Rating: 
Summary: The neoconservatives demonstrate an unpalatable arrogance
Review: As someone who has met him, I can assure you that Lawrence F. Kaplan knows shockingly little about the Middle East, and he has no business writing (or even co-writing) a book on Iraq. Indeed, practically everything predicted in this silly little book has turned out to be wrong. And it was just published last year.
Rating: 
Summary: understand the origins of the Iraq war planning
Review: I picked up this book because as the title states I wanted to learn how people in government or at least associated with some people in the government (Wolfowitz is a close friend of Kristol) justify this preemptive war.
Whether you agree with the war or not, this book is probably as close as you can get to have an extensive conversation with Wolfowitz about his reasoning for pushing the removal of Saddam through military means. If you think that oil is the reason for the Iraq war and every action by this government is regulated through the Halliburton front office, every page in this book will get your blood boiling. Just as in the official hearings or speeches by government officials, oil is not given as a reason for the war.
But if you are against the war and look for weaknesses in the political justification for the war, this book is a reference manual for building your arguments. It details the historical roots of the current government's foreign policy and cites the best examples (in their opinion) why Saddam has to be removed now and not 5 years later.
If you support the war, this book may give you additional arguments to support your case or will simply reinforce your opinion.
Written by Kristol, who has previously taught political science, and Kaplan, who is senior editor of The New Republic, this book is overall well referenced (contrast that to Ann Coulter's books) and an easy read for people interested in political sciences.
Rating: 
Summary: A Conservative perspective on invading Iraq....
Review: I read this book for information and to better understand the conservative position, thought, argument, and, for an overall insight on this subject matter.
The authors present their arguments well. They do support the invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam, destroy his internal "undemocratic ways", regime change to make the world safer without Saddam and the like.
Were the authors lack convincing points is in connecting the 9/11 incident to Saddam and/or any real terrorist networks. Also, although the argument is in support of invading the sovereign nation-state of Iraq, they fail to properly address the role of national sovereignty, domestic and international support or opposition, and international law.
I would recommend this book to readers who are interested in how conservatives view "the position" of invading Iraq. One doesn't have to support or oppose Kristol and Kaplan's arguments, only better understand their positions.
Rating: 
Summary: The View From The Past
Review: I wonder if the authors of this book have since gone back and read it to see how close they came to predicting the reasons for and the outcome of the Iraqi war, or at least its progress up to today? I admit that one of the reasons I picked up this book was to get a clear view of the pro war crowd thinking and to judge their views with the advantage of hindsight . I also wanted to read this book because the two authors are both know to excellent writers and not too shabby on the intellectual front. Yes they are both poster children for very far right conservative thinking, but how else are you to truly understand an issue unless to read all sides of the debate? Lastly I had heard that if you wanted to get a solid brief explanation of the way the Bush Team thought about the Iraqi war then this was the book to read.
Given that the authors are rather conservation, it was humorous to me, if not totally expected, that they were able to work in so many digs at all the favorite whipping boys of the right wing in relation to foreign affairs. Judging by the rhetoric of the book, France will be the next country invaded followed by the UN, the offices of the Democratic party and ending at the office of Bill Clinton. I wondered if the attacks on this diverse group were truly heart felt or were they just the standard playbook that the authors fell back on out of habit. What struck me was that about 50% of the authors argument for taking action in Iraq was that it was vital to the U.S. national interests and that the U.S. should do everything it can along these lines, but that the authors felt that France, using the same justification, was somehow beyond the pale and close to a tyrannical world bully. It was also surprising to me that they complimented the Truman and Wilson administrations so often and tried to tie in what the Bush 2 administration wanted to do in Iraq with what these two leaders did during the World Wars. I could not tell if they truly felt this way or if they were trying to add some legitimacy to the Bush argument.
The last section of the book spent a good amount of time beating up on many ex officials of the Bush 1 administration that came out against the war. The area that, what in hindsight is very ironic, the authors gave these ex officials the most grief on was their predictions of the aftermath of the war. It turns out that, at the current time, exactly the difficulties that were predicted have come to pass and the rosy predictions of a smooth transition from Saddam to democracy 101 is not taking place. Overall the book was well written and the views for the pro war constituents are laid out in a logical order. It turns out that the facts, as they have come out, make about 75% of this book incorrect although I do not think that makes this book any less valuable because it truly is the overview of the war sales campaign. If I had one complaint of the book was that it was maybe just a little too high level, Kenneth Pollacks book The Threatening Storm provides far more detail and is a little less rabid in its overt partisan view of the world. Given the book is short and can be had rather inexpensively, it is a nice addition to your Bush 2 collection.
Rating: 
Summary: Propaganda
Review: If you enjoy cocky prophecies gone wrong, read this book. I particularly liked the fragment on page 98, where Kaplan speaks of an international participation in the occupation of Iraq as a sure thing, and estimates the cost of the said occupation at $18 billion per annum. This propagandistic pamphlet is chock full of such wishful and completely wrong thinking. Not worth the (nice) paper it has been printed on...
