The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq

by Kenneth M. Pollack

Book Overview

In The Threatening Storm , Kenneth M. Pollack, one of the world's leading experts on Iraq, provides a masterly insider's perspective on the crucial issues facing the United States as it moves toward a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375509283
• ISBN13: 9780375509285
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent case for invasion, but maybe not this one

I just finished reading The Threatening Storm, and Mr. Pollack makes a powerful and richly documented case for regime change in Iraq at the earliest feasible date. As he says, invasion does seem like the best of a set of bad choices, if it is done with the proper preparation. And there's the rub: in Pollack's terms, several essential elements are missing at the present moment to proceed with invasion:1) He sees it as essential that there is a sense that the war against Al Queda is well in hand. He specifically says that we should be beyond periodic alerts for terrorist attack in the U.S. Thank God I have plenty of duct tape.2) Also essential from his perspective is at least a ceasefire in the Iraeli-Palestinian conflict with real positive momentum towards a settlement. We have never been further from this, with no daylight showing between Bush and Sharon.3) The U.S. electorate must be prepared for the burden of nation building in Iraq. According to Pollack, this would involve an occupation of over five years, with at least 200,000 troops initially, tapering down to about 100,000 after five years, and with a semi-permanent presence of at least a division. He says the model must be Bosnia, not Afghanistan.These are, from his perspective, essential criteria for a successful outcome for an invasion of Iraq. I'll let you be the judge as to whether these have been met.(BTW, I think he would have advised focusing on these issues, rather than seeking Security Council support. His view of the fecklessness of the French is very prescient.)

Well written and more objective than most

The author clearly knows a lot about Iraq and the middle east. He makes a strong case that the choice is war now or war later, and that invading in the next year is the best of a bunch of bad choices. This case rests on a number of beliefs. The first is that containment (embargoes and weapons and inspectors) may not prevent Saddam from building nuclear weapons. The lack of faith in containment partially stems from the memory of a continuing Iraqi nuclear program after the Persian Gulf war, under the noses of UN inspectors noses, which was dismantled only after Saddam's son-in-law defected. The author also finds it unlikely that the UN and US can muster the will to effectively maintain containment for more than a year or two before Saddam backslides again, and seems worried that war may not be politically feasible in the future. Given past history, this seems sadly reasonable. Deterrance is frightening because Saddam has a long and bloody history of responding to perceived weakness at home with aggression abroad, by invading Iran, Kuwait (1990 and perhaps intending to in 1994) , and parts of Kurdistan. In addition, Saddam has always been strongly motivated by revenge and has blood grudges afainst Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, and the US. Covert action and the Afghan approach don't seem workable either (nobody really disputes that). Therefore, invading is the best of a bad set of choices. The book does a convincing job of justifying invasion; certainly it's a LOT more convincing than anything heard recently from the administration. However, it does nothing to convince me that the US needs to invade in the next month, just sometime before Saddam may get nuclear weapons (which the CIA estimated to be between 2004 and 2008 with an uninterrupted program began in 1998). And the book itself highlights the importance of having allies to assist in the reconstruction period. So why is the administration in such a hurry, and so disrespectful of world opinion and the world leaders that represent it? Regardless of how one feels about the issue, the book is well written by someone who has spent much of his life dealing with the problems. Reading it -- along with Kiddir Hamza's remarkable book "Saddam's bombmaker" -- has taught me alot more about this crucial issue than everything I've heard or read in the press over the past 5 years.

