Desperado Under the Eaves: March 2013

As the tenth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq arrives, it seems like every newspaper, foreign policy journal, blog, and commentator is running their obligatory "looking back" feature. And, well, I'm nothing if not a follower (baaaaa), so onto the bandwagon we go!

The Iraq War was a formative conflict for the younger version of your dear author. I was only a sophomore in high school when the war began, and, looking back, I have to admit that I really didn't understand a thing that was going on. Like most of the media and most of the American public, I initially bought into the "weapons of mass destruction" rationale for the war. For some reason, however, younger me foolishly felt that this only further negated the case for war with Saddam Hussein. I still remember a comment I made to a high school acquaintance during the run-up to the March 2003 invasion. In what must have sounded like my best impression of a low-to-mid-level UN bureaucrat, I said something like, "This invasion business is so stupid. It will only make Saddam more likely to use his weapons! I am so wise in my high school wisdom. So wise." Dammit, younger me. Dammit.

While I might not have been the sharpest foreign policy analyst at age 15 (I'm still not, actually, but that's beside the point...), the Iraq War triggered my interest in the Middle East, in foreign affairs, and in US national security policy, and also influenced my decision to study government, foreign policy, and conflict management in college and graduate school. The war also influenced my reading habits for the better part of a decade, as I more and more frequently replaced the novels I typically read in elementary, middle, and early high school with non-fiction accounts of Middle Eastern history, politics, and religion. And so, in dubious honor of the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I present, without much further ado, my list of 10 books about the Iraq War that you should read:

1) The Fall of Baghdad (John Lee Anderson)

Jon Lee Anderson's The Fall of Baghdad was one of the first books about the Iraq War that I read, shortly after it was released in the summer or fall of 2005 - if my memory serves me correctly. For this reason alone, I think, it will always hold one of the top spots in any Iraq-related book list I might create. Anderson's story of an Iraq in turmoil and a Baghdad besieged by American airpower and military might, which begins during his time reporting from Iraq in the months preceding the March 2003 invasion, is riveting. It could also be quite tense, as Anderson's description of a progressing invasion and the increasing levels of danger for himself and the people (both Iraqis and foreign journalists) around him are clearly conveyed to the reader.

2) Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor)

Billed as the "definitive" account of the United States' invasion and early occupation of Iraq, Cobra II really delivers. This book tells the story of the Iraq invasion in rich detail; indeed, at the time of its release, the NY Times stated that the book was "likely become the benchmark by which other histories of the Iraq invasion are measured." It also has some very nice maps depicting initial troop movements into Iraq, military movements, etc. Although it doesn't cover the bulk of the war (I think that it really only discusses the first six to eight months, ending sometime in late 2003, if I remember correctly), the book is invaluable for its very apt descriptions of the mistakes and foolish decisions that would sow the seeds of the Iraqi insurgency.

3) Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (Anthony Shadid)

This fascinating book, written by Anthony Shadid - the Pulitzer-prize-winning NY Times foreign correspondent who tragically died of an asthma attack in Syria early last year - gets away from the American-oriented view of most of the other books on this list and tells the story of the Iraq War from the perspective of ordinary Iraqis. Caught in the cross-fire between the US military and the Iraqi Army, and then, even more dangerously, between the shadowy and indiscriminate insurgency and its foreign (and domestic) enemies, these were the people who suffered and whose lives were affect the most.

NOTE: it is also interesting to compare Shadid's opening, a description of the events surrounding Saddam Hussein's proclamation of a general amnesty in the aftermath of the October 2002 sham "elections," with Fall of Baghdad, which opens with Anderson's description of the same events.

4) My War: Killing Time in Iraq (Colby Buzzell)

There were a number of books I could have chosen from the American-soldier-in-Iraq perspective, including The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell (John Crawford) or The Long Walk (Brian Castner), all of which are good reads. But one of the first I read was Colby Buzzell's My War, which stayed with me for some time after I read it, and which I steadfastly refuse to get rid of during my periodic book-purges. Buzzell's descriptions of his time as a machine-gunner in Iraq, as well as his personal reflections on joining the military, getting married (at a drive-thru wedding chapel in Vegas, with Slayer's "Angel of Death" playing on the CD changer), and keeping an anonymous blog during his deployment, make for a fascinating story of the Iraq War through the eyes of an infantryman.

5) Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003-2005 (Thomas Ricks)

As the title of Ricks' book makes clear, Fiasco doesn't pull any punches. Similar to Cobra II (above) and The Assassin's Gate (below), Fiasco is a highly detailed account of the run-up to war, the invasion of Iraq, the growth of the insurgency, and the sectarian violence that gripped the country in 2004 and 2005. Among the most significant and interesting components to the book is Ricks' harsh criticism of Donald Rumsfeld's invasion plans and the paucity of the invasion force, factors that contributed to early security lapses (such as widespread looting) and, much more significantly, the later "negligent" occupation of the country.