Rating:
Summary: A blueprint for future foreign policy
Review: In "The War Over Iraq", Kristol & Kaplan present an excellent case for the use of pre-emptive force not only against Iraq but also against other nations that threaten American ideals and interests, both at home and overseas. They highlight the grievous actions of Hussein's regime and then proceed to detail the shortcomings of both George H.W. Bush's ("narrow realism") and Bill Clinton's ("wishful liberalism") foreign policy paradigms in dealing with Iraq.The crux of the book is their compelling argument, using the (George W.) Bush Doctrine ("American internationalism"), that the United States should pre-emptively strike Iraq. They fully explain the tenets of the Bush Doctrine, which is a viable model for dealing with threats in the post-9/11 world. Though the war with Iraq is already underway, do not be dissuaded from reading this work simply for that reason. The Iraqi situation is a real-world case study that helps explain the Bush Doctrine. This new paradigm is being tested right now and will be the method of engagement for US foreign policy for the forseeable future.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting if flawed
Review: Kaplan and Kristol add an interesting perspective to the debate over the war in Iraq. Their argument is that this war is definitely not about oil, and not just or even mainly about weapons of mass destruction. It is about liberating Iraq and making the world both more democratic and a safer place for democracy. It's a breezy, argumentative book, not really so much an attempt to convince opponents of the war as an attempt to stake a theoretical claim that something they call a distinctly American internationalism is what informs the Bush Administration's action against Iraq. Naturally, Clinton's Administration is targetted for particular contempt, but interestingly enough Bush I and even Reagan are also criticised as narrow realists. What's missing from this analysis is any sense of history and of how the US is perceived outside its borders--and even outside the Beltway. Not everyone is going to be able to accept the notion that the US should simply be trusted to do the right thing. The book's authors clearly have either no idea or--scarier still--no interest in how a book like this will be read by people who have either watched or experienced first-hand a less-than-idealistic USA in action. At the precise time of writing (Baghdad seems to have fallen today) and for the next few months, the Kristol/Kaplan theory will be riding high. But whatever this book claims, what they charitably consider to be activist idealism is not going to turn into doctrine. It won't because the US is always going to feel the need for the moral flexibility that realism offers. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is a catchy slogan, but will it be followed by, say, "Operation Uzbeki Freedom", aimed at liberating Uzbeks from a brutal and corrupt dictatorship in Tashkent that happens to be allied with Washington against radical Islam? Of course not. Nor is it going to be followed by "Operation Pakistani Freedom" or "Operation Zimbabwean Freedom". My own conclusion is that Kaplan and Kristol either do not really believe what they are arguing, or they are dangerously naive utopians, not unlike the dogmatists who steered the Kremlin into wild Third World adventures in the 1960s and 1970s. I suspect it's the former, and this book is mainly about raising the authors' own profiles for the next few months. Otherwise, someone as ideologically pure as Kristol claims to be would have resigned several times over in protest during the Reagan Administration (e.g. over Iran-Contra) and refused to serve under a realist such as George H W Bush. It's fascinating to watch just how far Kristol and Kaplan will go to make the evidence fit their theory. They ask us to believe, for example, that attacking Iraq today is akin to Kennedy's decision to quarantine Cuba. The fact that Kennedy was faced with a nuclear threat that could have unfolded in a matter of weeks, not years or decades as in the case of Iraq, seems lost on Kaplan and Kristol, who instead conclude that war on Iraq is further justified because Kennedy did consider a military option for a while. Amazing stuff. This book will naturally appeal to ignorant ideologues who seek confirmation of their reflexive militaristic instincts, but it is actually quite worthwhile for others to read too. Just keep asking yourself questions while you read it.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling on one hand...hypocritical on the other
Review: Kaplan and Kristol are "neo-conservatives." This group within the Republican party can be identified by their dislike of international organizations like the UN, dislike of the US State department, their professed love of democracy, and their willingness to use U.S. military power to achieve their international goals.
This book was written before the war with Iraq started. Staking out a claim like this before anything had happened was a bold move. As a result, the book made much more sense two years ago than it does today for a variety of reasons. The most prominent reasons why this book is somewhat outdated is the authors argument about WMDs and ties to Al-qaeda. We now know that these arguments were unfounded. What does that leave us with?
Democracy in Iraq. Yes, it's a noble goal, but when we put things in proper perspective, we can see how reckless neocon thinking really is. First of all when we look at what happened in Haiti during the last few years, we can see just how serious these people are about democracy. The president of Haiti was put on a plane to Africa and the country was handed back over to the same death squads that were terrorizing the country a decade ago, all with the help of the Bush administration. Where were the neocons then? Where the hell was Bush? For all of their talk about freedom...etc...democracy...it's all rhetoric. The worst part is that people like Bush will take advantage of the fact that most people don't know any better for their own political gain.
