The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq

My headline is a quote from the book and refers to Iraqis' attitude soon after the invasion. The level of neglect and incompetence was beyond belief and gave rise to the most amazing conspiracy theories. Packer describes his own pre-war attitude as "ambivalently pro-war liberal", meaning he came somehow from the same direction as Tony Blair, who publicly based his support for the invasion mainly on the human rights view that the regime needed to be removed (that's at least what he said after the wmd scam was destroyed). I can respect that, although I never bought it. My main objection always has been, that I did not trust the invaders to do the job. One of the main themes of the book is to show how the main leaders of the invasion never wanted to do more than invade, assuming or believing, on whatever basis, that things would be alright once liberation was achieved. Rumsfeld's dictum that "bad things happen" when people are free exemplifies this attitude. I assume he meant that good prevails in the end. Well, it does not seem to do so. I wish I could feel good about this "told you so" attitude of mine. The situation is too damaging to enjoy having been right. The book is worth reading for mainly two reasons: it gives a broader overview of the political schools of thought involved in the run up debates, in this way tracing the motives for the war. I became more clearly aware of the two different reasons to want to invade, i.e. the neocons' national missionarydom and the hawkishness of the human rights school. I think Packer describes this process very fairly, although it is obvious where his sympathies are. I also learned to be aware about the two opposing historic analogies that were used in the debate: pro war positions referred to the Munich appeasement before WWII, while anti war debaters spoke about the Tonkin deception which led to a larger engagement in Vietnam. Second reason to read the book: it shows how the lack of planning for "phase IV", i.e. the time after the victory of the invasion, led to the downward spiral of destruction and murder that we are observing now. I find the current debates, whether this is civil war already or not yet, utterly ridiculous. The sad thing is that this kind of book will be wasted on the true believers of the government line. Just look at the recent review here who found the book "too liberal".

George Packer has repackaged and expanded his reporting of the Iraq War for the New Yorker magazine into this magnificent tail of lethal occurrences coming together at the crossroads of Iraq. The first of these occurrences is the absolute incompetence of the Bush administration and the neocons leading the Iraq War policy to see beyond what they have dreamed up in their think tanks or been told by the many Iraqi exiles eager to tell them what they want to hear. This incompetence led to a failure to plan for post-war occupation and governance of Iraq, and a failure to be straight with the American people about the real costs and consequences of the Iraq war. The second occurrence is what happened to the Iraqi people once they were liberated from the totalitarianism of the Saddam Hussein regime. After nearly four decades of his iron fisted rule, it appears that Iraqis almost didn't know how to experience their freedom. Vast voids and crevices opened in Iraqi society that were quickly filled with Saudi and Iranian backed religious parties, eager to impose their own vision of society on the majority of Iraqis. These two points coming together in March 2003, has led to where we are today in Iraq. It now appears that the Bush administration ahs no clue how to move forward from the morass that is the situation as of the first of the year in 2006. Recent elections have brought to power those organized religious parties who are vastly opposed to American and Western ideals. The big winners of the entire exhibition appear to be the theocrats, while the losers are the majority of the Iraqi population, the prestige of the United States, the military, and our own future security. For an explanation of how this situation came to pass I highly recommend George Packer's book.

Reminds me of "From Beirut to Jerusalem" by Thomas Friedman in that I didn't want to put it down and its 480 pages flew by. I expect that it will also stand the test of time and also be considered a classic - required reading in regards to the Iraq war. It is carefully researched and very well written.

