America's Secret War

I just finished reading America’s Secret War by Dr. George Friedman. Dr. Friedman is the founder of Stratfor. Now, in all honesty, I had never heard of Stratfor in my life before reading this book, but the reviews of the book seem to make a big deal out of the company, which bills itself as a “security consulting intelligence agency” focusing in “strategic forecasting.”

The book endeavors to put the current situation of an American War on Terror in some historical and social context in order to understand what’s going on. The main focus of the book ends up being an explanation of the Iraqi war which has almost nothing to do with WMDs. At the risk of missing the point of the argument in an attempt to summarize it, I’ll see if I can give you the main drift. First of all, Friedman claims the United States has a reputation in the Middle East as a country that’s all talk and mostly tries to get other countries to do our fighting for us (as in the war in Afghanistan which was mostly accomplished with troops of the Northern Alliance through the aid of US Special Operations.) With that in mind, the US has been having a difficult time getting Middle Eastern nations to give us the help in routing out Al Qaeda, since the nations have a greater fear of what Al Qaeda has the ability to do than the power the US is able, or unable, to project in the region. This is particularly important with emphasis on some country’s loose control over their cache of nuclear weapons, and, perhaps even more importantly, Saudi Arabia’s refusal to crack down on Saudi financial support for Al Qaeda. Therefore, the US invasion, and subsequent occupation of Iraq was publicly justified with arguments of WMDs and Iraqi harboring of key Al Qaeda members, the former of which did, indeed have intelligence to suggest their existence, and the latter of which has played out true.

Of course, I cannot in a paragraph here convey the overarching themes of the book, which begins in the earliest days of the Cold War, and continues through present day. There is no doubt however, that it is the most comprehensive justification for the Iraqi war within the context of the larger war on terror. I highly suggest you read it.