood down during the surge (the U.S. would be leaving soon anyway); there is every reason to suppose that once the U.S. forces leave the Shiites will resume their terror campaign to drive all Sunnis from Baghdad, as well as their internal civil war. Meanwhile, the Kurds' status vs. Iraq has not been settled (they do have their own army and police), the Baathists have not been reintegrated, and the Iraqi army is still segregated by sect and strongly biased against adding Sunnis. Bush's "solution" is to push the problem into 2009 and blame the next president.

The Iraq War is already lost. Actually, it was lost at the beginning - after six weeks of unchecked looting left facilities unable to support resumption of services, and installing an incompetent U.S. government (Bremer et al) instead of Iraqis. During this time period Bush totally abdicated his responsibility as "the Decider."

The U.S. is now hamstrung vs. Iran because we need its cooperation in Iraq, and our international credibility was blown in the Iraq pre-war hysteria. Making matters worse, the U.S. is supporting the shah's son and an Iranian terrorist group in its efforts to achieve regime change. Iran, together with Iraq, could also wreak havoc on the world's oil economy.

Public diplomacy (Voice of America, international tours and exchanges) is a waste - the world understands too well our actions vs. Iraq and Israel. The less said about our freedom agenda the better - Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the 2000 elections, etc. speak louder.

Galbraith also points out that the U.S. dismissed Iran's 2003 willingness to give up nuclear enrichment and help in Iraq - if we assisted it in efforts against its internal MEK terrorist problem.

Galbraith's words have added credibility from his involvement in the area.

I hope that the newly elected President has read and will re-read this book that ought to have been a primer for the last President. It teaches us not only about the war in Iraq and its bad pursuit. More importantly, it can teach us how to think about foreign policy and how to avoid mistakes like the hideous ones we made. Perhaps, it can even help to guide the path to more intelligent and useful planning and action. The author shares a great deal. It is up to us to profit from it.

In its ignorance, incompetence, deceit, and fervent ideology, Peter Galbraith is the sort of career foreign diplomat that the Bush administration willfully ignored when it invaded Iraq. Since graduating from Harvard, Oxford, and Georgetown, Galbraith has spent three decades in government service, most notably as America's first ambassador to Croatia and a United Nations diplomat in East Timor. He's been an adjunct professor and lecturer at the National War College (1999 and 2001-2003). His earlier book The End of Iraq (2007) received wide-spread acclaim for its analysis based upon Galbraith's decades of experience in Iraq.

Despite what the Bush administration told the public about its rationale for a war of choice, we now know that Iraq did not possess WMDs, Saddam Hussein was not involved in the 9/11 attacks, and Iraq was not a base for al-Qaeda (although it became one after the war started). The later justification of producing a democratic Iraq has failed miserably. In fact, on almost every count, Bush's war produced the opposite results of those he intended.

Whereas Iraq did not have WMDs, North Korea, Iran and Pakistan have grown as genuine nuclear threats. The "war of terror" has emboldened terrorists and swelled the ranks of their recruits. The agenda of a free democracy "now has US troops fighting for pro-Iranian Shiite theocrats [the government] and alongside unreformed Baathists [the Sunni Awakening]." The attempt to marginalize Iran has made its influence in Iraq stronger than it has been in four hundred years. Syria is now more bold, not more threatened, and Israel is less rather than more secure. Turkey has been transformed from one of America's biggest supporters to a nation of virulent anti-Americanism. The "shock and awe" of American superiority has revealed gross failures of intelligence, planning, and politics. American prestige has been squandered, five million Iraqis have been displaced and at least 100,000 killed, the Republican party decimated, and our own country floundering. When he left office in January 2009, Bush did not concede that he had made any mistakes.

In Galbraith's analysis, the central problem in Iraq rests in the deep divisions between and among Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and even those who remember a good life as secular Iraqis. These groups, says Galbraith, have "irreconcilable differences" and are merely "biding their time" until the next civil war. The army and police are highly sectarian. There are few mixed neighborhoods anymore. Kurds will never agree to be integrated in a centralized and unified Iraq (nor should they, in Galbraith's view). In short, as he argued in his first book, reality dictates that there never will or can be a unified Iraq.

President Obama intends to remove most American troops by 2010, but in his book The Gamble (2009), Thomas Ricks quotes sources that envision American troops in Iraq until 2015, in which case we are only at the halfway point of America's greatest foreign policy blunder ever. Even more ominous, says Ricks, "the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably have not yet happened." And that is the cause for which George Bush squandered American lives, money, and global prestige.

Author Peter Galbraith has given us a front row seat to all of the things that have gone wrong in Iraq. While the book goes back to the 1980's with regard to the actions of the United States and their allies the Unintended Consequences is really about our actions in Iraq and to a smaller extent Croatia and Bosnia. Reading this book was an eye opener. Galbraith breaks down the consequences of our actions in Iraq. Galbraith breaks down the issues for the outside observer in a detailed but succinct manor.

