About the Book
Called by New York Times columnist David Brooks the "smartest and most devastating" critic of President George W. Bush's Iraq policies, Peter W. Galbraith was the earliest expert to describe Iraq's breakup into religious and ethnic entities, a reality that is now commonly accepted. The Iraq war was intended to make the United States more secure, bring democracy to the Middle East, intimidate Iran and Syria, help win the war on terror, consolidate American world leadership, and entrench the Republican Party for decades. Instead, --Bush handed Iran its greatest strategic triumph in four centuries. --U.S. troops now fight to support an Iraqi government led by religious parties intent on creating an Iranian-style Islamic republic. --As part of the surge, the United States created a Sunni militia led by the same Baathists the United States invaded Iraq to overthrow. --Obsessed with Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration gave Iran and North Korea a free pass to advance their nuclear programs. --Turkey, a key NANATO ally long considered a model pro-Western Muslim democracy, became one of the most anti-American countries in the world. --U.S. prestige around the world reached an all-time low. Iraq: Galbraith challenges the assertion that the surge will lead to victory. By creating a Sunni army, the surge has, in fact, contributed to Iraq's breakup and set the stage for an intensified civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. If the United States wishes to escape the Iraq quagmire, it must face up to the reality that the country has broken up and cannot be put back together. Iran: Having helped Iran's allies take control in Baghdad, the Bush administration no longer has a viable military option to stop Iran's nuclear program. Galbraith discusses how a president more pragmatic than Bush might get Iran to freeze its nuclear program as part of a package deal to upgrade relations between two countries equally threatened by Sunni extremism. Turkey, Syria, and Israel: A war intended to make Israel more secure, undermine Syria's Assad regime, and strengthen ties with Turkey has had the opposite result. Nationalism: In the coming decades, other countries may follow Iraq's example in fragmenting along ethnic and religious lines. Galbraith draws on his considerable experience in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia to predict where this might happen and what the United States might do about it. The United States: George W. Bush substituted wishful thinking for strategy and, as a result, made America weaker. Galbraith provides some rules for a national strategy that will appeal equally to conservatives and liberals--indeed, to anyone who believes the United States needs an effective national security strategy.
About the Author :
Peter W. Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia, is the senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and a principal at the Windham Resources Group, a firm that negotiates on behalf of its clients in postconflict societies, including Iraq. A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, Galbraith holds an AB from Harvard College, an MA from Oxford University, and a JD from Georgetown University. He lives in Townshend, Vermont.
Winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards and a multiple finalist for the APA's prestigious Audie Award, Alan Sklar has narrated nearly two hundred audiobooks, including Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden, The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings by Thomas Maier, and The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. Named a Best Voice of 2009 by AudioFile magazine, his work has earned him a Booklist Editors' Choice Award (twice), a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and Audiobook of the Year by ForeWord magazine. The Dartmouth graduate's theatre credits include Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Seagull, and many modern roles. Alan has also narrated thousands of corporate videos for clients such as NASA, Sikorsky Aircraft, IBM, Dannon, Pfizer, AT&T, and SONY. For several years, he has been the spokesman for TracFone Wireless Co. and can often be seen and heard on TracFone radio and TV spots and infomercials. "I am so pleased, as is my husband, to have found a narrator that holds our attention so well that we have come to compare every other narrator to him (you). So far we have found none with such a talent as yours. We very much plan to listen to as many of your works as we can find." -Sandi King, a letter to Mr. Sklar Winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards and a multiple finalist for the APA's prestigious Audie Award, Alan Sklar has narrated nearly two hundred audiobooks, including Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden, The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings by Thomas Maier, and The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. Named a Best Voice of 2009 by AudioFile magazine, his work has earned him a Booklist Editors' Choice Award (twice), a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and Audiobook of the Year by ForeWord magazine. The Dartmouth graduate's theatre credits include Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Seagull, and many modern roles. Alan has also narrated thousands of corporate videos for clients such as NASA, Sikorsky Aircraft, IBM, Dannon, Pfizer, AT&T, and SONY. For several years, he has been the spokesman for TracFone Wireless Co. and can often be seen and heard on TracFone radio and TV spots and infomercials. "I am so pleased, as is my husband, to have found a narrator that holds our attention so well that we have come to compare every other narrator to him (you). So far we have found none with such a talent as yours. We very much plan to listen to as many of your works as we can find." -Sandi King, a letter to Mr. Sklar
Review :
Compelling.... Mr. Galbraith makes a persuasive case.-- "New York Times"
"Compelling...Mr. Galbraith makes a persuasive case."
-- "New York Times"
"Sklar proves masterful...[and] lends additional authority to an already powerful and impressive book."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
"This angry and passionate book...lays out the disastrous consequence of the Bush years. The next president will inherit the mess; let's hope he absorbs the lessons of Galbraith's work."
-- "Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the United Nations"
