Customer Reviews

The War Over Iraq: Saddam's Tyranny and America's Mission

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

As the founder of the influential conservative think-tank American Patriots who Never Fought In War But Advocate Violent Imperialism In the New American Century (APNFWAVINAC), Kristol successfully promoted the idea that a group of draft-dodging muddle-headed bureaucrats should be the main decision makers when it comes to America going to war. APNFWAVINAC made it a primary goal of the U.S. to liberate the good people of the Arab and Muslim countries that Kristol loves so much from their tyrannical leaders, just so long as none of their own children had to fight. APNFWAVINAC published the historic open letter to George W. Bush titled Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iraq, advocating the violent overthrow of the Iraqi leader in order to free the good people of Iraq. John McCain used the letter as the source of a hilarious and much beloved joke during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Among the high level members of APNFWAVINAC who were signatories to the famous letter were other great intellectuals and patriots such as Paul "never served in the military but I have a girlfriend at age 62" Wolfowitz, Douglas "f***ing stupidest guy on earth" Feith, John "kiss-up, kick-down" Bolton, Dick "no bid contract for my war profiteering Haliburton pals and we're in the last throws of the insurgency" Cheney, as well as many other brilliant and highly accomplished warriors and scholars of world history and military strategy. These APNFWAVINAC members were so deeply troubled by reports of Iraqis being terrorized by Saddam that they felt they had to intervene with their carefully researched and passionately presented plea to Bush to bomb Iraq. Kristol even volunteered to join the Army in order to defend the Iraqi people that he loved so dearly and to support the military that he has revered all of his life. Even though the Army had dropped many of the enlistment requirements to attract recruits, Kristol still failed the physical because of his disproportionately large mid-region.

Kristol fought bravely for his country in Viet Nam and in the Persian Gulf (I'm guessing). And if he had children, they would have been the first to volunteer to fight and die in Iraq. He sacrificed his life and lost a large part of his brain on the battlefield in Hanoi (I'm guessing on that one too). His extended tours in both wars testify to his deep sense of patriotism and duty to his country. So when he repeatedly calls for the U.S. to go to war with Iraq, Iran, Korea, France, Germany, New Zealand, and against the radical leftists in Boston and Seattle, he is speaking as a man who has seen first-hand the horrors of war and does not make such recommendations lightly.

Although he has been wrong in every single prediction and observation he has ever publicly made, we must remember that he is a genial commentator on the FOX channel with a charming sense of humor and he is a brave veteran who served his country with great honor and continues to maintain the attractive APNFWAVINAC website calling for war with all non-American countries so we should heed his valuable, if completely wrong advice.

Kaplan and Kristol add an interesting perspective to the debate over the war in Iraq. Their argument is that this war is definitely not about oil, and not just or even mainly about weapons of mass destruction. It is about liberating Iraq and making the world both more democratic and a safer place for democracy. It's a breezy, argumentative book, not really so much an attempt to convince opponents of the war as an attempt to stake a theoretical claim that something they call a distinctly American internationalism is what informs the Bush Administration's action against Iraq. Naturally, Clinton's Administration is targetted for particular contempt, but interestingly enough Bush I and even Reagan are also criticised as narrow realists.

What's missing from this analysis is any sense of history and of how the US is perceived outside its borders--and even outside the Beltway. Not everyone is going to be able to accept the notion that the US should simply be trusted to do the right thing. The book's authors clearly have either no idea or--scarier still--no interest in how a book like this will be read by people who have either watched or experienced first-hand a less-than-idealistic USA in action.

At the precise time of writing (Baghdad seems to have fallen today) and for the next few months, the Kristol/Kaplan theory will be riding high. But whatever this book claims, what they charitably consider to be activist idealism is not going to turn into doctrine. It won't because the US is always going to feel the need for the moral flexibility that realism offers. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is a catchy slogan, but will it be followed by, say, "Operation Uzbeki Freedom", aimed at liberating Uzbeks from a brutal and corrupt dictatorship in Tashkent that happens to be allied with Washington against radical Islam? Of course not. Nor is it going to be followed by "Operation Pakistani Freedom" or "Operation Zimbabwean Freedom".

My own conclusion is that Kaplan and Kristol either do not really believe what they are arguing, or they are dangerously naive utopians, not unlike the dogmatists who steered the Kremlin into wild Third World adventures in the 1960s and 1970s. I suspect it's the former, and this book is mainly about raising the authors' own profiles for the next few months. Otherwise, someone as ideologically pure as Kristol claims to be would have resigned several times over in protest during the Reagan Administration (e.g. over Iran-Contra) and refused to serve under a realist such as George H W Bush.

