May 21, 2006
Saddam's Delusions--and the Delusions of "Realism"
For the past three years, we've heard that Saddam Hussein could be"deterred" because he was a rational calculator whose actions could in effect be predicted by decision theory.
This essay, "Saddam's Delusions," in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs is a concise demolition of that view, based on the 230-page report of the Pentagon's US Joint Forces Command's (USJFC) Iraq Perspectives Project. In conjunction with the final report of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group (ISG)--and standard histories such as Kenneth Pollack's The Threatening Storm--we now have in hand a full rebuttal to the"Saddam as rational actor" thesis. There was, frankly, enough evidence to rebut it before the ISG or JSJFC set foot in Iraq, but never mind.
Incidentally, I recently blogged about an important article on Iraqi WMD by James Lacey, the USJFC-IPP report's second author.
This essay, "Saddam's Delusions," in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs is a concise demolition of that view, based on the 230-page report of the Pentagon's US Joint Forces Command's (USJFC) Iraq Perspectives Project. In conjunction with the final report of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group (ISG)--and standard histories such as Kenneth Pollack's The Threatening Storm--we now have in hand a full rebuttal to the"Saddam as rational actor" thesis. There was, frankly, enough evidence to rebut it before the ISG or JSJFC set foot in Iraq, but never mind.
Incidentally, I recently blogged about an important article on Iraqi WMD by James Lacey, the USJFC-IPP report's second author.