Book Analysis and Notes: Losing Iraq

I finished reading Losing Iraq and put up some notes. I had low expectations for this, and was actually pleasantly surprised by the material on the Kurds. The rest was plain vanilla, but at least it was well written.

My basic questions going in:

- How well prepared at the outset does the author think we were? Does he put stock in the joint planning committee work? I've heard that panned in numerous contexts.

Answer: I got the sense that Phillips blamed the lack of pre-war planning and particularly the lack of a reality-based concept of Iraqi government. He didn't condemn the opposition comittee, but he didn't try to hide the fact that it was basically useless. That's in contravention to the myth that the State Department had all these great plans that the DOD tossed. Not to excuse the DOD, who were operating in fantasy land.

- What does he consider the worst errors, and who was responsible?

Answer:

1) Cheney and his people, for assuming authority but not responsibility over the opposition groups, and generally making things worse.

2) Chalabi, for lying about his support in Iraq.

3) Zalmay Khalizad, for preventing Iran from playing a legitimate role in Iraq early on when it could have made a difference.

Phillips cited an Iraqi academic as being a smart guy, I'll see if I can find anything he wrote post-war.

Book Analysis and Notes: Social Life of Information

I've added some notes on the Social Life of Information, by Brown and Duguid. I still don't really remember why my Dad recommended it. The book had a lot of goodness, showing how social context and interactions affect the absorption of information, and that the internet can't be all things to all people because of this. There is also a certain amount of jargon (deconstructing the 6 D's) that I didn't care about.

Mostly I felt a lot of nostalgia for the 90's while reading this- a time of near infinite possibility and no fear.

Cause and Effect: MN Bridge Collapse

I saw two good columns reflecting on the bridge collapse in Minnesota. Stephen Flynn lays out the numbers on underinvestment in infrastructure in the US. Arnaud de Borchgrave points out the obvious fact that we've been sending tons of money to Iraq that could have been put to use here.

Library Run

I finally got around to hitting the library. They didn't have the Coll book, but I did pick up some interesting miscellany:

Social Life of Information- This has been on my reading list since 2002. I suspect it got there on my Dad's recommendation.

The Politics of Heroin- This was referenced in Blaufarb's work on counterinsurgency. I picked it up for context when I read about how we dealt with Heroin in Afghanistan during the 80's.

Political Scandal- This was a reference in John Dean's book on GWB. Initially I flagged it to better understand why Clinton was such a target, now I want to understand how Bush so successfully escaped becoming one.

In the Shadow of the Prophet- A book from 1998 by Milton Viorst. A 5/2007 podcast discussion with him is available on CFR.

Fighting to a Finish- This is in followup to Ikle's Every War Must End.

Losing Iraq- This I picked up on a whim.

Book Analysis and Notes

I finished reading Afghanistan The Bear Trap. Excellent book, notes are here. I'm going to have to read Stephen Coll now to get the rest of the story.

How many lessons can be applied to Iraq?

1) The American supply operation was all about killing soviets. When they left, the arms flow stopped. Point: Will countries stop supplying Iraqi rebels if the U.S. withdraws?

2) 'Puppet' regimes are capable of living on their own, Najibullah stayed in power for four years after the Soviets withdrew troops. The Soviets continued, crucially, to provide arms. Point: Perhaps local forces are capable of acting more effectively in their own interest then foreign troops?

3) The Soviet response to the Mujahideen was incredibly lethargic. No strategy at all beyond Afghan borders, except to prevent attacks on the USSR proper. Point: Burying your head in the sand does not help the situation, it just makes it last longer.

4) The Soviets gave up when the Mujahideen got effective AA weapons. It took 7 years of conflict before they got them. Point: How many years will we be fighting in Iraq before someone gives the rebels good AA weapons?

POW: Bacevich

The Carnegie Council has an excellent lecture from Andrew Bacevich in 2005 up here. He is fast becoming one of my favorite 'public intellectuals', to borrow a phrase from Richard Posner.

Moving on

Next on my list of to read books: Afghanistan: The Bear Trap. Or, everything you ought to know about Pakistan and Afghanistan during the 80's.

Two things I learned in 20 pages:
- The US was reluctant to use Zia and the Mujhadeen against the soviets, because they saw no chance of success.
- The plane crash that killed Zia in 1988, which was almost certainly an assassination, also killed the U.S. ambassador and the chief military attache. Efforts to investigate the crash were hampered by both Pakistani and U.S. authorities, and to date there is no definitive explanation for what happened. Basically no government in the world seriously wanted known who was responsible.