Neighbors, Not Friends: Iraq and Iran After the Gulf Wars

by Dilip Hiro

Book Overview

This highly controversial and topical book provides the first full, balanced account of how Iraq cheated the UN inspectors on disarmament and how the US manipulated and infiltrated the UN inspection... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415254124
• ISBN13: 9780415254120
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 422 Pages
• Weight: 1.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

All the more revealing after the 2003 Iraq war

One of Dilip Hiro's last balanced books on an academic press before he moved onto write rants for Nation books, Neighbors, Not Friends is a more valuable book now because it provides a wealth of information on the events that contributed to the 2003 Iraq war as well as the political climate in Iran that produced Ahmadinejad. After an introduction that recaps the 80s and very early 90s, the book is divided into two sections, one for each country. While Hiro focuses somewhat on domestic Iraqi affairs, the first half of the book deals mainly with the ongoing conflict between Iraq and the United States. This of course centers around Iraq's weapons programs and the US-led inspections process. This part of the book shows just how much gray area there really was on this particular issue. In a mostly fair way, Hiro describes Iraq's attempts to foil the US and maintain some sort of weapons program, and the US's attempts to go beyond the intent of existing UN Security Council resolutions to force Saddam Hussein from power. Even though this book was written and published before 9/11, one can't help but feel a sense of inevitability about the 2003 war. When you think about the shock of 9/11 and then look at Hussein's behavior since his invasion of Kuwait, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the US wouldn't tolerate his presence in the Gulf. The US certainly isn't without fault, but read this book and then ask yourself the question "What did Hussein ever do to earn the benefit of the doubt?" The answer is, not much. The relationship between Iran and the US is studied somewhat in the second half of the book, but Hiro mostly focuses on the internal politics of Iran and the presidencies of Rafsanjani and Khatami. Hiro provides a great amount of detail into how Iranian politics functions, and in the case with the first half of the book, it provides a sense of inevitability that a more hardline figure would succeed Khatami. My only issue with this book is that it feels like two separate books sandwiched together. The title of the book gives the impression that Iraq and Iran are to be discussed in concert with each other, or that the book is about the relationship between the two countries during the 90s. This however is not the case. The book is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy of Iraq-centered books by Hiro that also include The Longest War, and From Desert Sheild to Desert Storm. Unfortunately, judging by the quality of his decidedly more ideological books written since Neighbors, Not Friends, it appears that Hiro is incapable of writing a much needed fourth book covering events from 2001 onward that can live up to the high standard he set for himself with earlier works.

Ages like a good wine

I bought this book while preparing to write on political changes in Iraq during 2003. It was one of many. At first it seemed somewhat biased in its tone (pro Saddam), when compared to the rest of the bunch but it was well written, with a lot of background research visible. As time passed, most of the reasoning in it got validated, unlike a good portion of the official mumbo jumbo.Made me want to read some more of Dilip Hiro!

Fine rebuttal of Bush and Blair's war propaganda

This deeply researched and extremely well-informed book by Dilip Hiro, the noted expert on the Middle East, presents a most useful survey of the recent changes in Iraq and Iran. It is especially timely since it refutes Bush and Blair's war propaganda. Hiro notes that the 1991 war against Iraq killed from 57,600 to 62,600 people, and cost Iraq $200 billions' worth of damage. US and British bombers dropped 140,000 tons of bombs, equivalent to seven Hiroshimas. He points out that the UN's weapons inspection team, Unscom, was compromised by the US government which illegally inserted CIA operatives and by its co-operation with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. As the Pentagon stated, "information supplied by the monitors had played a part in the careful selection of targets" for the subsequent continual bombing attacks. Hiro reports that by April 1998 Unscom and the International Atomic Energy Authority had destroyed all Iraq's missiles, chemical weapons and nuclear weapons facilities. As Martin Indyk, the US assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, confirmed in September 1999, "We do not at this point have evidence of any kind that Saddam Hussein is attempting to rebuild his arsenal." So how, after twelve years of the most punishing sanctions in history, could Iraq produce weapons of mass destruction? If Bush and Blair had the evidence, they would surely have told us! Some claim that UN Resolution 687 gives the US the legal warrant to take `all necessary measures' to change Iraq's regime. But the Resolution guaranteed the inviolability of the Iraq-Kuwait border and authorised `all necessary measures to that end in accordance with the Charter'. It "does not talk about getting rid of leadership", as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan observed. And as the British commander in the 1991 war, General Peter de la Billiere, noted, he had no mandate to invade Iraq or to take over the country. Nor did Resolution 688 authorise military action: the US and British governments tried to add the `authority to use force', but China and India successfully opposed this. So Bush and Blair have no legal mandate for war.