The incomparable Juan Cole points out that Iraq’s Shi’ite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is under pressure to issue a fatwa against the presence of American troops in Iraq.
Ironically, Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s claim that Iraq troops would be ready to “stand up” by the end of this year gives Sistani this leeway. The U.S. presidential election is a background factor, of course.
McCain will be hard put to rationally defend any sort of longer-term occupancy if Sistani pulls the trigger.
Showing posts with label Iraq occupation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq occupation. Show all posts
May 23, 2008
March 25, 2008
Iraq five years on discussed in print
There’s a bevy of new books about Iraq out, and Salon
has a roundup of the best.
Jonathan Steele has the harshest take, in “Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq.” He says it wasn’t a mishandled occupation, but rather the simple fact of occupation for any length of over a year or so, that doomed the operation. To professional warnings about all this, and Britain’s own colonial history in the country, all that British PM Tony Blair could do was utter his own brand of neoconservatism and say, of Hussein, “But the man’s uniquely evil, isn't he?”
As the Salon review notes, Steele is an award-winning foreign correspondent for the Guardian and has done eight stints in Iraq.
He also bluntly faults American Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. Neither of those are new to people who have previously read about the brutality of the American occupation, but it’s good to see it spelled out in book-length form.
Of course, no mainstrean American journalist— yes, that’s people like you, Thomas Ricks — has or will have the cojones to report that in depth.
Aram Rostam then gives us a full biography of Ahmed Chalabi, with “The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi.”
Other books on the review look at the culture clash between Americans and Iraqis as it plays out, outside the Green Zone, and Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky give a little quote-based smackdown to all the “experts” who predicted victory oh so long ago.
The Salon review has links to Amazon pages for each of the books.
has a roundup of the best.
Jonathan Steele has the harshest take, in “Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq.” He says it wasn’t a mishandled occupation, but rather the simple fact of occupation for any length of over a year or so, that doomed the operation. To professional warnings about all this, and Britain’s own colonial history in the country, all that British PM Tony Blair could do was utter his own brand of neoconservatism and say, of Hussein, “But the man’s uniquely evil, isn't he?”
As the Salon review notes, Steele is an award-winning foreign correspondent for the Guardian and has done eight stints in Iraq.
He also bluntly faults American Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. Neither of those are new to people who have previously read about the brutality of the American occupation, but it’s good to see it spelled out in book-length form.
Of course, no mainstrean American journalist— yes, that’s people like you, Thomas Ricks — has or will have the cojones to report that in depth.
Aram Rostam then gives us a full biography of Ahmed Chalabi, with “The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi.”
Other books on the review look at the culture clash between Americans and Iraqis as it plays out, outside the Green Zone, and Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky give a little quote-based smackdown to all the “experts” who predicted victory oh so long ago.
The Salon review has links to Amazon pages for each of the books.
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