6) The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (Fred Kaplan)

The Insurgents, the most recently-released book included on this list, is less about the Iraq War per se as it is about General Petraeus and his efforts to change the military's thinking about modern warfare - specifically, using the maelstrom of Iraq to shift American war-making to a counterinsurgency (COIN) model. Kaplan is able to tell this story in a detailed and interesting way through information gleaned from interviews with such significant figures as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, General Peter Chiarelli, General Raymond Odierno, and, of course, General Petraeus himself.

7) Voices from Iraq: A People's History, 2003-2009 (Mark Kukis)

Another book getting back to the perspective of Iraqis, Voices from Iraq offers over 70 Iraqis an opportunity to tell their own stories, in their own voices. Kukis devotes each chapter to the stories of several Iraqis, from a wide variety of backgrounds and ethnic groups, and writes their narratives in the first person perspective. In this way, the Iraqis Kukis interviewed serve as advocates for their countrymen and women, giving a highly personalized account of the trials they have faced, the violence they have endured, and the successes they have achieved since the American invasion. I find this book to be fascinating, and, in a way, even better than Night Draws Near, because it portrays the humanity of its speakers in a way that more novelesque non-fiction books simply cannot.

8) The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 (Thomas Ricks)/The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq from George W. Bush to Barack Obama (Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor)

OK, I cheated and packed two books into one heading. Well, someone was going to get on here twice, and it was either going to be Tom Ricks or the Gordon/Trainor team. The books are fairly similar in terms of subject matter, so I figured why not both? These volumes detail the later years of the Iraq War, specifically, the "Surge" strategy that would eventually succeed in weakening the insurgency and establishing at least a modicum of security in the fragile country.

And . . . Tom Ricks gets the picture ==>

9) The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq (George Packer)

George Packer's The Assassin's Gate is, at least in my mind, one of the original great Iraq War books. Published before some of the other big-name books detailing the early years of the Iraq War (e.g. Cobra II and Fiasco, see above), The Assassin's Gate detailed the rise of neo-conservatism (the ideological driver of the Iraq War), the run-up to war in Iraq, the swift success of the invasion, the early mistakes of America's politicians, and the beginning of an ever-more-dangerous insurgency in the "liberated" country.

10) The Surge: A Military History (Kimberly Kagan)

The Surge, which would be interesting to read in conjunction with The Insurgents (above), is another book that focuses on the period between 2006 and the end of 2007 - the heyday of the US military's (and Kagan's titular) "surge." Kagan focuses on the operational history of the surge, describing the use of surge troops to help pacify Baghdad and various Iraqi provinces, discussing the Sunni "Awakening" movement, and even detailing the responses to the surge by America's enemies (such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, Iranian-backed Shi'a groups, and others).

I'm a bit late posting this, but when I first watched this video last week, I was very disturbed. Now, however, new developments to this story have made me even more upset. First, the video:

In the video above, Mehmet Sahin, a PhD candidate at Universiteit Leiden's Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies, interviews several Dutch students of Turkish descent about their attitudes towards Jews and Judaism. The results are horrific. The viewer can get the sense of the video immediately, as the first student leads with the comment: "What Hitler did to the Jews . . . to be honest, I'm happy about it!" The other students agree, echoing the first student's opinion that the Jews killed in the Holocaust deserved to die. In response to Sahin's questions regarding the source of the students' anti-semitic views, they admit that they have mostly formed their opinions of Jews from talking to their friends. But not just their Muslim friends . . . as one student chillingly insists, "I have many Dutch friends who can't stand the Jews. The whole of our school doesn't like the Jews! Just come to our school and you'll see!" Indeed, to these Dutch schoolchildren the word "Jew" is a curse-word and insult, perhaps the equivalent of modern American middle- and high school students' "douchebag."

As if this video was not terrible enough, however, the consequences that releasing it appears to have had for Mr. Sahin are even worse. According to a story published in the Netherland's NRC Handelsblad daily evening newspaper on March 9, Mr. Sahin received death threats - reportedly from the local Islamic community - in the days after the clip above was shown on Dutch television. The NRC writes that Sahin and his family were forced to go into hiding for at least several days, and that the local community has started a petition to "get him away" from the neighborhood. (NOTE: I don't totally know what that means . . . whether it is in the sense of exiling Sahin and his family from the neighborhood, or something more simple like forbidding him to conduct his academic research there? I don't know whether Sahim lives in this neighborhood or not...). And all this because he had the audacity to report on the vile opinions that Dutch youth, and perhaps particularly Dutch Muslim youth, are forming about Jews.

As Dutch Parliamentarian Ahmed Marcouch is quoted as saying in the NRC article, "It is appalling that anyone should be afraid because he has done something which we all should do: teach children not to hate."

I am personally appalled at this story, and I hope that Mr. Sahin will be able to return from hiding soon and continue his research. Racism and anti-semitism cannot be addressed if it is pushed under the rug and allowed to fester, whether out of ignorance or fear of confrontation. With luck, the Dutch authorities will investigate this incident further and come up with some meaningful ways to combat anti-semitism and foster tolerance in Dutch society.