It's fascinating to watch just how far Kristol and Kaplan will go to make the evidence fit their theory. They ask us to believe, for example, that attacking Iraq today is akin to Kennedy's decision to quarantine Cuba. The fact that Kennedy was faced with a nuclear threat that could have unfolded in a matter of weeks, not years or decades as in the case of Iraq, seems lost on Kaplan and Kristol, who instead conclude that war on Iraq is further justified because Kennedy did consider a military option for a while. Amazing stuff.

This book will naturally appeal to ignorant ideologues who seek confirmation of their reflexive militaristic instincts, but it is actually quite worthwhile for others to read too. Just keep asking yourself questions while you read it.

Some folks just refuse to let real facts get in the way of their good story...how pedestrian that those who disagree with conservatives would call this book racist...apparently they lack original thought. Misters Kristol & Kaplan lay out a complete, fact laden picture of the Real Saddam. This isn't just current events, they cover Saddam and his interactions with the U.S. from his rise to power. The authors are rightly critical of Bush 1's errors in the first Gulf War and lay out a strong case of the clear and present danger this butcher-ous tyrant presents to people here in the U.S., the middle east, and his own country.

Misters Kristol and Kaplan deliver a thorough, well researched, case against Saddam. Not just a one-sided political diatribe, they carefully examine the historical record and what lead us to the situation we are dealing with today. They cast a critical eye to errors made during the Bush 1 administration. Not cut from some whole-cloth they back up what they say with end notes and research.

I picked up this book because as the title states I wanted to learn how people in government or at least associated with some people in the government (Wolfowitz is a close friend of Kristol) justify this preemptive war.
Whether you agree with the war or not, this book is probably as close as you can get to have an extensive conversation with Wolfowitz about his reasoning for pushing the removal of Saddam through military means. If you think that oil is the reason for the Iraq war and every action by this government is regulated through the Halliburton front office, every page in this book will get your blood boiling. Just as in the official hearings or speeches by government officials, oil is not given as a reason for the war.
But if you are against the war and look for weaknesses in the political justification for the war, this book is a reference manual for building your arguments. It details the historical roots of the current government's foreign policy and cites the best examples (in their opinion) why Saddam has to be removed now and not 5 years later.
If you support the war, this book may give you additional arguments to support your case or will simply reinforce your opinion.
Written by Kristol, who has previously taught political science, and Kaplan, who is senior editor of The New Republic, this book is overall well referenced (contrast that to Ann Coulter's books) and an easy read for people interested in political sciences.

This is an absolute must read, regardless of your postion on the war. Kristol and Kaplan clearly layout the case against Sadaam. They then point out the foreign policy flaws of not just Bush 41 and Clinton but also of pre-9/11 Bush 43. You will more fully understand the philosophy that layed the framework of foreign policy for each president. You will also clearly grasph how President Bush's view of the world has changed since 9/11.

Finally, you will be presented with the arguments and facts that form the backbone of our current stance towards Iraq. Even if you do not come to the same conclusion as that of the authors, you will better understand why our country is embarking on a path to the liberation of Iraq.

My only complaint is that there are only 125 pages of riveting reading!

This book was written prior to the invasion and was along the lines of making the case for US intervention in Iraq. It definitely has a conservative bent and from that angle is reflective of the administrative running the execution of the war.

The books perspective deals primarily with the geopolitical reasons surrounding the war and not the specific interdepartmental issues that surround the massive machinery that is the United States Government. It focused primarily on principal and not application of those principals as well. I feel this is the strong point of the book and in hind sight can see how these authors were very spot on in many of their observations.

While I felt the book was well researched and quoted, the documentation relating to the references was geared toward a casual political reader and to dive a bit deeper into the research on exact quotes was a bit harder to do than other comparable works. I enjoy the stylistic writing of both of these tremendously talented writers and while not as documented as I would have enjoyed, their prose contained something quotable almost every other page. These little quips of knowledge were smooth flowing and provided enlightenment and understanding on an issue that has captivated the minds of our greatest men and women now for a couple of years.

The most significant aspect of this book outlines the policies of the Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II presidencies and how they are all a bit different. This political perspective was again a great strategic perspective in diplomatic style and allows the reader to then understand America's stance toward the Iraqi régime in a better light. The styles outlined for Bush I were a narrow realism. The Clinton years were wishful liberalism and Bush II had Distinctly American Internationalism.

The book also addressed some interesting political perspectives of preemption and régime change. These are key changes in our modern world with different sets of consequences that the writers adequately address.

This is a great book to focus not on the departmental interchanges but how the focus of the administration in office dealt with politics of Iraq specifically and what challenges were presented as a result of these stances. This is a good read even for liberal minded folks because it offers many of the pros and cons for each of these points of view.

I would strongly recommend this book for anyone who wants to take a look at what people were saying just before the war and how to have a proper historical perspective to see who was right! Kaplan and Kristol were spot on in many ways! Great Book!

