Download or read book The Struggle for Iraq s Future written by Zaid Al-Ali and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Westerners have offered interpretations of Iraq’s nation-building progress in the wake of the 2003 war and the eventual withdrawal of American troops from the country, but little has been written by Iraqis themselves. This forthright book fills in the gap. Zaid al-Ali, an Iraqi lawyer with direct ties to the people of his homeland, to government circles, and to the international community, provides a uniquely insightful and up-to-date view of Iraq’s people, their government, and the extent of their nation’s worsening problems. The true picture is discouraging: murderous bombings, ever-increasing sectarianism, and pervasive government corruption have combined to prevent progress on such crucial issues as security, healthcare, and power availability. Al-Ali contends that the ill-planned U.S. intervention destroyed the Iraqi state, creating a black hole which corrupt and incompetent members of the elite have made their own. And yet, despite all efforts to divide them, Iraqis retain a strong sense of national identity, al-Ali maintains. He reevaluates Iraq’s relationship with itself, discusses the inspiration provided by the events of the Arab Spring, and redefines Iraq’s most important struggle to regain its viability as a nation.
Download or read book My Year in Iraq written by L. Paul Bremer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-01-09 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "BAGHDAD WAS BURNING." With these words, Ambassador L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer begins his gripping memoir of fourteen danger-filled months as America's proconsul in Iraq. My Year in Iraq is the only senior insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In vivid, dramatic detail, Bremer reveals the previously hidden struggles among Iraqi politicians and America's leaders, taking us from the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the White House Situation Room and the Pentagon E-Ring. His memoir carries the reader behind closed doors in Baghdad during hammer-and-tongs negotiations with emerging Iraqi leaders as they struggle to forge the democratic institutions vital to Iraq's future of hope. He describes his private meetings with President Bush and his admiration for the president's firm wartime leadership. And we witness heated sessions among members of America's National Security Council -- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice -- as Bremer labors to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq. He admires the selfless and courageous work of thousands of American servicemen and -women and civilians in Iraq. The flames Bremer describes on arriving in Baghdad were from fires started by looters. One of his first acts was to request an additional 4,000 Military Police to help restore order in the streets. For most of the next year, as the insurgency spread, Bremer resisted efforts by generals and senior Defense Department civilians to reduce American troop strength prematurely, replacing our forces with ill-trained, poorly led Iraqi police and soldiers. And he lays to rest the myth that the Coalition disbanded Saddam's army, a force comprised of Shiite draftees who had deserted and refused to serve under their former Sunni officers. Bremer also describes his frustration with intelligence operations that concentrated on the search for weapons of mass destruction while the insurgency gathered strength. Bremer faced daunting problems working with Iraq's traumatized and divided population to find a path to a responsible and representative government. The Shia Arabs, the country's long-repressed majority, deeply distrusted the Sunni Arab minority who had held power for centuries and had controlled the detested Baath Party. Iraq's non-Arab Kurds teetered on the brink of secession when Bremer arrived. He had to find Sunnis willing to participate in the new political order. Some in the U.S. government pushed for what Bremer would come to call a cut-and-run policy that would have quickly delivered governance of Iraq to a handful of unrepresentative anti-Saddam exiles. Bremer vigorously resisted this ill-conceived course. He takes the reader inside marathon negotiations as he and his team shepherded Iraq's new leaders to write an interim constitution with guarantees for individual and minority rights unprecedented in the region. My Year in Iraq is required reading for all those interested in the real story of how America responded to its gravest recent overseas crisis.
Download or read book My Year in Iraq written by L. Paul Bremer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-11-21 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An American pro-consul assigned by George W. Bush to direct the reconstruction of Iraq presents a firsthand account of the year he spent there, from his initial shock at the region's underreported devastation and his efforts to write a constitution to protect civil rights to his struggles to provide basic supplies while countering the forces of the Kurds, Shia, and Sunnis. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.
