Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War

If what is shaping up to be the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history has an upside, it is that the current war in Iraq should definitively, permanently settle a handful of critical questions about American conduct in the world. This book provides a list of those questions and even ventures some answers in the form of key lessons from Iraq. The idea of assembling lessons as tools for avoiding the next war is less of a stretch than it seems, given the group of writers represented here. They include a Nobel Prize-winning economist; the former chief UN weapons inspector; and an Iraqi American whose weekly conversations with his relatives have given him a grim education on what living through a war to spread democracy is like on the ground. Also here is a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner who traces the recurring American bad habit of starting wars as tryouts for big ideas. All societies need a ready reference handbook that draws some lines around its conduct of war. The Bush administration has produced a radical overhaul of the U.S. manual. Given the Iraq experience, it is urgent that we reject this version and think again. This book is a manageably sized, accessibly written, affordable compilation of key points that most urgently need to be rethought.

Table of Contents:
Introduction, Miriam Pemberton; prologue Prologue, Anas Shallal; Part 1 Purposes, Miriam Pemberton, William D. Hartung; Chapter 1 The Dangerous Leap, Neta C. Crawford; Chapter 2 American Imperialism, Chalmers Johnson; Chapter 3 Ideas Floating Free, Frances FitzGerald; Chapter 4 A Motive Hiding in Plain Sight, Michael T. Klare; Chapter 5 To Avoid Future Iraq-Style Quagmires, Reduce U.S. Global Military Presence, Ivan Eland; Part 2 Ways and Means, Miriam Pemberton, William D. Hartung; Chapter 6 Hidden Wounds and Accounting Tricks, Joseph Stiglitz, Linda Bilmes; Chapter 7 Lies, Spies, and Legends, John Prados; Chapter 8 Media Flagstones on the Path to War, Norman Solomon; Chapter 9 America's Slide, Jeffrey Laurenti; Chapter 10 Inspections or Invasion, Hans Blix; Chapter 11 Coalitions of the Coerced, Phyllis Bennis; Part 3 Collateral Damage, Miriam Pemberton, William D. Hartung; Chapter 12 Monarchic Pretensions, Fred Barbash; Chapter 13 Torture No More, Aziz Huq; Chapter 14 The Shadow Army, Janine R. Wedel; Chapter 15 Invitation to Steal, William D. Hartung; Chapter 16 The (Iraq) War on Civil Liberties, Jules Lobel; epilogue Epilogue, C. K. Williams;

About the Author :
Miriam Pemberton, Ph.D., is Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and Peace and Security Editor of its Foreign Policy in Focus project. She leads the team that produces the annual "Unified Security Budget for the United States." William D. Hartung is Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. He is the author of And Weapons for All (HarperCollins 1994) and How Much Did You Make on the War, Daddy? A Quick and Dirty Guide to War Profiteering in the George W. Bush Administration (Nation Books 2005).

Review :
"Assessing the wreckage caused by the Iraq War is an urgent national priority. This timely, immensely thoughtful, and justifiably angry collection gets that process off to an excellent start."--Andrew J. Bacevich, author of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War"If a main reason our government went to war in Iraq was to reassert American authority after 9/11 exposed our vulnerability, the actual consequence-as these incisive and important essays make clear-has been just the opposite. Not only have we paid dearly in blood, treasure and in damage to American liberties. In addition, the decline of our credibility and prestige has led to a sharp reduction in American power. We tried to show that we are strong and made ourselves seem weak."--Aryeh Neier, President, Open Society Institute"America's future will be one of endless war unless we can come to grips with the deceptions, the lies, the reckless doctrines, the politicized intelligence, and the dishonest accounting that brought us the Iraq war. Read this compelling set of essays and join the movement to prevent the next war." --Barbara Ehrenreich, author of numerous books including Blood Rites and This Land is Their Land