“War is a perpetual struggle with embarrassments.” —Colmar von der Goltz The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 480 pp., $26.00 George Packer’s The Assassins’ Gate aptly exposes the incompetence of the Bush administration’s occupation of Iraq. The author has traveled to Iraq many times to talk...
In the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush promised a more humble U.S. foreign policy. Five years later, that pledge has turned out to be nothing but disingenuous rhetoric used to contrast his campaign with the activist foreign policy of the Clinton-Gore administration. Of course, the Bush administration would claim that September 11 changed everything. ...