Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

"The war in Iraq is far from over. The conduct of the war to date has exposed Washington’s failure to grasp the profound differences between the United States and the Arab and Muslim world. Put simply, America fought the war in English, in a region that marches to Arabic drums. The United States has repeatedly demonstrated the most basic misunderstanding of the Iraqi theater, the intricacies of he Iraqi population, and the role of Islam in shaping regional events and grassroots militancy. … While a majority of the American government and public considered the war in Iraq an effort to disarm Saddam Hussein, the entire Arab and Muslim world saw it differently. And today, while the United States is attempting to shape a postwar government in Iraq, the Muslim world is preparing for a fateful jihad over the shape of the postwar world. … The conflict to come will be a total war for all involved.
-- Yossef Bodansky, The Secret History of the Iraq War (New York: ReganBooks, 2004): intro.

No review. Just a remark or two. I read on this when I need a break from Reformation studies. (The late medieval period in Europe and modern Iraq have much in common, actually: Warlords, fiefdoms, shifting allegiances, no real “state” or “nation” as we understand the term today.) The Secret History outlines just how determined the Bush administration was to go to war in Iraq – come hell on earth or high water in the Euphrates. All the last-minute “attempts” to avoid war – on both sides, to be fair – were to set up strategies for winnowing friends from enemies after the fighting. The book also outlines just how alone the United States is in the insane idea that democracy can be installed anywhere – and how alone we are in this fight.
--ER

About the author:
“Yossef Bodansky has been the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare for more than a decade. He is the longtime director of research at the International Strategic Studies Association and senior editor for the Defense and Foreign Affairs group of publications. Bodansky has been a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, as well as a former senior consultant for the U.S. departments of Defense and State. The author of the number one New York Times bestseller Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, he makes his primary home in Washington, D.C., and travels extensively to the Middle East and around the world."

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