INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Setback of the Century: 11 September Cracks on the Mirrors of the Iraq War, Fatih Abdulsalam, Xlibris, 254pp, £13.99 (paperback)

The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, Patrick Cockburn,

Verso Books, 230pp, £7.99 (paperback)

The Forever War: Dispatches from the War on Terror, Dexter Filkins, Vintage, 384pp, £8.99 (paperback)

The conception, gestation and birth of Iraq were filled with drama. From being mapped, to its mid-First World War invention as a British Mandate, via the coronation of King Faisal I (on his first visit to the country), and its coming of age as a fully independent kingdom in 1932, Western readers are aided in their understanding of this creation story by the relative familiarity of those Europeans who played leading roles in it: Mr. Sykes and M. Picot, Gertrude Bell, Sir Percy Cox, and T. E. Lawrence. For a short spell in the first quarter of the twentieth century Iraq was front-page news in Britain and, thanks in large part to Lawrence’s fame, also featured prominently on the letters pages.

For most of the period between independence and 1991 Iraq was one of the more overlooked nations in the Middle East. There were, naturally, some foreign business interests there, both before and after the coup of 1958, which saw the Hashemites ousted and butchered and the Republic of Iraq established. However, serious studies of the country’s politics and modern history were scarce; scholars who specialised in Iraq, whether local or foreign were even rarer. Today, long before the country has been made safe, let alone rebuilt, Iraq once again appears to be falling off the radar. Before it vanishes altogether, here are some titles to consider.All three books discussed here are written by journalists, two of them by Iraqis. The blurb for the most recent of the trio, Setback of the Century, in some ways holds out the promise of being the most interesting. Fatih Abdulsalam, an Iraqi journalist and novelist and long-term resident of London, describes returning to his home city of Mosul in 2003, three months after the start of the war. Abdulsalam – ‘servant of peace’ – is confronted by an American Army patrol. Nervous and hopelessly lost in the cultural milieu of the Middle East, the young soldier challenges the author, asking, ‘Where are you from? Why are you here?’ Abdulsalam’s gut reaction is laughter, struck as he is by the irony of being asked ‘Why are you here?’ by a foreigner. Later in the day Abdulsalam hears that an American patrol in the same street was hit by an explosion. While his laughter now rings hollow, Abdulsalam reflects on the encounter, which prompts him to write this rumination on the Iraq war.

Books about Iraq by Western journalists are legion, but those by Dexter Filkins and Patrick Cockburn are among the best. Filkins and Cockburn both covered the Iraq war for, respectively, the New York Times and the Independent, although Cockburn’s extensive knowledge of the country stretches back to the late 1970s. His book about Saddam Hussein, Out of the Ashes, co-authored with his brother Andrew, is still pertinent.

The prologue of The Forever War has Filkins in Falluja, in November 2004, moving through the city in the dead of night, with a unit of US Marines. To the confusion, intensity and fear are added those surreal moments that so often accompany war fighting. Even as voices call out from the loudspeakers on the minarets of the mosques exhorting the inhabitants to come out and fight the Americans, a small group of those Americans has wired up stadium-sized loud speakers:

It was AC/DC, the Australian heavy metal band, pouring out its unbridled sounds. I recognised the song immediately: Hells Bells, the band’s celebration of satanic power, had come to us on the battlefield. Behind the strains of its guitars, a church bell tolled thirteen times.

I’m a rolling thunder, a pouring rain
I’m comin’ on like a hurricane
My lightning’s flashing across the sky
You’re only young but you’re gonna die

The marines raised the volume on the speakers and the sound of gunfire began to recede. Airstrikes were pulverising the houses in front of us. In a flash, a building vanished. The voices from the mosques were hysterical in their fury, and they echoed along the city’s northern rim.

Allahu Akbar!’ cried one of the men in the mosques. ‘God is great! There is nothing so glorious as to die for God’s path, your faith and your country!’

Whether describing the horrors of combat or reflecting on the broader situation in which both he and Iraq find themselves, Filkins is a guide who takes one through the complex political terrain while avoiding the temptation to editorialise. There are plenty of thought-provoking stories here without adding more politics. Intensely personal, heart-wrenching and curiously beautiful, The Forever War is a potent and ultimately rewarding book.

Cockburn’s The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq opens thus:

It has been the strangest war. It had hardly begun in 2003 when President George W. Bush announced on 1 May that it was over: the American mission had been accomplished. Months passed before Washington and London realised that the conflict had not finished. In fact, the war was only just beginning. Three years after Bush had spoken the US military had suffered twenty thousand dead and injured in Iraq, ninety-five percent of the casualties inflicted after the fall of Baghdad.

More comfortable than Filkins in offering opinions where appropriate, Cockburn also writes with deep sensitivity and a first-hand knowledge of Iraqis that is, among Western journalists, peerless. There is no trick to Cockburn’s skill: he travels widely, meets people, listens to what they say, and reports to us. The easy writing style that pervades The Occupation belies the danger involved when Cockburn was writing this book and in large parts of the country to this day. A great, not an ordinary, book.

October 2012 marks the eightieth anniversary of a nominally independent Iraq. It is unlikely that locals will mark the occasion with dancing in the streets: it remains too dangerous to do so. On 1 July 2012 the Iraqi government issued their grim monthly statistics of violent deaths. The government total for June was a hundred and thirty-one, one fewer than the official figure for May but far fewer than the numbers produced by others who care to count the human cost of the continuing war in Iraq. AFP’s figure was two hundred and eighty-two dead; the Xinhua news agency list stated three hundred, while the Iraq Body Count said four hundred and fifty-seven civilians were killed in June. Iraq remains a broken, bitter and dangerous place. Each in its own way, these books can serve as guides, showing readers why this is the case.

Dearest reader! Our newsletter!

Sign up to our newsletter for the latest content, freebies, news and competition updates, right to your inbox. From the oldest literary periodical in the UK.

You can unsubscribe any time by clicking the link in the footer of any email you receive from us, or directly on info@thelondonmagazine.org. Find our privacy policies and terms of use at the bottom of our website.
SUBSCRIBE