Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal - Hardcover

Arnove, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1595580794 ISBN 13: 9781595580795

Publisher: The New Press, 2006

Synopsis

Three years after the start of the war in Iraq, violence and misery continue to plague the country, and conservatives and liberals alike are struggling with the question of when―and under what circumstances―U.S. and coalition forces should leave. In this cogent and compelling book, Anthony Arnove argues that the U.S. occupation is the major source of instability and suffering for the Iraqi people. Challenging the idea that George W. Bush has ever been interested in bringing democracy to the country―as well as the view held by many on both sides of the political spectrum that it would be more damaging to leave prematurely―Arnove explores the real reasons behind the invasion. He shows why continuing the occupation is both a wildly unrealistic and reckless strategy, one that is making the world a more dangerous place.

Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal concludes by laying out a clear vision for the antiwar movement, one that constructively involves soldiers, military families, and the many communities affected by the occupation, who together, Arnove argues, can build the needed coalition to bring the troops home.

Nearly forty years ago, historian, activist, and bestselling author Howard Zinn―whose foreword and afterword frame Arnove's book―published Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal, which argued with remarkable foresight that getting out of Vietnam was the only realistic option. Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal will likely prove equally prescient.

About this title

About the Author

Anthony Arnove is the editor of Iraq Under Siege and co-editor, with Howard Zinn, of Voices of a People's History of the United States. His writing has appeared in the Financial Times, The Nation, Mother Jones, Monthly Review, Le Nouvel Observateur, Z Magazine, and other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

Three years into the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the dire predictions of the prewar opposition have proved remarkably prescient, notes activist, writer and editor Arnove (Voices of a People's History of the United States) in this impassioned, categorical argument for immediate withdrawal. But today's broad sentiment against the war—including the opinions of Americans who explicitly align themselves with an antiwar movement—remains deeply divided on the question of pulling U.S. forces out right away. Arnove, whose book title pays homage to historian and colleague Howard Zinn's classic foray into the Vietnam War debate, accordingly offers a point-by-point challenge to the assumptions underlying arguments accepted by war skeptics for supporting (however reluctantly) an increasingly bloody occupation. His clearly written, well-sourced anti-imperialist critique identifies fear, racism, religiosity, hunger for oil and a "civilizing" pretense behind the Bush administration's rhetoric on the Iraq war and places the conflict in a historical, economic, political and ideological context. Arnove's persuasive reasoning and summaries of relevant events (with two eloquent bracketing essays by Zinn) will prove an invaluable resource to antiwar voices, if unlikely to change adamantly prowar minds. (June)
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Edition details

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1595580794
• ISBN 13: 9781595580795
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 184