Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq: My Comments and Review

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas Ricks

Preliminary Comments and Review © 2006 by Amechi Okolo, Ph.D.

Your analysis and insights in the book are cogent, bold and quite fascinating. However, your ultimate conclusion that since we are already there and have caused so much havoc that pulling out now will be a disaster and that we should be there for 10 - 15 years is timid and a capitulation to Bush.

You must know that right now Bush does not care about what anyone says about the cause of the war, how ill planned it was, etc so long as you do not call for immediate withdrawal of the troops. What I am saying is that the tough, succinct, terse and laconic analysis of the book was compromised by your timid, coy, shy and timorous conclusion, which I believe was designed to garner favor with the Bush administration.

More specifically, your conclusion of “staying the course” which simply echoes Bush strategy is fundamentally contradictory to your earlier brilliant analysis at the beginning of the book. Therefore the obvious question for you is this – How can very sloppy, dishonest, lying, cheating incompetent, worst war planners, etc as you rightly showed throughout the book, suddenly become brilliant enough to get things right just by staying longer. The only logical outcome, which we are all witnessing now is a worsened situation – more bloodshed, more war profiteering and gauging, more incompetence, increased insurgency and sectarian violence, etc. You stated that we have done so well for Iran (our perennial enemy), by removing their arch enemy (Saddam) and replacing him with Iranian allies and protégées so that now Iran is benefiting from the new setup while Americans and Iraqis suffer and die. So where is their wisdom to change their “stay the course” strategy; and how can that strategy produce an outcome that will be positive for the Iraqis or for us Americans.

The truth is that American occupation is the primary source and target of the increasing violence and insurgency in the system. Our presence has transformed Iraq into the recruiting and training center for jihadists across the globe. While al-Qaeda was not in Iraq during President Saddam’s era, Iraq has now actually become the tactical headquarters for anti-American resistance and insurgency. Our continued stay in Iraq will only help recruit, train and embolden anti American forces. More importantly, Iraq will never support us. A free Iraq will always be opposed to America unless we fundamentally change our ways. This is something we just do not understand – it is not Iraq, that will change to become our allies – it is us that will change. To get Iraq to become our allies, we must change our current and historical policies. We will change our attitudes towards Palestine. We will ask our Israeli allies to pull out of Palestine and allow for the establishment of two stable, viable and secure states in the area. We will also completely pull out of Iraq and then provide the money (as reparation), to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure fully up to how it was before our malicious and barbaric invasion in March 2003.

So far, I have not heard anyone talk of reparation for Iraqis, but it will soon come up because the Bush attack was totally unprovoked and unnecessary. Besides, its “shock and awe” strategy was unusually vicious, hateful and destructive. The lootings, the torture, Abu Ghraib, murder, lawlessness and all the other slaughter, despicable and atrocious acts that we are committing against innocent Iraqis will be paid for. The current weasel leadership in Iraq may not have the guts to demand reparation from their American masters and benefactors, but young Iraqis who are resent our presence and being radicalized by our occupation and rude intrusion into their country and their lives will surely demand reparation at a future date. Even the current occupied and dependent leadership, the Prime Minister, al-Maliki, Speaker Mashhadani and radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr have all loudly spoken against America and Israeli bombardments of Lebanon. How much more when Iraq becomes truly free because Iraq is not free now, for no nation should call itself free when it has 140,000 or more foreign occupation troops on its soil. So, when Iraq becomes truly free, i.e. when foreign occupation troops leave Iraq, I cannot see Iraqis elect anyone who will invite Americans into office.

Finally, if you project an eventual positive American and/or Iraqi outcome then, your title, “Fiasco” is wrong because it denotes a total, confused and messed up situation. The title of the book will then be contradictory. In short, I think your book is great, it is well written, it is succinct, incisive and bitingly correct; and the title is great and appropriate, but you succumbed to the pressure to be politically correct for the Bush orthodoxy by prescribing his “stay the course” strategy which is contradictory to the title, body and essence of the book. So, you must either change your title or change your conclusion for the book to be consistent.