Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War

Anthony Shadid has drawn a beautiful, and depressing, portrait of life in Iraq from just before the American invasion in March 2003, to January 2005. By following ordinary Iraqis; artists, former government officials, professors, and also the poor, laborers, and followers of the Sunni and Shiite insurgency, Shadid has created a montage of a land wrought by both history and shattered promises where the future is bleak and uncertain. The American military and political leadership undertook the 2003 invasion under the sway of Iraqi exiles who promised a joyous greeting for the American military in Baghdad. That promise ended up being far from reality. Instead, with little understanding of Iraqi society and the effect of a series of wars, sanctions, and the rule of a brutal dictator has had on the country, the great promise that went was supposed to follow the Americans soon evaporated amidst looting and a growing insurgency motivated by religion, nationalism and poverty. In this landscape the American mission stood little chance of success. Shadid has written a beautiful, haunting, book. I believe this should be an early contender for next year's Pulitzer and many other prestigious awards. Those interested in the unfolding situation in Iraq today would do well to read this book.

Anthony Shadid is a Washington Post reporter and a long-time writer on the Middle East. Born in the USA of an immigrant Lebanese family and a fluent Arabic speaker he describes himself as always feeling more Arab in America, more American in the Arab world. Beginning in 2002 and building through the tense days before the American invasion in March 2003 almost to the present, his story takes the reader as close as it is possible to get into the lives and thoughts of a whole gallery of Iraqi people of every shade of opinion and from every level of society. With unblinking, even-handed clarity he describes the violence and tragedy brought about by the Saddam regime, the Americans and the insurgents. But it is his encounters with ordinary people, Iraqi and American which make the book so wonderfully revealing Shadid is a prize-winning journalist of a very high calibre. The historical background framing his encounters with leading clerics such as Muqtada el Sadr is a page-turning read while each of his encounters with a whole gallery of characters from Iraqi university professors to young American soldiers on patrol, to newly-joined hapless Iraqi police, caught between the occupation and the insurgency, all serve to push forward a compelling story and invite the reader to share the writer's understanding that 'Iraq is variegated, contradictory and endlessly confusing....Our televisable notions have never captured the haunting, ambivalent and bitter complexity of even one conversation, during war or in its shadow.' This is most definitely NOT one more anti-war book on Iraq. It should be read in the White House, Downing Street and all over the world which badly needs the understanding of the Iraq tragedy which the day to day reporting of the mainstream media so signally fails to give.

The United States likes to think of it's self as a good liberator-who `looks' out for others. Consequently most American stories about the war in Iraq are told through the eyes of Americans. This includes accounts which oppose our being in Iraq, even so-called liberals have conventional views on Iraq. American society's tendency to focus on current events and avoid considering the perspective of other nation states prevented us from thinking about how this war (regardless of motive) would be perceived. The Bush administration's throngs of cheering Iraqi's never materialized and we are regarded with suspicion. The Iraqi people did not particularly care for Saddam Hussein either, but he was much more open with the people of Iraq about his desire for power over them. Regarding the Iraqis as objects to be manipulated as opposed to people with their own ideas...etc it should not be surprising the United States is having so much trouble in Iraq. The Iraq people would like to govern themselves, but cannot if we have our troops and oil companies planted firmly in that country. We ourselves send conflicting messages about democracy and freedom by failing to recognize their agency. Anthony Shadid also examined the role which cultural misunderstandings played in American blunders. Erroneously assuming that all people shared one culture, Americans positioned themselves as the ones who would provide it. He also covers the milestone 2005 election and the sense of hope that self-governance brings to the Iraqi people. However seeing as how American troops still occupy Iraq, this event might ultimately be remembered by the Iraqi people as a brief high point in their confirmed rough existence. He also attempts to explain what years of constant war does to a population beyond the obvious physical and socioeconomic costs. I would still recommend that people opposing America's invasion of Iraq read more conventional anti-war books, but we also need to read this account. It is important that we recognize the people of Iraq as three-dimensional beings and do not reduce them into sound bites for our side.

Anthony Shadid is a brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has been covering the Iraq conflict since its beginning. And while much of his reportage of this tragically misguided effort on the part of the US to 'spread democracy around the globe' has either knowingly or unknowingly to us been from his pen (he writes for the Washington Post), here in this book he adds those elements of the war that have been either censored or edited so that at last we have an intelligent observer's report of what has happened. This is a story that will disturb and enlighten. Shadid divides his book NIGHT DRAWS NEAR: IRAQ'S PEOPLE IN THE SHADOW OF AMERICA'S WAR into five sections. In the first section he surfaces the anxious dread of a people under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. In the second he mirrors the people's terror of the attacks by the American troops with the bombings of precious places as well as homes. In the third section he addresses that part of calamity that follows calamity - the criminal looting and destruction of museums and mosques and public facilities that most Iraqis viewed with embarrassed disgust. The fourth section raises the curtain on the debased hopes of a people told they were being liberated while instead they were erratically captured, questioned, disenfranchised and were deprived of the basic amenities of living. The final section studies the insurgency, the terrifying extremes to which the Iraqis have embraced such as suicide bombings, retaliation, guerilla warfare - all of those ends to which these people have been thrust as a means to regain dignity and identity. Shadid has been there, has interviewed countless Iraqis, and has written a book that is jarring and shocking and insightful. What drives a man, woman or child to become a 'martyr'? Shadid talks with the families of these martyrs in an attempt to understand how these people have the courage to stand against the seemingly insurmountable odds of an army of Americans. This is a philosophy wholly foreign to us and it is well to remember that the writer is a Lebanese American, born in Oklahoma, fluent in Arabic and Arabic culture: Shadid is an informed reporter and writer and humanist. Though unfortunately America's War on Iraq is not over, this brilliantly written book should be required reading for all of us. It is only when we have both sides of the picture of a conflict that we can begin to analyze our country's position and hopefully urge a rapid end to the Iraq error, a mirror of the Vietnam error. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, September 05

With all the coverage of Iraq lately, one of the things that has been conspicuously missing has been much coverage of the Iraqi people. Anthony Shadid provides a welcome glimpse into the lives, experience and views of ordinary Iraqis in NIGHT DRAWS NEAR. Shadid's unique advantage as a journalist is that he speaks Arabic -- he is an Arab-American from Oklahoma, from an Orthodox Christian Lebanese family. Interestingly, he notes that as he has traveled back and forth, he feels more American when in Iraq, and more Arab when in America. He has no axe to grind -- Shadid does not engage in cheerleading for nor critique of the Bush Administration. He simply lets the Iraqis he speaks with present their own perspectives, which are diverse. If there is a central theme, it is the sense of the historic importance and greatness of the city of Baghdad, one of the great centers of both the Arab world and the Islamic world, now fallen low. A common refrain among its residents is "Baghdad deserves better." And one cannot read NIGHT DRAWS NEAR without wishing better for its people. Salaam alay-kum. Peace be with you. May justice and peace prevail soon for the people of Iraq!