I protested against the war in 1991

In January of 1991, I marched around the White House with thousands of others, protesting the war with Iraq. Not a pacifist by any stretch, I felt the recommendations of Colin Powell to try sactions and containment had not been given a chance. Keeping troops to defend Saudi Arabia was fine with me; it just seemed that a focused multilateral effort to pressure Saddam would have resulted in the liberation of Kuwait without a war. I was wrong. As Kenneth Pollack clearly shows, containment would have never worked. As a policy to prevent Saddam from developing WMD, containment (coupled with inspections) has been a complete failure, due in part to various nations (i.e. France, Russia, China) circumventing the policy to serve their own economic self-interests. Pollack demostrates the implosion of containment in explicit detail. Those who proclaim that a U.S decision to go it alone and invade Iraq represents a defeat for multilateralism should wake up and smell the coffee; multilaterism died with the failure of containment. With containment off the table, Pollack leaves us with two choices: deterrence or invasion. Pollack claims a policy of deterrence will result in an Iraq with nuclear weapons and the ability to blackmail the world by threatening to nuke the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. That leaves us with invasion. But what if a threat to Saudi oil didn't threaten our economic interests? If the West and Japan pursued policies that drastically reduced our dependence on oil, deterrence might be an option. Pollack doesn't address this possibility at all. It is the one failing in an otherwise excellent book. Before reading it, I was on the fence. Not anymore.

Essential Reading for the Public Debate

Kenneth Pollack has provided essential background reading for every member of the public who wants to have an intelligent opinion on the question of what we should do about Iraq. If you're like me, you have a hard time remembering who did what to whom when and why it matters -- and the first section of "The Threatening Storm" is devoted to a brief (100 pages) summary of Iraqi history, from colonial government through Saddam's rise to power, US relations with Iraq, the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War and the tortured history of the UN sanctions. If you read only this much, you will at least understand why the containment/sanctions regime has failed (and has no realistic chance of being revived in any productive form).The second section of the book (another 100 pages) gives an overview of the situation today -- the massive police state run by Saddam, the nature of the threat he poses, and what other Persian Gulf states (and others in the area and in Europe) think of his regime. The description of Saddam's repressive policies and the threat he poses are both chilling (both more realistic and more scary than anything I have heard from our current Administration). The country-by-country overview of current attitudes toward Iraq and what US policy should be was particularly fascinating. Pollack carefully proceeds through each country, explaining their own particular interests in and policies toward Iraq, and how they wish the US to act. This section provides some very interesting perspectives that I have not seen elsewhere in the popular media, particularly on Jordanian, Syrian and Turkish interests.In the final 200 pages, Pollack turns to an analysis of US policy options. He carefully reviews all of the options, assessing their feasibility (the stumbling block of any renewed sanctions regime and of covert operations) and weighing the arguments pro and con. Pollack convinces me that the only real options are a fall back to "pure" deterrence (consisting of lifting the remaining sanctions, allowing Saddam to rebuild his military strength and eventually (soon) acquire nuclear weapons, while relying on the threat of US military intervention should he attempt to act beyond his own borders) or a full-scale invasion to remove Saddam and rebuild Iraq. As between deterrence and invasion, I wish that I could say that I think deterrence will work. I'm not excited about the US going to war -- ever -- and particularly not without an immediate provocation. I started this book looking to pick holes in the argument. But I have to confess that Pollack has convinced me that deterrence poses too many risks. Our Cold War deterrence of the Soviet Union is often cited as an example -- but what we deterred the USSR from doing was attacking the US. We did not deter them from Berlin or Prague or Afghanistan, nor did we keep them from meddling in any number of African, Asian and South American countries. Instead, Soviet nuclear weapons deterred *us* from intervening. Once Saddam ac

Another Perspective

If the current administration expects to galvanize Americans to support a full-scale military invasion of Iraq, this book will prove indispensable to that effort. As a liberal democrat, I had no intention of reading this book because I assumed (erroneously) that it was no more than an insidious cocktail of Bush hagiography, right-wing invective, and knee-jerk patriotism. I was completely wrong. This book is simply remarkable. My opinion of George W. Bush is still what it was (very low), but Pollack has shown me that even a broken watch is right twice a day. Unfortunately, people tend to gravitate toward material which supports previously held opinions. I fear that Pollack's book will be championed by those already in lock-step with other administration sycophants (i.e., Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Peggy Noonan). This book is too good for that sad fate and it would be a colossal mistake to relegate its readership to the choir.