bout de papier, Vol. 22, No. 4 (2007) — Winter/Spring 2007 // Hiver/Printemps 2007, pp. 19–20
THE END OF IRAQ: HOW AMERICAN
INCOMPETENCE CREATED A WAR
WITHOUT END by Peter W. Galbraith,
New York, London, Toronto, Sydney:
Simon & Schuster, 272 pp., 2006, $36.00
Michael Gunter began his review of this book in The Middle East Journal by saying:
This is a devastating critique that illustrates the arrogant ignorance, sheer incompetence, hypocritical cronyism, and at times even outright corruption of the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy.”
Wow! Well said! Couldn’t have put it better myself!
If nothing else, it should be very clear from the outset that Peter Galbraith in no way supports the American policies that have led to the present situation in Iraq.
The End of Iraq is Galbraith’s entry into the serried ranks of the Iraq pundits. Writing an anti-Bush exposé has almost become a cottage industry — but the target audience surely must be the same in all cases. It is unlikely that those who support the Administration would bother to read any of the ever-increasing list. So if you are already a believer, do you need to have the litany rehearsed yet another time? In this case, probably yes. This is a highly personal account of how the situation in Iraq deteriorated to its present sorry state. Galbraith is a highly knowledgeable and very engaged observer. (The word “I” appears on almost every page.)
It appears that his first visit to Iraq was in 1984 as a professional staffer for the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. From that time forward, even – to some extent – during his time as American Ambassador to Croatia (1993-98), Galbraith maintained his connections to Iraq and especially to the people he had met over the years. In 1987 he was one of the first Westerners to see and report on the anfal, the devastation wrought upon the rural Kurds by the Baghdad regime. During this early period he met several of the Kurdish leaders, among them both Talabanis and Barzanis. It is clear that he was much taken by the Kurds, their decades-long struggle for independence against several different Middle Eastern regimes — all too often betrayed by others or victimized by the brutality of their opponents (the gassing of Halabja in 1988 is but the best known incident of the latter)
– and their willingness to grab and succeed with whatever opportunity presented itself. And the Kurds were, in turn, taken with Galbraith. They gave him privileged access to their leaders and themselves. It was to Galbraith, specifically not to President G.W. Bush, that they gave 14 tonnes of documents captured from Saddam’s secret police. As a result of his involvement, his contacts, his access and his obvious skills as a researcher and a writer, Galbraith is in an enviable position to write an account of the US involvement in Iraq. He begins with the Reagan Administration and its barely concealed support for Iraq vis-à-vis Iran until its ill-fated lean toward Tehran during the Iran-Contra affair. He describes the effect of President George H.W. Bush’s appeal (or misunderstood ad lib) to the Iraqi people to rise against Saddam. Whether a miscalculation or a mistake, allegedly as many as 300,000 people died in southern Iraq as a result, while an autonomous Kurdistan was created in the north. But Galbraith hits his stride after the events of September 11, 2001. Now his tale is worthy of the quote with which this review opened. The account is damning and the situation has become insoluble. If you have been following any of the international media since the 2003 invasion of Mesopotamia, the details and the allegations will be familiar. Indeed having read the book, most would confess that they hadn’t learned anything new nor have they read anything that they found to be surprising. But it is unnerving to contemplate the depth of the ignorance of the American officials sent in to transition Iraq to democracy, capitalism and all the benefits of the American way of life, and the uncaring manner in which they took responsibility for the maintenance and management of the governance of the country. Certainly as a result, the on-going violence — a civil war by another name
– can only be expected and the Americans can anticipate little other than blame because of the policies of their political leaders. If you must read one book on the situation in Iraq, and only one, then I recommend that you choose this one. Equally, if you want to give a gift to someone who is undecided as to the merits of the most public face of the Global War on Terror, Galbraith’s work is an obvious choice. It is not the definitive analysis of the situation. That one won’t be written for several decades — the crisis has to play itself out and passions will have to subside – but The End of Iraq may very well be the best for some time to come.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 22, No. 4 (2007) — Winter/Spring 2007 // Hiver/Printemps 2007, pp. 19–20. Read the rest of this issue →