Bear in mind that this book was written after Dubya Bush had been President for two years. So Kaplan and Kristol begin with a defense of Bush's use of the term "evil" as in "axis of evil." President Reagan used the term "evil empire" in reference to the Soviet Union and for K and K this term was key in the downfall of the Soviet Union, so is "evil" a key term in identifying regimes which have records of aggression, arsenals of WMD's, and support organizations of terrorism which threaten the United States.

For K and K, the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq fits this definition to the T. Hussein routinely violated the 1948 Gencide Convention forbidding the use of chemical weapons. In fact Hussein used WMD's against his own people. Hussein is a "predator of the 21st century" who flaunts his destructive powers. "Iraq's efforts to acquires WMD's long predate the Gulf War..." (page 27).

In the 1990's the US did nothing to confront a tyrant bent on conquest. The senior President Bush halted the Persian Gulf War prematurely. The Clinton adminstration simply failed to confront the moral and strategic challange of Hussein. K and K call these modes of thinking "narrow realism" and "wishful liberalism." K and K claim that the US policy toward Iraq was simply one of ambivalenceabout the use of force as an instrument of policy (page 51). It was the fate and duty of Dubya (a nickname he has accepted for years) Bush to watch Hussein's arsenal grow ever more threatening and to deal with it.


This book is so full of deception that I don't know where to begin calling its authors a couple of liars. Let's try here: Kristol is identified in the blurb on the dust jacket as a political analyst for the Fox News Network. It is more important that Kristol is chairman for a political think tank founded in 1997 called the Project for a New American Century. Other members of this think tank include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, John Bolton, the current ambassador to Iraq, and *Jeb Bush*.

Web searches will show that PNAC maintains a militaristic view of US policy toward the world. Web searches will also show that Hussein received some of his WMD's from the US in the 1990's, that he reduced them in the latter 1990's (which K and K don't mention), and that the CIA told the Dubya admin that Iraq had no WMD's six months before the attack on Iraq, etc.

PNAC has the idea that the US can set its own destiny in the 21st century by being militarily aggressive and by maintaining a moral high road. So far PNAC has gotten the rest of us Americans lots of grief over lost loved ones and an incursion into Iraq with no end in sight... and a huge national debt.

I wonder if the authors of this book have since gone back and read it to see how close they came to predicting the reasons for and the outcome of the Iraqi war, or at least its progress up to today? I admit that one of the reasons I picked up this book was to get a clear view of the pro war crowd thinking and to judge their views with the advantage of hindsight . I also wanted to read this book because the two authors are both know to excellent writers and not too shabby on the intellectual front. Yes they are both poster children for very far right conservative thinking, but how else are you to truly understand an issue unless to read all sides of the debate? Lastly I had heard that if you wanted to get a solid brief explanation of the way the Bush Team thought about the Iraqi war then this was the book to read.

Given that the authors are rather conservation, it was humorous to me, if not totally expected, that they were able to work in so many digs at all the favorite whipping boys of the right wing in relation to foreign affairs. Judging by the rhetoric of the book, France will be the next country invaded followed by the UN, the offices of the Democratic party and ending at the office of Bill Clinton. I wondered if the attacks on this diverse group were truly heart felt or were they just the standard playbook that the authors fell back on out of habit. What struck me was that about 50% of the authors argument for taking action in Iraq was that it was vital to the U.S. national interests and that the U.S. should do everything it can along these lines, but that the authors felt that France, using the same justification, was somehow beyond the pale and close to a tyrannical world bully. It was also surprising to me that they complimented the Truman and Wilson administrations so often and tried to tie in what the Bush 2 administration wanted to do in Iraq with what these two leaders did during the World Wars. I could not tell if they truly felt this way or if they were trying to add some legitimacy to the Bush argument.

The last section of the book spent a good amount of time beating up on many ex officials of the Bush 1 administration that came out against the war. The area that, what in hindsight is very ironic, the authors gave these ex officials the most grief on was their predictions of the aftermath of the war. It turns out that, at the current time, exactly the difficulties that were predicted have come to pass and the rosy predictions of a smooth transition from Saddam to democracy 101 is not taking place. Overall the book was well written and the views for the pro war constituents are laid out in a logical order. It turns out that the facts, as they have come out, make about 75% of this book incorrect although I do not think that makes this book any less valuable because it truly is the overview of the war sales campaign. If I had one complaint of the book was that it was maybe just a little too high level, Kenneth Pollacks book The Threatening Storm provides far more detail and is a little less rabid in its overt partisan view of the world. Given the book is short and can be had rather inexpensively, it is a nice addition to your Bush 2 collection.

This is a very biased book full of neoconservative ideology and very few facts....