Download or read book The Struggle for Iraq s Future written by Zaid Al-Ali and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unbarred account of life in post-occupation Iraq and an assessment of the nation's prospects for the future
Download or read book The Struggle for Iraq written by Thomas M. Renahan and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2017-06 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Struggle for Iraq is a vivid personal account of the Iraqi people’s fight for democracy and justice by an American political scientist. Thomas M. Renahan arrived in southern Iraq just three days before the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Later he worked in Baghdad through the dark days of the country’s sectarian violence and then in Iraqi Kurdistan. One of the few Americans to serve in all three major regions of Iraq, he spearheaded projects to develop democratic institutions, promote democracy and elections, and fight corruption. With inside accounts of two USAID projects and of a Kurdish government ministry, this engrossing and cautionary story highlights efforts to turn Baathist Iraq into a democratic country. Renahan examines the challenges faced by the Iraqi people and international development staff during this turbulent time, revealing both their successes and frustrations. Drawing on his on-the-ground civilian perspective, Renahan recounts how expatriate staff handled the hardships and dangers as well as the elaborate security required to protect them, how Iraqi staff coped with the personal security risks of working for Coalition organizations, and the street-level mayhem and violence, including the assassinations of close Iraqi friends. Although Iraq remains in crisis, it has largely defeated the ISIS terrorists who seized much of the country in 2014. Renahan emphasizes, however, that reconciliation is still the end game in Iraq. In the concluding chapters he explains how the United States can support this process and help resolve the complex problems between the Iraqi government and the independence-minded Kurds, offering hope for the future.
Download or read book What We Owe Iraq written by Noah Feldman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do we owe Iraq? America is up to its neck in nation building--but the public debate, focused on getting the troops home, devotes little attention to why we are building a new Iraqi nation, what success would look like, or what principles should guide us. What We Owe Iraq sets out to shift the terms of the debate, acknowledging that we are nation building to protect ourselves while demanding that we put the interests of the people being governed--whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, or elsewhere--ahead of our own when we exercise power over them. Noah Feldman argues that to prevent nation building from turning into a paternalistic, colonialist charade, we urgently need a new, humbler approach. Nation builders should focus on providing security, without arrogantly claiming any special expertise in how successful nation-states should be made. Drawing on his personal experiences in Iraq as a constitutional adviser, Feldman offers enduring insights into the power dynamics between the American occupiers and the Iraqis, and tackles issues such as Iraqi elections, the prospect of successful democratization, and the way home. Elections do not end the occupier's responsibility. Unless asked to leave, we must resist the temptation of a military pullout before a legitimately elected government can maintain order and govern effectively. But elections that create a legitimate democracy are also the only way a nation builder can put itself out of business and--eventually--send its troops home. Feldman's new afterword brings the Iraq story up-to-date since the book's original publication in 2004, and asks whether the United States has acted ethically in pushing the political process in Iraq while failing to control the security situation; it also revisits the question of when, and how, to withdraw.
Download or read book The Endgame written by Michael R. Gordon and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Wall Street Journal Best Nonfiction Book of 2012 In this follow-up to their national bestseller Cobra II, Michael Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor deftly piece together the story of the most widely reported but least understood war in American history. This stunning account of the political and military struggle between American, Iraqi, and Iranian forces brings together vivid reporting of diplomatic intrigue and gripping accounts of the blow-by-blow fighting that lasted nearly a decade. Informed by brilliant research, classified documents, and extensive interviews with key figures—including everyone from the intelligence community to Sunni and Shi’ite leaders and former insurgents to senior Iraqi military officers—The Endgame presents a riveting chronicle of the occupation of Iraq to the withdrawal of American troops that is sure to remain the essential account of the war for years to come.
Download or read book What Kind of Liberation written by Nadje Sadig Al-Ali and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "There is something to learn, literally, on every page here."--Cynthia Enloe, from the foreword "This is a fluent and highly informed account of the women of Iraq during a time of ever increasing political turmoil, economic disaster and foreign invasion. It gives a fascinating insight into the way Iraqi society really works and is far superior in quality to most of what has been written about Iraq in war and peace."--Patrick Cockburn, author of Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq
Download or read book The Future of Iraq written by Liam Anderson and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reordering Iraq is the lynchpin of America's successful involvement in the Middle East. The challenge may be impossible. The Future of Iraq provides a primer on the history and political dynamics of this pivotal state divided by ethnic, religious, and political antagonisms, and provocatively argues that the least discussed future of Iraq might be the best: Managed partition. Anderson and Stansfield incisively analyze the dilemmas of American policy. They suggest that even a significant American presence will not stabilize Iraq because it is an artificial state and its people have never shared a common identity. In addition the legacy of tyrannical rule and the primacy of political violence is eroded social bonds and entrenched tribal allegiances, fallow ground for democracy. They provide the basic information and the provocative analysis crucial to informed debate and decision.
