The Conflict In Iraq is an anthology with chapters by various authors connected to the Center for Defense Studies at King’s College London. Like any collection some of the chapters are quite good and others are not. The fact that the book was put together very early in the U.S. occupation of Iraq also makes some of the readings outdated. Still there are some important insights provided such as comparisons between the British and Americans times in Iraq, the war planning, and United Nations weapons inspections.
One of the first chapters draws parallels between the British mandate after World War I and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Laura Sandys draws four issues that both countries had to deal with. One was the treatment of the Shiite majority. The British saw them as backwards people run by clerics who were all under Iran’s influence. It failed to see the diversity in the community and empower it choosing Sunnis to rule instead. Second the British promised the Kurds independence but then backtracked and included them in Iraq because they wanted to ease the fears of the Turks about Kurdish freedom and to ensure control of the north where oil was discovered. The English ended up promising them autonomous areas. Third that pointed to how the British government was divided over its Iraq policy and also underestimated the costs and difficulties involved. Last, London imposed a foreign monarchy to rule Iraq. Likewise, the Americans decided to empower the Shiites while also trying to exclude those they believed were pro-Iranian. The U.S. also offered Kurdish autonomy and Washington was just as split over how to rule Iraq and how hard it would be. Finally, the U.S. put many exiles into power who had not been home for decades similar to how a king was appointed by the UK. If the Bush administration had studied this history they could’ve learned a lot. Instead the White House knew little to nothing about Iraq and showed no interest in learning about it. They were just like the British in believing that they could easily impose their will and shape the country into what they wanted.
Andrew Dorman in his piece points out a major contradiction in the argument for the toppling of Saddam. Some administration officials claimed that keeping U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for the No Fly Zone created resentment throughout the Arab world and therefore the Iraq invasion would end that problem. They ignored that the fact that overthrowing an Arab government would only lead to more anger and an occupation would create resistance. Again, the U.S. government did not try to understand the region it was going to intervene in.
The best chapter was about disarming Iraq and the U.N. inspectors. The argument against Iraq was that having WMD was unacceptable because Saddam was a rogue leader that could not be deterred and that he might give them to terrorists. The only solution therefore was war. Dr. Susan Martin dismantles this justification. For instance Iraq did not use WMD during the Gulf War showing that deterrence could work. She goes through Iraq’s weapons programs and points out things like Iraq never had a working nuclear device or a delivery system so even if it enriched uranium it couldn’t use it. The United States never addressed why Saddam wanted WMD to begin with which could have made him willing to disarm. Instead Washington threatened Baghdad’s security by demanding that it give up weapons used to secure it. It’s a rather stunning rebuke of the major claims for war.
Most of the other writings are not as interesting. There’s several in the middle about the military issues involved such as different situations Iraq might have used WMD and its strategy and tactics. As this was all speculation and didn’t happen there’s no reason to read them today. There’s another on the possible economic impact of the invasion which is also conjecture. That makes at least half if not more of The Conflict In Iraq completely out of date.
The interesting chapters in The Conflict In Iraq still makes it a worthwhile read. It’s important to know that the Bush White House had plenty of information available about Iraqi history and past American military interventions that should’ve been used to plan for the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam. The book criticizes the fact that the administration did not follow that path. The chapter on the problems with disarming Iraq is by itself a reason to pick up a copy. The parts that are no longer relevant can simply be skipped for ones that are.
Link to all of Musings On Iraq’s book reviews listed by topic
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