http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/793233046

Israel in the second Iraq War the influence of Likud

This book examines the second Iraq War on two levels. One: it focuses on the principal antagonists who engaged directly with each other over the war-- the ideologues grouped around Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon, and the officers of the old, Ba'thist-led Iraqi army, who sparked the resistance and kept it going through the crucial interval of the first two years. Both groups, the study finds, were aroused by extraordinary passions. The ideologues had a hidden agenda that they were determined to fulfill; the officers were set on exacting revenge for what the Americans had done to them personally, and to their country. On quite another level, the book looks at the interests that signed on early to support the war with the intent of reaping rich rewards, when (as they fully expected) the contest turned in America's favor. The second Iraq War, the book argues, should be seen as a kind of joint stock company venture. The war could not have gone forward without the support (material and otherwise) of a group of powerful individuals and parties in the United States and abroad, and, ironically, it's the failure of these backers now, six years into the war, to agree on a strategy that has caused the war to become bogged down. The parties, having had a falling out, are, in a manner of speaking, deadlocked over what to do next. The book speculates as to what is likely to come out of this debacle. It concludes that no matter what anyone may say (President Obama included), the United States is in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

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