Dark Victory: America's Second War Against Iraq

Dark Victory: America's Second War Against Iraq Jeffrey Record Date: 01 April 2004   —   $16.97   —   Book product page Rating:

If Iraq and terrorism are the top issues for you in the upcoming election, this is the one book you need to read. If I could give "Dark Victory" more than five stars, I would.

Jeffery Record is a defense policy analyst who's worked in and out of the government for many years, and he lectures regularly at the US Army War College. In "Dark Victory", Record examines the origins, objectives, conduct and consequences of Bush's war in Iraq.

Record puts the invasion and occupation of Iraq into the framework of President Bush's foreign policy. He notes that after 9/11, President Bush - who previously had no foreign policy experience - drew heavily on his neo-conservative advisors who had been planning for a moment like that since the collapse of the Soviet Union. 9/11 was the lever they hoped would shift public opinion to their view that, only in a world full of liberal democracies would America ever be truly safe.

Pursuing that goal means systematically toppling autocratic regimes and replacing them with democracies - a goal both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have made clear on a number of occasions, including the recent debates with their Democratic challengers (here, and here) - starting with Iraq. If you've read Woodward's book, "Plan of Attack", you'll remember that, in the days after 9/11, prominent neo-conservatives in the administration (Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld) urged President Bush to forget bin Laden and Afghanistan, and go straight to Baghdad.

After laying out neo-conservative strategy and the "Bush Doctrine" of preventative war needed to go after these threats long before they materialize, Record examines the actual Iraq war itself and how well it achieved the goals set out by the administration. He points out that it's been a disaster so far, mostly because of one underlying problem: not enough troops to maintain security. Record shows that none of the major strategic goals were achieved, and President Bush has had to revise his war rationale to put the liberation of the Iraqi people at the top of the list - a rationale that many in the administration once said was not worth the lives of our troops.

But most importantly, Record shows how pursuing this neo-conservative strategy against target nations that may or may not be a threat in the future, has shifted focus away from the threat of terrorism which is real and imminent, and has weakened America's ability to fight it.

If you're wondering why President Bush diverted funding, and military and intelligence assets to Iraq before destroying al Qaeda in Afghanistan, "Dark Victory" is an excellent place to start finding out. It's well written, very concise (only 155 pages) and it's packed with everything you want to know - and need to know - about the disastrous foreign policy being practiced by the Bush administration.