"Chilling--and often scathing--detail . . . Should be read by
anyone interested in understanding why the United States' quick
military victory has given way to an increasingly virulent
insurgency."--"The New York Times"
In the fall of 2003, Stanford professor Larry Diamond received a
call from Condoleezza Rice, asking if he would spend several months
in Baghdad as an adviser to the American occupation authorities.
Diamond had not been a supporter of the war in Iraq, but he felt
that the task of building a viable democracy was a worthy goal. But
when he went to Iraq, his experiences proved to be more of an
education than he bargained for.
"Squandered Victory" is Diamond's provocative and vivid account of
how the American effort to establish democracy in Iraq was hampered
not only by insurgents and terrorists but also by a long chain of
miscalculations, missed opportunities, and acts of ideological
blindness that helped assure that the transition to independence
would be neither peaceful nor entirely democratic. And in a new
Afterword for the paperback edition, Diamond shows how the ongoing
instability in Iraq is a direct result of the shortsighted choices
made during the fourteen months of the American occupation and the
subsequent Iraqi interim government.
"A forceful and detailed critique of the invasion's aftermath. . .
. A searing indictment." --"The Wall Street Journal"
"Larry Diamond has a flair for making incisive points at the right
moment. . . . ["Squandered Victory"] explodes with the frustrations
he felt working for the U.S. occupation." --"The New Republic"
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and
professor of political science and sociology at Stanford
University. He has also been the coeditor of the widely respected
"Journal of Democracy" since its founding in 1990. From January to
April of 2004, he served as a senior advisor to the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Baghdad. He lives in Stanford, California.
In the fall of 2003, Stanford professor Larry Diamond received a
call from Condoleezza Rice, asking if he would spend several months
in Baghdad as an adviser to the American occupation authorities.
Diamond had not been a supporter of the war in Iraq, but he felt
that the task of building a viable democracy was a worthy goal now
that Saddam Hussein's regime had been overthrown. He also thought
he could do some good by putting his academic expertise to work in
the real world. So in January 2004 he went to Iraq, and the next
three months proved to be more of an education than he bargained
for.
Diamond found himself part of one of the most audacious
undertakings of our time. In "Squandered Victory" he shows how the
American effort to establish democracy in Iraq was hampered not
only by insurgents and terrorists but also by a long chain of
miscalculations, missed opportunities, and acts of ideological
blindness that helped assure that the transition to independence
would be neither peaceful not entirely democratic. He brings us
inside the Green Zone, into a world where ideals were often trumped
by power politics and where U.S. officials routinely issued edicts
that later had to be squared (at great cost) with Iraqi realities.
Among the surprising things that Diamond discovered were:
- The first U.S. civilian administration arrived in Baghdad with
virtually no capacity to function in Arabic. - Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani--the most revered Shiite religious leader--repeatedly
assumed more pro-democratic positions than the United States
itself. - The Bush administration ignored numerous warnings from
its own officials in Iraq that the Shiite heartland was going to
erupt (which it did in April 2004) and needed the protection of
more American troops.
- The U.S. effort to "sell" the interim constitution to the Iraqi
people was undermined by the failure to listen to Iraqi popular
concerns and by the sluggishness and ineptitude of the occupation's
"strategic communications" team.
Diamond's provocative and vivid account makes clear that Iraq--and,
by extension, the United States--will spend many years climbing its
way out of the hole that was dug during the fourteen months of the
American occupation. "[A]n unsettling account of the mind-boggling
challenges involved in trying to bring democracy to Iraq . . .
["Squandered Victory"] is a book that should be read by anyone
interested in understanding why the United States' quick military
victory has given way to an increasingly virulent insurgency and
nearly daily reports of car bombings and suicide attacks, why even
post-election hopes have been shadowed by worries about the
continuing violence spiraling into a Lebanon-style civil
war."--Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times" "[Larry Diamond's]
book not only provides an unsettling account of the mind-boggling
challenges involved in trying to bring democracy to Iraq (ranging
from practical matters like setting up an infrastructure for the
electoral process to political and philosophical issues dealing
with the drafting of a constitution) but also lays out a
thoughtful, pull-no-punches analysis of the missteps and
misjudgments by the Bush White House and the Pentagon in the months
before and after America's toppling of Saddam Hussein. It is a book
that should be read by anyone interested in understanding why the
United States' quick military victory has given way to an
increasingly virulent insurgency and nearly daily reports of car
bombings and suicide attacks, why even post-election hopes have
been shadowed by worries about the continuing violence spiraling
into a Lebanon-style civil war."--Michiko Kakutani, "The New York
Times""
"
"A forceful and detailed critique of the invasion's aftermath . . .
A searing indictment."--"The Wall Street Journal""" "Larry Diamond
has a flair for making incisive points at the right moment . . .
["Squandered Victory"] explodes with the frustrations he felt
working for the U.S. occupation."--"The New Republic""" "Detailed
and revealing . . . Diamond is a talented storyteller, able to
translate a yarn about bureaucracy into an adventure of great
urgency . . . The most credible explanation of how we got from
March 2003 to today."--"San Francisco Chronicle" "The core and
original contribution of this book is an account of the author's
brief time (about ten weeks from mid-January to April 2004) in
Baghdad advising the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). It is a
compelling story of what Diamond saw going wrong on the civilian
side of the occupation in the months before L. Paul Bremer, head of
the CPA, turned the governance of Iraq over to the hand-picked
Governing Council in June 2004."--"Commonweal " "Larry Diamond
gives the most vivid account of life behind the T-walls, combining
a gripping first-person narrative with the intellectual detachment
of a professor. His book, "Squandered Victory": " The American
Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq,"
describes how he abandoned the comfort of the academy for a
six-month stint in Iraq advising the Coalition Provisional A
General
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