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Two weeks ago I started writing a piece recommending Kenneth M. Pollack’s
book, The Threatening Storm, and by the time I got back to it, the
war was over.

Nonetheless, this is the most important book to read for an explanation
of why it was important for the U.S. to invade Iraq rather than try to
depend on inspections, why it needed to be sooner rather than later, and why
we should stay and rebuild Iraq rather than leave the Iraqis to sort it out.

Pollack has spent most of the past fifteen years studying Iraq, as an
analyst for the CIA, as a member of the National Security Council, and in
private think tanks. His book consists of three parts.  Part I reviews
Iraq’s history, Saddam’s history, and the past 12 years of our "containment"
policy.  Part II examines the current state of Iraq (as of last year -
the book was released in September). Part III steps through each of our
policy options.

As I noted in this article, Saddam is a bad
man who, given an opportunity, does bad things. He wants to be the leader of
the entire Arab world and has invaded Iran and Kuwait to try to achieve
that. The development of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons are steps
toward achieving this ambition. The Coalition halted his invasion of Kuwait
and installed a containment regime based on inspections and strict sanctions
on the kinds of goods that Iraq could import. This containment regime has
eroded over the past several years due to illegal smuggling, cat-and-mouse
games played with the inspectors, and the effective bribing of France,
Russia, and China via the oil-for-food program instituted by the U.N. to
help avoid a humanitarian disaster.

In a key section, Pollack describes the problems with relying on
continued inspections. The first inspection organization (UNSCOM) was much
stronger than the organization (UNMOVIC) in operation last fall, and yet it
failed to discover WMD programs that were later exposed by Iraqi defectors.
France, Russia, and China have actively worked to reduce the effectiveness
of inspections, because of their economic contracts with Saddam.  Those
countries might be willing to strengthen the inspections if the alternative
was a U.S.-led invasion, but we cannot afford to pay for an invasion force
to sit poised for a sufficient amount of time to disarm Saddam. In addition,
our allies in the region (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.) would not be willing to
host our armies for as long as it would take.

Since containment is failing without hope of recovery, the alternatives
are stepping back to a posture of deterrence–hoping that the threat of our
invasion will deter a nuclear-armed Saddam of the future–or attempting to
remove Saddam from power.  Pollack works through three routes to regime
change: covert action (a coup attempt by the CIA), war by proxy (the Afghan
Approach), or a full invasion. I won’t give all the details here; it’s worth
your while to read the book yourself. Suffice it to say that the only option
Pollack thinks has much chance of success is the full invasion.

Pollack also addresses the aftermath of invasion.  How shall Iraq be
reconstructed? We can cobble together some sort of power-sharing arrangement
between the various interests in Iraq, and then leave as soon as possible. 
Or we can stay for the long term (five to ten years) helping the Iraqis
establish "a government that could represent the will of the Iraqi people."

Whether or not you support the war, each of us has a responsibility to
find out what we can about the issues of the day.  This is especially
true for those of us who take a stance on the issues. This book is required
reading for those who are concerned about American policy toward Iraq.

NOTE: With this article, I am inaugurating an occasional series of
book recommendations. (I just signed up to be an Associate for Amazon.)
You can
buy this book at Amazon.com.