middle east

Folks that are inclined to write this book off as conspiracy, because its sources are not always referenced have a fundamental mis-understanding of how intelligence comes together. The scope and depth of this account is almost overwhelming, and its a cold glass of water in the face for those who still believe that 9/11 was going to lead to a "War" on Terror along the lines of the "War" on Drugs.

Its been said that when one has been decieved it is never like a magic show where you laugh at the immediate realization that you've been tricked. It is a slow, creeping sense of dread when you begin to realize you've been had, and it quickly creates a bond between deceiver and deceived; one is reluctant to face the reality of the deception and the other is eager to reinforce that reluctance. The U.S. has been out maneuvered by our enemies plain and simple, and our naievete, our arrogance, the unwillingness of our adolescent-minded intelligentsia to put forth any case to the world for liberal democracy, and most significantly, the incredible failure of our risk averse intelligence apparatus are all to blame.

There has been very little in the way of serious honest writing and analysis on the war against muslim fascism over the past 18 months, and in fact much of it has been agit/prop poison (M. Moore, Chomsky etc.). Only a ham-handed cliche of an endorsement will suffice -"if you read only one foreign policy book this year, make it Bodansky's!!"

For those whose sole source for news and analysis is from the media -- don't read this book -- as it extensively relies on human intelligence, private sources, and many years of proven experience in reliably predicting events of existential import for the U.S. and its allies.
Bodansky's prescience accurately forecast the Bin Laden attack on the U.S. two years prior to September 11 and even then we found some rather dense people scoffing at the absurd thought of a Bin Laden attack on the U.S.

Bodansky's information is for the most part confirmed by the July 7, report of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence or not addressed at all due to admitted inadequate intelligence. This highlights, by the current and past U.S. administrations, the salient question of unsatisfactory attention to details, perhaps subordinated to perceived political necessities.
Bodansky elucidates the specter of an imperial Iran engaged in combat with the U.S. for control of the Levant and ultimately the energy producing Gulf countries. He clarifies the trap that the U.S. has entered and the predictable coalescing of Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq into a Shiite force reminiscent of ancient Persia.
Reacting to Bodansky, the ultimate word smith, is not to emulate an ostrich but to understand the jeopardy facing the U.S. and act, not politically nor subject to election campaign pressure, but with pragmatic solutions that offer hope to this catastrophe in which we are engaged.

Someone once said, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. Reading this book may partly explain of why one sometimes feels huge "disconnects" in political discussions: you meet people who not only don't agree on what our policies should be, but who assume a whole different set of facts.
What is annoying is that Bodansky doesn't feel any need to substantiate any of his astounding claims. (Most of this long, rambling book actually covers territory familiar to us all from reading the newspapers, but there are a few amazing assertions)
In one example of a startling-if-true story, Bodansky reports that a column of three hundred tanks, one hundred rocket launchers and "Iraq's entire WMD arsenal" supposedly left Baghdad, around the time the Americans were taking control of the airport, and made its way all the way across the country, some two hundred miles, to Syria. This was at a time when by other accounts American forces were searching from the air and effectively destroying every Iraq unit that came out into the open.
Bodansky made no effort to get a response to this story from any of the Americans, either troops, officers, or even spokespeople, on this huge failure to control the territory we had already gained. Supposedly this very long column of vehicles was seen by Apache helicopters, who were fooled by friendly markings, and the presence of a few captured American tanks, but, Bodansky makes no effort at all to pursue that aspect of the story. He claims to get much of his material from personal contacts, and yet he never seems to approach the people who we want to hear respond and comment on an episode like that. Imagine what a real investigative reporter would have done with a story like that!
Bodansky defends his avoidance of footnotes and references by claiming the need to protect his sources from being tortured to death. That might make some sense, but the problem here isn't the lack of a footnote, it's that the story is simply incredible. If it is true, it is mind-boggling. With no supporting detail, no follow-up or context, it sounds all too much like one of the false rumors that always spring up, complete with "eyewitnesses", on every battlefield, and are then bandied around for a while, now-a-days on the internet. Bodansky gives us no reason to believe it.
And in fact, nobody else believes it. Many people have discussed the "missing" WMD, since this book appeared, who would have loved to claim that they had all been taken to Syria. In fact, John Keegan, in his book on the war (he is a strong supporter of the war) mentions that David Kay referred in his report to some evidence that some WMD may have ended up in Syria. But he refers to this only in passing, not as an important factor in understanding the war. In his discussion of the Battle of Baghdad, Keegan mentions episodes involving columns of fifteen or so Iraqi tanks (they get destroyed), but no column of three hundred (and a hundred rocket launchers, etc) And the British and American administrations have not made any big deal out of this at all, as they would clearly want to do if there was any remotely substantial evidence.
In spite of its bulk, none of the rest of the book is any more substantiated than this episode. This book belongs on the conspiracy-theory shelf. If you believe Bodansky, you have to beleive that everyone else, in the media and in government, including enthusiastic supporters of the war, is systematically lying, and that Bodansky alone is giving you some teasing glimpses of the truth. I guess there are people who find that paranoid world-view attractive.