The Iraq War: was there even a decision? "Perhaps most revealing ... is what is missing--any indication whatsoever from the declassified record to date that top Bush administration officials seriously considered an alternative to war. In contrast there is an extensive record of efforts to energize military planning, revise existing contingency plans, and create a new, streamlined war plan." The
National Security Archive at George Washington University has released a set of documents from the US and British archives related to the Iraq war:
Part I,
Part II,
Part III.
Political scientist
Russell Burgos (who served in Iraq):
... there is indeed a kind of inevitability about the confrontation, but it was an inevitability created by domestic politics rather than 9/11. In my estimation, the origins of the "path to war" are found in the Republican Revolution of 1994; I will suggest that from 1996 to 2000, Iraq policy was not about Iraq - it was about an increasingly strident partisan attack on President Bill Clinton in which "Iraq" was not a subject of deliberate policy but was a synecdoche for "Clinton's failure."
Historian
Robert Jervis also comments. Via
H-DIPLO.
posted by russilwvong
on Oct 19, 2010 -
42 comments
As Close as Any Brother - Ali Hameed, an Iraqi NYT employee, writes about PCs in daily life in Iraq.
Once a mortar fell near to our house. Everyone stopped what they were doing, I mean if it was eating, watching TV, sleeping — except Rana. She kept on typing and typing. I yelled at her: "Rana leave the PC and come here, you are sitting near the glass!" She told me, "Just a minute, I want to talk to my friend, she is online and it has been a long time since I connected with her." From NYT's
Baghdad Bureau blog.
posted by russilwvong
on May 29, 2008 -
4 comments
Elizabeth Drew analyzes the current confrontation between the White House and Congress over continued funding for the Iraq war. Under Nancy Pelosi's leadership, Congress has
reached an agreement to pass a bill which approves $124 billion in funding for the war, but sets a timetable for withdrawal.
Following the passage of the Senate bill in March, Bush gave a more-than-normally petulant speech against the Democratic proposals—prompting Pelosi, like a mother scolding a teenager, to urge Bush to "calm down with the threats" and to "take a deep breath." This was the first public suggestion by a prominent elected figure that the President lacks maturity—a widely held view in Washington.
posted by russilwvong
on Apr 24, 2007 -
54 comments
Getting out of Iraq: the
Iraq Study Group report recommended talking to Iran and Syria, and making continued US military and economic support conditional on progress by the Iraqi government. "U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure—as is any course of action in Iraq—if it is not supported by a broad, sustained consensus. The aim of our report is to move our country toward such a consensus." Reaction from Democrats has been
generally positive; reaction from Republicans has been
divided between moderates and hawks (the New York Post called Baker and Hamilton
"surrender monkeys"). Bush
quickly rejected talks with Iran and Syria. The White House has been
arguing about how to
proceed.
Previously.
posted by russilwvong
on Dec 15, 2006 -
50 comments
The debate over exit strategies for Iraq.
Stephen Biddle.
The biggest problem with treating Iraq like Vietnam is Iraqization -- the main
component of the current U.S. military strategy. In a people's war, handing the
fighting off to local forces makes sense because it undermines the nationalist
component of insurgent resistance, improves the quality of local intelligence,
and boosts troop strength. But in a communal civil war, it throws gasoline on
the fire. Iraq's Sunnis perceive the "national" army and police force as a
Shiite-Kurdish militia on steroids. Biddle also emphasizes the need for
a
compromise based on a constitutional deal with ironclad power-sharing arrangements protecting all parties.
Roundtable
responses from Larry Diamond, James Dobbins, Chaim Kaufmann, and Leslie Gelb.
Anthony Cordesman, who
anticipated the current situation (PDF),
emphasizes the need for ongoing US involvement in the region.
Daniel Benjamin
is pessimistic, describing the US as being in a no-win situation whether
it stays or leaves. A list of proposed
exit strategies
collected by the Project for Defense Alternatives.
The Onion.
posted by russilwvong
on Jun 21, 2006 -
93 comments
IraqFilter:
Who is the US fighting in Iraq? A February 2006 report from the
International Crisis Group which provides a detailed look at the evolution of the insurgency, and describes its four main groups: Tandhim al-Qa’ida fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (recently
decapitated), Jaysh Ansar al-Sunna, al-Jaysh al-Islami fil-’Iraq, and al-Jabha al-Islamiya lil-Muqawama al-’Iraqiya.
In Iraq, the U.S. fights an enemy it hardly knows. Its descriptions have relied on gross approximations and crude categories (Saddamists, Islamo-fascists and the like) that bear only passing resemblance to reality. This report, based on close analysis of the insurgents’ own discourse [particularly their websites]
, reveals relatively few groups, less divided between nationalists and foreign jihadis than assumed, whose strategy and tactics have evolved (in response to U.S. actions and to maximise acceptance by Sunni Arabs), and whose confidence in defeating the occupation is rising.
posted by russilwvong
on Jun 16, 2006 -
49 comments
Last Chance for Iraq -
Peter W. Galbraith, writing in the New York Review of Books, on the
new Iraqi constitution. He compares it to a peace treaty between three warring parties.
Previous threads: Bush's Islamic Republic. The Bungled Transition. How to Get Out of Iraq.
Underneath an Islamic veneer, Iraq's new constitution ratifies the division of Iraq into three disparate entities: Kurdistan in the north, an Iranian-influenced Islamic state in the south, and, in the center, a Sunni region that has no clear political identity, but that with luck and concerted diplomacy could be governed by a new generation of Sunni Arab leaders. The constitution provides a basis for resolving Iraq's most contentious issues: oil, territory, and the competition to be the dominant power in Baghdad. If these issues are not addressed, they could set off a widespread civil war. ... The constitution has many flaws, but it provides a peace plan that might work, and it is therefore the most positive political development in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein from power.
posted by russilwvong
on Sep 14, 2005 -
16 comments
