This book was written in 2002 before the actual invasion of Iraq. Also the author (pictured) can be described as a hawkish democrat. He is definitely not one of the neo-conservatives running the US today.
The premise of this book is two fold: that Saddam Hussein is developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and that Saddam Hussein is one of the more evil leaders of modern history. Consequently, the author argues that the western world should take steps to try to oust him from Iraq. Pollack then produces a rigorous analysis of the different foreign policy options available to the United States to achieve this goal.
He convincingly argues that the policy of Containment, which has been in place since Saddam fist invaded Kuwait, is now falling apart because some European countries, the Chinese, the Russians and the Turks are not abiding by the sanctions any more. He further argues that it will be next to impossible to bring these rogue nations in line with the containment policy again.
Pollack then tackles the policy of Deterrence where the west essentially allows Saddam to do whatever he wants within his borders but hits him hard if he makes any predatory moves towards other countries. He also argues that a policy that seeks to overthrow Saddam by using the CIA also will not work in Iraq.
In a lengthy chapter analyzing the invasion of Afghanistan he demonstrates why an approach like the one that the US used in Afghanistan where it used the Northern Alliance as a proxy invading force will not work in Iraq.
Finally, almost by elimination, he shows that the only viable foreign policy option is to invade Iraq.
One of the key arguments that Pollack uses to support his thesis is that Iraq's WMD program is substantially more advanced than it turned out to be. He believed that in 2001 Saddam had over 300 missiles capable of delivering either chemical or biological weapons as far as Tel Aviv. Furthermore, he believed that Iraq's nuclear program was sufficiently advanced that it could produce a bomb in the next 5 years.
Clearly he was wrong. If Iraq's weapons programs had been as advanced as he believed then his arguments and suggestions would make a lot of sense. The book, however, is an excellent primer on the foreign policy issues facing the United States in the Middle East.
2 comments:
Nice overview of his argument. You say he is a hawkish demo and definitely not a neo-con, but his arguments are the neo-con propaganda that was used to make the war acceptable to the american people. He sounds like one of the many "democrats" that voted for Bush and is another sign of how blind all the so-called "liberals" in the states are to the political culture of which they are part.
He is not a neo-conservative for a number of reasons. First because he explicitly disagrees with their world view in the book. Second because his philosophy is all about stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East where as the neo-cons philosophy is more about the promulgation of American values and democracy in the Middle East. Third because he actually articulates a plan for the US' role in Iraq after an invasion which the neo-cons have never really had.
He certainly bought into the idea that Iraq had WMD in 2001 but when you read through the evidence that he sites it is not an entirely unreasonable conclusion to get to.
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