Iraq in its current state can't really be one nation because the Kurds, Shiites and Sunni's have deep political, religious and territorial differences. Something that we failed to recognize when we abandoned the search for WMD and decided the mission was about spreading democracy. The issues are deep and complex.

Galbraith talks about how the actions of the Bush administration in Iraq have alienated Turkey, how our efforts to help the Iraqi's install a government have enabled Iran to gain power and allies in Iraq.

This book was written in 2008 when George Bush was still President. Galbraith talks about what the next President will encounter To his credit Galbraith presents many ideas how to deal with Iraq, how to get the parties together to come to agreements that include turning over some areas of Iraq. Galbraith talks about the issues, what's wrong with the current plan. The real issue is that there wasn't a plan for democratizing Iraq.

Very well written, I recommend this book for anyone but especially those like me who have relied on media accounts in 2 minute sound bites to try to understand what's going on in Iraq. Galbraith's intent here is to educate the reader and he does an excellent job of that. Galbraith has spent a lot of his life in foreign diplomat roles in the middle east but he describes him self a scalar, journalist and a practitioner of ideas for settling the middle east.

There are lot of Unintended consequences with heavy price tags in terms of human loss and integrity. Thanks to Galbraith I now have a much better understanding of them

To all of you armchair moralists who read and reviewed Peter Gailbraith's book "Unintended Consequences", please do yourself a favor and read the chapter "Mesopotamia from Both Sides" in Christopher Hitchen's wonderful new memoir "Hitch-22". Peter Galbraith plays a starring role in it. And lest you think I'm some anglo-phile Christopher Hitchens groupie, in another chapter of the book he likens my political hero Ronald Reagan to a "lizard".

What this book does really well is to outline the consequences for the U.S. and the Middle East for the failed policies of the W. Bush presidency. This book details these consequences in a very succinct and cogent fashion that is easily accessible and understandable for any reader. The author's case is very compelling. Anyone interested in learning how the U.S. went so far off course and understanding the situation we now face after eight years of the Bush administration will do well by giving this book a read.

With that said I have some problems with the work as well. The book has the feel of being a rushed effort designed to help educate the public leading up to the last presidential election. I feel like the book wasn't really written for those already well informed on the Middle East to begin with, but was instead written for independents that may not have followed recent events as closely as some others. The author created a very concise work that should be accessible to just those very readers, but for those others who may be looking for more depth from such an expert source as this author, well they maybe somewhat disappointed. While I still found the book quite valuable, some of the information was quite obvious for anyone following events for the past several years. This means that this work's value is going to be diminished for a lot of readers.

The rushed feel of the book also extended into the style and apparent lack of editing. I came across many errors throughout the book that was nothing but a lack of close editing. I don't judge the book too harshly for these but they do have the affect of making the reading somewhat cluncky in spots as the flow is disturbed. The errors were not so common that I would condem the entire work, but there are too many to ignore either.

The book has worth for any reader. If you may not be as up to date on your Middle Eastern affairs but would like a quick, easy starter then this is the perfect book for you. If you are a professional or an amatuer you will find some valuable information in this book, but you will just have to work through some sections that are pretty obvious to get that value. The book is short enough though that it isn't a chore by any means to read, so you might find it a worthy contribution to your general collection. With all that said the book isn't great, but it is good.

Peter Galbraith is among the most experienced and highly regarded of U.S. diplomats, with extensive experience under multiple Presidents and years spent studying and working in the Middle East. He is in a strong position to evaluate the effects of policies pursued by former President Bush in Iraq. His critique of those policies ought to be widely read, as the policies pursued by the Bush administration directly relate to the U.S. national debt, the destruction of America's standing in the world, the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism, and the abject failure to achieve any of the stated goals.

His book begins with an introduction to the announced intents of the invasion of Iraq and the realities that ensured during the subsequent occupation. The book chronicles the profound ineptitude of Bush administration staff and their policies, and leads us through the sequence of events that lead from broad public support to deep public opposition to the war in Iraq, and to the profound changes that resulted from the '06 and '08 elections (but stops before the election of Barack Obama).

Highly recommended and essential reading for anyone who wishes to better understand the differences between on the ground fact and Bush administration fiction in Iraq.

This is a passionately written book about the missteps of the Iraq war. It reads a bit like a history book in that you feel like you should have a highlighter or notepad ready. While I enjoyed it, it's certainly not light reading and felt a bit too pedantic at times. Another book that is in a similar vein but not as densely packed is Imperial Life in the Emerald City or War Journal by Richard Engel.