Regular Swampland readers know how much I respect the Pentagon analysis filed by Fred Kaplan of Slate. Kaplan's new book Daydream Believers is excellent and devastating, not just on the Iraq war, but also on the Bush Administration's fantastic devotion to anti-missile defense and its first term refusal to negotiate with the North Koreans. Kaplan is also terrific on the depredations of former Rumsfeld assistant Douglas Feith, who also has a new, rather obese book out trying to justify his lethal foolishness. I'd love to see Kaplan review it somewhere--a Cliff's Notes version of Feith's greatest whoppers would be a small, but essential, public service. But go, please, and buy Kaplan's book. His great work deserves attention and reward.
Patrick Cockburn's Iraq obsession puts my tiny 5-year jones to shame. He's been out there for two decades and really knows the place and the players, which makes his new biography of Muqtada Sadr essential reading, especially now. I haven't finished it yet--last few chapters to go--but it seems eminently fair and very well-informed so far and I decided to include here and now because of the events on the ground in Mesopotamia.
Speaking of which, I agree with Kevin Drum's assessment of today's New York Times piece about the mysterious Mr. Sadr...especially the part where Kevin confesses that he's not quite sure what's going on. My suspicion is that Sadr sees more hope in the October elections than in a military confrontation with the U.S. and Badr Corps right now. Also fascinating that the Iran seems, for the moment, to be taking sides with its more tradition partner--the Hakim Shi'ite faction--and against the militias that Crocker and Petraeus, Bush and McCain were so convinced were Iran's cat's paw in Iraq. It's always good to remember that while the Sadr family stayed in Iraq during Saddam's reign, the Hakims lived in Iran and their militia--the Badr Corps, now melted into the Iraqi Army, were organized and served as part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
It's a classic policy conundrum: Sadr is more anti-American, but Hakim is more pro-Iranian. Short-term Sadr is a real problem--especially those Sadrist elements that are lobbing mortars into the Green Zone and setting bombs to kill American troops. Long term, though, the Hakim faction may be crucial in the further empowerment of Iran in the region. (Time.com, April 20, 2008)

"Author Fred Kaplan offers an insightful analysis of what he sees as the unrealistic hopes at the root of President George W. Bush's problematic foreign policy in the Mideast" [and calls his arguments] "strong." (Boston Globe, April 12, 2008)

"[Kaplan] sheds new light on the important part played by certain advisers within the Bush White House, while explicating several pivotal and perplexing matters concerning the administration’s decision-making process.... illuminating... incisive." (The New York Times, March 18, 2008)

"A lively and entertaining -- if occasionally horrifying -- read, it offers a cautionary tale for any administration and for the men and women who hope to serve in one...master archaeologist who can see through the shards and stones of a dig to reconstruct the culture of the city below." (Washington Post, March 16, 2008)

America’s leaders have gone from hubris to waking fantasy, according to this caustic critique of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Kaplan (The Wizards of Armageddon) argues that the Cold War’s end and 9/11 persuaded President Bush and his advisers to unilaterally impose America’s political will on the world, while remaining blind to the military and diplomatic fiascoes that followed. Rumsfeld’s "Revolution in Military Affairs," a doctrine touting supposedly omnipotent mobile forces and high-tech smart weapons, convinced Pentagon officials that Iraq could be pacified without a large force or a reconstruction plan. Bush abandoned Clinton’s diplomatic rapprochement with North Korea, then stood by as Kim Jong-Il built nuclear weapons. And imbued with a "mix of neo-conservatism and evangelism" that was peddled most flamboyantly by Israeli ideologue Natan Sharansky, Bush backed clumsy pro democracy initiatives that backfired by bringing anti-American and sectarian groups to power in the Middle East. Eschewing Kaplan’s favored approach of fostering international security through alliances and consensus building, Bush assumed that "by virtue of American power, saying something was tantamount to making it so." The particulars of Kaplan’s indictment aren’t new, but his detailed, illuminating (if occasionally disjointed) accounts of the evolution of the Bush administration’s strategic doctrines add up to a cogent brief for soft realism over truculent idealism. (Feb.) (Publishers Weekly, November 12, 2007)