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Rating: 
Summary: Fine explanation of why occupations fail
Review: This scholarly and fascinating book studies a previous occupation of Iraq, by the British Empire's rulers, and it shows how and why this occupation failed. British forces seized Iraq at the end of World War One and until 1932 successive British governments tried to rule it. To support this forcible occupation, Britain's ruling class used a network of self-serving deceptions. It believed, and wanted everybody else to believe, that the majority of Iraqis wanted British rule; that Iraqis would freely choose a pro-British government rather than a pro-Iraqi government; that it could divide Iraq into 'good' countryside and 'bad' city, 'good' Kurds and 'bad' Sunnis and Shia; that its desire to rule Iraq was selfless, nothing to do with the Empire's demands for Iraq's oil and for airbases; that the continuing violence and unrest were legacies from the Ottoman Empire, not responses to being occupied; and that withdrawal would lead to anarchy. The forms of the Empire's control shifted from annexation, to League of Nations mandate, to a treaty of alliance, to an advisory role, and finally to disengagement. But the British people were not fooled by the propaganda or by the shifting constitutional arrangements. Dodge writes of 'the long-running public hostility of British public opinion towards maintaining an interest in Iraq'. This anti-imperialism helped Labour to win the 1929 general election, but Labour in government failed to do what the nation wanted - withdraw immediately from Iraq.
Now Blair seems to want to repeat the dismal, costly and futile cycle. He follows Bush in rejecting the Iraqi people's demand for rule by Iraqis who win democratic elections. He denies the power and validity of nationalism, a nation's legitimate, democratic desire for sovereignty and self-determination. The people of Iraq have already defeated the Pentagon's effort to rule Iraq directly, and General Garner has been sacked. The Iraqi people have vetoed the State Department's effort to rule by courtesy of the returning exiles, and they have overturned Bush's proposal of rule by US-selected caucuses. Since 1990, US and British governments have forcibly occupied one country after another. But, as Dodge sums up, "Post-Cold War military interventions into failed or rogue states with the overt aim of reforming their political systems ... have been uniformly unsuccessful." These interventions all failed because intervening is wrong. The effort to run another country is not noble and selfless; it is immoral because it is undemocratic and anti-national, and it is bound to fail. Blair damns nationalism as old-fashioned and reactionary, but what could be more reactionary than waging an illegal war of aggression then trying to rerun the Empire? Only the people of a country can rebuild it. Outside interference always worsens the problem and delays a solution.
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