This book is more than excellent journalism. It is a searching and very thoughtful analysis of our misadventure in Iraq. In addition to presenting a narrative of the war, Packer aims at an evenhanded assignment of responsibilities for the present dilemma and to provide a realistic impression of how our intervention in Iraq has affected the lives of Iraqis. To Packer's considerable credit, he succeeds in a very skillfully written and sometimes moving book. A fair measure of Packer's evenhandedness is that he has been attacked, usually unjustly, by figures on both the right and the left. Packer begins with a shrewd assessment of the ideological underpinnings of the war with a concise history of the so-called neocon movement. The most striking aspect of this discussion is that these ideas about American power and its proper exercise were developed well before the 9/11 disaster and then seized upon as a solution with little critical thought about their relevance. Packer fairly shows this to be a failure of imagination and an unwillingness to critically test assumptions. Some of the ideas put forward by these individuals, such as the suggestion that the Hashemite monarchy could be revived or the persistent delusion that Ahmad Chalabi could be a transformaing figure in Iraq, can be described only as nuts. Packer follows with a series of chapters exploring the remarkable failures of the immediate post-war period and the CPA. These well written and documented chapters are a devastating indictment of the appalling incompetence of the Bush administration, amounting, as Packer states, to criminal negligence. A recurrent theme is the complete unwillingness of crucial policy makers to face facts as they are instead of attempting to construe events as fulfilling the predictions of simple minded ideological constructs. These are not only individual failings but massive institutional failings reflecting the attitudes of a President who doesn't take policy seriously. Packer concludes with a set of chapters detailing the human consequences of our policies. The chapter on the death of a young American soldier and his father's grief is truly poignant. The recurrent sections detailing life in Iraq are devastating in their cumulative impact. Packer is careful to maintain moderate language throughout and is non-partisan. He is, for example, quite critical of the leadership of the Democratic party. Inevitably, his severest judgements fall on the Bush administration and his opinions, issued without a hint of hyperbole, are absolutely damning and absolutely correct.

Like many others, I receive my news from a variety of electronic and print sources and almost always in small portions. One of few exception is The New York Times. Another is The New Yorker magazine to which I have also subscribed for decades. I vividly recall articles written by Elizabeth Drew, for example, who brought uncommon intelligence and sensitivity to sometimes highly controversial issues in the 1973-1992 period. Today, I read with special appreciation articles written for The New Yorker by Hendrik Hertzberg and George Packer. I mention all this by way of suggesting why I was so eager to read Packer's The Assassins' Gate and then having done so, why I now hold it in such high regard. Actually, there are several reasons. First, Packer provides convincing, indeed disturbing answers to questions such as these: 1. What were the intellectual origins of the Iraq war? Who were its principal advocates? Why? 2. How do these origins explain initiatives and events which preceded and then followed the invasion and subsequent occupation by American troops? 3. What are are Packer's own eyewitness observations of the consequences? 4. Which of the Iraqi dissidents does Packer consider most significant? I was especially interested in what he has to say about Kanan Makiya. 5. What did Packer learn while traveling within Iraq, especially from conversations with Iraqis now living there who had personally observed and experienced (for better or worse) the regime of Saddam Hassein? Of special interest to me is what Packer observed (and shares) during a visit to the northern city of Kirkuk. Also, Packer makes every effort to acknowledge as fairly as he can a remarkably wide range of political opinions, extending from Far Left Liberals to Far Right Conservatives. He even notes the nuances of difference between Vice President Cheney's realism and Paul Wolfowitz' neoconservatism. Of course, Packer has opinions of his own, several of which were changed -- some significantly -- by what he personally experienced while in Iraq. Also, Packer reveals a great deal about current day-to-day life there for Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. He seeks (and welcomes) their opinions, respects their aspirations, and shares their concerns. Certain ideas led to the war. Which ideas will prevail as Iraq now struggles to achieve self-determination, in whatever form that eventually proves to be? What do the Iraquis themselves think about all this? Finally, in this volume Packer demonstrates skills of the highest level both as an exceptionally astute reporter and as an erudite interpreter of what he has observed. That is to say, his reader is provided with both a wealth of detailed information and a frame-of-reference within which to understand that information. Like a gate, Packer's book offers a point-of-entry. He guides his reader to a broader and deeper understanding of both a complicated process and the consequences, to date, of that process. Now what? Where is the gate whi