War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars - Hardcover

Haass, Richard N.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416549021 ISBN 13: 9781416549024

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2009

Synopsis

A president of the Council on Foreign Relations compares the reasons behind the two Middle-East wars during the Bush administrations, drawing on senior-level interviews to argue that the first war was warranted while the second was not, in a critical assessment that examines U.S. policy today and what the author believes that policy should seek.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher. Until June 2003, Richard Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he was a principal advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell.Previously, Haass was vice president and director of foreign policy studies at The Brookings Institution.  He was also special assistant to President George Bush and senior director on the staff of the National Security Council from 1989 to1993.  Haass is the author of The Opportunity: America's Moment to Alter History's Course.  A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a B.A. from Oberlin College and Master and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Oxford University.

Reviews

Haass (The Opportunity), president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell, offers a combination of memoir and analysis on two wars that, he says, began in 1990: Desert Storm, the response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Haass describes Saddam's attack on Kuwait as undertaken in the face of U.S. efforts to persuade him to stand down. The 2003 war emerges as a consequence of 9/11, a radical initiative to oust Saddam and restructure the Middle East. In a pattern common to senior advisers without ultimate responsibility for decisions, Haass repeatedly describes perceptive memoranda ignored and perceptive insights rejected by those at the levers of power. He claims neither prescience nor precognition. Instead he presents himself as a realist and a moderate, preferring diplomacy to force while recognizing the necessary synergy of soft and hard power. Haass concludes that the first war succeeded because its limited aims were accomplished: Iraq was defeated and Kuwait's sovereignty restored. Whether or not Iraq eventually stabilizes, the second war ultimately failed because it was neither necessary, desirable nor just. Bungled execution only highlighted the waste of finite moral and material resources. Wars of choice are not inevitably mistaken, Haass concludes, but they are best avoided. (May)
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Given the recent elections and other positive gains in Iraq, it seems premature to call the Second Gulf War a disaster. However, there is an emerging consensus that the current war was unnecessarily launched and that the subsequent occupation was poorly planned and implemented. Haass served Bush I as senior director of the National Security Council from 1989 to 1983 and was director of policy planning for the State Department under Bush II. Privy to the planning and execution of both Gulf wars, Haass paints a stark contrast between them. He asserts that the first war was one of necessity, since diplomatic options had proved futile and Saddam Hussein’s control of Kuwait was a clear threat to our national security. He also illustrates how a patient, competent administration carefully got diplomatic ducks in a row before acting. Haass views the second war as one of choice, planned to transform the nature of regimes in the area. More disturbingly, he reveals an administration that, at the highest levels, refused to seriously consider alternatives to war. A devastating insider account. --Jay Freeman

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1416549021
• ISBN 13: 9781416549024
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352