I give the book two stars because the authors do somewhat of a good job at describing Saddam's tyranny, but when they turn a blind eye to the fact that the U.S. supported Saddam during his worst crimes shows how useless these people really are.
Rating:
Summary: A Somewhat Revisionist History
Review: On a positive note, Authors Kristol and Kaplan do an admirable job of addressing the Iraq problem in the larger context of retracing the evolution of American foreign policy since the end of World War II. The authors discuss, albeit cursorily, the tension that existed throughout ten presidential administrations between the appropriate projection of American military power and the appropriate definition of an American "interest." The Realpolitik School, represented by the Carter, Nixon and first Bush Administrations' foreign policy conceptions, advocated that American power should only be used only when American interests are directly compromised; the Internationalist School, represented by the Kennedy, Truman and Reagan Administrations' foreign policies, defined "American interests" more broadly which resulted in American military intervention in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, and Panama to name a few. The 'Iraq Problem' since Saddam Hussein's ascent to power, as the book explains, has been treated differently by each administration depending upon its respective World view. Interestingly, the book delicately side-steps the Reagan Administration's complicity in Iraq's development of WMD during its 1980-88 war with Iran, although the authors do recognize the Reagan Administration attitude toward Iraq/Hussein as an enabling element in the 'Iraq Problem' that began with the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The authors do a nice job of chronicalling Saddam's crimes beginning in 1979. The authors remind us of Saddam's brutality, his genocide of the Kurds, and the panoply of reasons why Saddam is a horrible human being. The authors also remind us of the role played by several American administrations to enable Saddam, including that certain elements of the Bush I administration had advocated constructive engagement up the eve of the first Gulf War. This work's biggest failing is in its attempt to convince us that the present Bush Administration's policy towards Iraq culminating in the war that is currently winding to its conclusion as I write this was anything other than sheer opportunism produced by 9/11. The authors would have us believe that the Bush administration's post-9/11 foreign policy - a hybrid of classic Wilsonian internationalism with a moral focus, to paraphrase the authors - is the process of learned evolution rather than simply that certain neoconservative elements of the administration - Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumsfeld - seized upon an impotent opposition to advance their foreign policy agenda. While the authors recognize that the present administration's pre-9/11 foreign policy - to the extent one existed - was based upon the realpolitik view of American foreign policy (rather than neo-isolationism if anyone recalls Bush's criticisms of the Clinton foreign policy during the presidential debates), the authors' argument about its post-9/11 evolution is less-than convincing. The authors do nothing to prove that Iraq actually had WMD or that it actively abetted Al Qaeda which were the principle justifications for the war in the first place. Rather, the authors simply accept these as "facts" and proceed to justify the war based upon these accepted facts. With the military phase of the Iraq War drawing to a successful conclusion and the post-War administrative phase just beginning, we will witness the practical effect of the present Bush Administration's "noble" application of American military power. We forget that then-candidate Bush criticized the Clinton Administration for "national building" in former Yugoslavia and in Somalia. Now we face the task of effective administration of and 'national building' in post-Saddam Iraq. History will be the judge.
Rating:
Summary: Saddam and Michael Moore Should Marry in Massachusetts
Review: SADDAM HUSSEIN HUNG A PHOTO OF THE BURNING TWIN TOWERS IN THE LOBBY OF IRAQ'S REVOLUTIONARY COMMAND COUNCIL HEADQUARTERS. HIS NEWSPAPERS HAILED THE ATTACKS OF 911.
Here is what the anti-war crowd wants you to think now, spitballs from the peanut gallery that they are:
Regime change was a strategic blunder, Bush rushed to war, we've created more terrorists; the war is a quagmire; the USA is not any safer (oh, and Bush is the one exploiting our fears);
We need more troops (or maybe we need a complete pullout; get more foreign countries involved (oh, and the coalition only came together by coercion and bribery);
Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein; there were no weapons of mass destruction; the invasion was a diversion based on Western imperialism, neo-conservative chickenhawk delusion, and brainwashing by the Likud party in Israel.
Now for grown-up truths that that Kristol and Kaplan saw correctly:
The scum killing American soldiers NOW were trained by radical Islamic terrorists BEFORE 911. No pre-war intelligence agency from pro-Saddam countries (old Europe: France, Germany, Russia) disagreed with USA's pre-war intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Brilliantly, Bush is getting rid of the main problem in the Middle East: containment of both Iraq and Iran. In the Michael Moore/John Kerry worldview, the USA would now be trying to contain both Iraq and now Iran (six months away from being able to deliver a nuclear bomb). Libya (had the bomb and worked with Iraq) and Pakistan (had the bomb) are now boxed in.
As far as the USA's interests and foreign polucy mission is concerned, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were absolutely together in THEIR mission to destroy the USA.
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