Download or read book Return to Ruin written by Zainab Saleh and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of exiles’ accounts “[uses] the stories as springboards to discussing Iraqi history, politicization, and diasporic experiences in depth” (International Journal of Middle East Studies). With the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraqis abroad, hoping to return one day to a better Iraq, became uncertain exiles. Return to Ruin tells the human story of this exile in the context of decades of U.S. imperial interests in Iraq—from the U.S. backing of the 1963 Ba’th coup and support of Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1980s, to the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 invasion and occupation. Zainab Saleh shares the experiences of Iraqis she met over fourteen years of fieldwork in Iraqi London—offering stories from an aging communist nostalgic for the streets she marched since childhood, a devout Shi’i dreaming of holy cities and family graves, and newly uprooted immigrants with fresh memories of loss, as well as her own. Focusing on debates among Iraqi exiles about what it means to be an Iraqi after years of displacement, Saleh weaves a narrative that draws attention to a once-dominant, vibrant Iraqi cultural landscape and social and political shifts among the diaspora after decades of authoritarianism, war, and occupation in Iraq. Through it all, this book illuminates how Iraqis continue to fashion a sense of belonging and imagine a future, built on the shards of these shattered memories.
Download or read book Muqtada Al Sadr and the Fall of Iraq written by Patrick Cockburn and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book about Muqtada al Sadr, the most important political figure in post-occupation Iraq. Muqtada has become the kingmaker of Iraq and a force that is indispensable to any Iraqi government: the Mehdi Army, his devoted militia, now rules half of Baghdad. Far from being the 'firebrand cleric' portrayed in the western media, he is an astute and experienced politician who struggles to lead an anarchic mass movement that he only half controls. In a compelling narrative, award-winning war correspondent Patrick Cockburn charts the rise of Muqtada, and has written an essential book for our understanding of Iraq's future. Cockburn has reported from Iraq since 1977, often at great personal risk, and Muqtada al Sadr and the Fall of Iraq combines first hand accounts of his investigations with vivid and dismaying descriptions of the civil war that is tearing the country apart.
Download or read book The Struggle for Kirkuk written by Henry D. Astarjian M.D. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-05-30 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seldom in history has a nation engaged in war without knowing the enemy, as the United States has in Iraq. This book explores, through real life stories, the social and political dynamics at play in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan before the rise of Saddam Hussein. Kirkuk is a hotly contested oil city—a time bomb with the potential to shatter the fragile hope for unity in Iraq. In this book-half memoir, half history—Iraqi-American physician Henry Astarjian reveals the turmoil of life under Communism then as a political prisoner in a death row cell in Iraq and a military prison in Baghdad. Told from an eyewitness perspective, his book gives the history of Iraq through the life of one of its most volatile towns, through the eyes of a citizen who witnessed death, kidnapping, corruption, political indoctrination, and open murder in the streets. Originally a Jewish enclave, Kirkuk was home to Jews, Kurds, Armenians, Turks, and Communists—diverse peoples whose uncommon experiences contributed to the broader political tensions of the 1958 Revolution that brought Saddam Hussein to power. This book is the story of the demographic diversity of this city, its political currents leading to the demise of the Royal regime of Iraq. It is the story of colonial Britains, Kurds, Turkomans, Assyrians, pre-emigration Jews, and post-genocidal Armenians, all living together in peace but with deep-seated animosities. Directly or indirectly they all were involved in surreptitious battles for control over Baba Gurgur, the oil fields of Kirkuk. Henry Astarjian was both a witness to and a victim of most events of this period. The book also explores the influences that the British, through the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), had in shaping Iraqi society. This book goes beyond the obvious in detailing the Soviet attempts to gain access to Baba Gurgur through its surrogates, the Communists, and their efforts to recruit the budding youth. It also tells the story of the author's incarceration and torture in a death row cell, at the hands of his childhood friend Adnaan Al-Azzawi, an avowed Communist. The demise of the Hashimite Dynasty in Iraq in 1958, which led to Communist takeover of the country, touched Astarjian's life personally. His incarceration with the Ba'th leaders in Al-Rasheed Military Base, gave him a special look at their psyche and a negative sense for the future of Iraq; that, influenced his decision to leave the country. Finally, the book pursues the psychological effects the Iraqi defeat in Palestine (1948) had on the Iraqi person and the Armed forces. It details the on-the-spot formation of the Iraqi Free Officers movement (whose founders later became the author's prison mates) who, a decade later, waged a coup against the Hashimite regime.
