Ambassador Chas W. Freeman Jr.is one of America's most brilliant, experienced and witty diplomats. "America's Misadventures"starts with his previously unpublished reflection on Pres. George H. W. Bush's handling of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis of 1990-91. (He was U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia at the time.) In the thoughtful essays that follow, Freeman reflects on the origins of Washington's many intelligence failures in the Middle East, "the American way of war," and Washington's failure in recent decades to plan for a stable ...
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Ambassador Chas W. Freeman Jr.is one of America's most brilliant, experienced and witty diplomats. "America's Misadventures"starts with his previously unpublished reflection on Pres. George H. W. Bush's handling of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis of 1990-91. (He was U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia at the time.) In the thoughtful essays that follow, Freeman reflects on the origins of Washington's many intelligence failures in the Middle East, "the American way of war," and Washington's failure in recent decades to plan for a stable political end-state for the wars it has so cavalierly launched. As Prof. William B. Quandt notes in his Foreword: there is much to learn about old-style diplomacy here, and much to regret that Freeman s views seem so radical from the perspective of today s highly politicized discourse about this crucial region."
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