Download or read book Iraq s Future written by Toby Dodge and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is hard to over estimate what is at stake in Iraq today. The removal of Saddam Hussein�s regime in April 2003 has proved to be the beginning, not the culmination, of a long and very uncertain process of state-building. This Adelphi Paper examines this process from a military, political and sociological perspective. Possible futures for Iraq are charted, first by studying the evolution of the criminal and politically-motivated violence that has come to dominate the everyday lives of ordinary Iraqis. The paper then details the strengths and weaknesses of the political structures built after the fall of Saddam�s regime, from the formation of the Iraqi Governing Council in 2004 to the elections of January 2005, and traces the forces driving political mobilization in post-Saddam Iraq. It concludes by analyzing the ramifications of regime change for US policy and the wider Middle East.
Download or read book Iraq 100 written by Hassan Blasim and published by Tordotcom. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of NPR's Best Books of 2017! A groundbreaking anthology of science fiction from Iraq that will challenge your perception of what it means to be “The Other” “History is a hostage, but it will bite through the gag you tie around its mouth, bite through and still be heard.”—Operation Daniel In a calm and serene world, one has the luxury of imagining what the future might look like. Now try to imagine that future when your way of life has been devastated by forces beyond your control. Iraq + 100 poses a question to Iraqi writers (those who still live in that nation, and those who have joined the worldwide diaspora): What might your home country look like in the year 2103, a century after a disastrous foreign invasion? Using science fiction, allegory, and magical realism to challenge the perception of what it means to be “The Other”, this groundbreaking anthology edited by Hassan Blasim contains stories that are heartbreakingly surreal, and yet utterly recognizable to the human experience. Though born out of exhaustion, fear, and despair, these stories are also fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance, and woven through with a delicate thread of hope for the future. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book The Iraq Study Group Report written by Iraq Study Group (U.S.) and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2006-12-06 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the findings of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which was formed in 2006 to examine the situation in Iraq and offer suggestions for the American military's future involvement in the region.
Download or read book The Iran Iraq War written by Pierre Razoux and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 679 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1980 to 1988, Iran and Iraq fought the longest conventional war of the twentieth century. The tragedies included the slaughter of child soldiers, the use of chemical weapons, the striking of civilian shipping in the Gulf, and the destruction of cities. The Iran-Iraq War offers an unflinching look at a conflict seared into the region’s collective memory but little understood in the West. Pierre Razoux shows why this war remains central to understanding Middle Eastern geopolitics, from the deep-rooted distrust between Sunni and Shia Muslims, to Iran’s obsession with nuclear power, to the continuing struggles in Iraq. He provides invaluable keys to decipher Iran’s behavior and internal struggle today. Razoux’s account is based on unpublished military archives, oral histories, and interviews, as well as audio recordings seized by the U.S. Army detailing Saddam Hussein’s debates with his generals. Tracing the war’s shifting strategies and political dynamics—military operations, the jockeying of opposition forces within each regime, the impact on oil production so essential to both countries—Razoux also looks at the international picture. From the United States and Soviet Union to Israel, Europe, China, and the Arab powers, many nations meddled in this conflict, supporting one side or the other and sometimes switching allegiances. The Iran-Iraq War answers questions that have puzzled historians. Why did Saddam embark on this expensive, ultimately fruitless conflict? Why did the war last eight years when it could have ended in months? Who, if anyone, was the true winner when so much was lost?
Download or read book Syria Iraq and the Struggle for Power written by Hayder al Khoei and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Syrian government facilitated the flow of extremists and foreign fighters through its territory, permitting them to use Syria as a transit point for jihad in Iraq following the US-led invasion in 2003. It was a process aimed at undermining the US project. Nouri al-Maliki’s authoritarian policies in Iraq, coupled with US, Gulf Arab and Turkish support for militants in Syria, enabled jihadists across both Syria and Iraq to exploit local Sunni grievances and the security and political crises to strengthen their hold and eventually declare the so-called Islamic Caliphate. The confused and contradictory policies of the Obama administration in Syria and Iraq further complicated the crises. The rise of ISIS provided Iran, already the most influential external actor in domestic Iraqi affairs, with an opportunity to play a more hands-on role in the war against jihadists and increase their leverage in Syria and Iraq. Iran played a decisive role in turning back the tide against opposition forces in Syria. The push back was later given a strategic revival with Russia’s direct military involvement in Syria in September 2015, but it was initially bolstered by a Lebanese and Iraqi Shia deployment in the summer of 2012. With all eyes now on the military campaign to liberate Mosul, many Iraqis remain deeply concerned over Iraq’s post-ISIS future. The establishment of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) has permanently changed the political and security landscape in Iraq. Many groups within the PMF will capitalize on their battle field successes and translate that to increased political power following the defeat of ISIS. Others will shy away from the formal political process, preferring to remain independent security players that will resist any attempt to demobilize or integrate them into the security services.
