Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- October 31, 2017

Saddam Hussein, Wikimedia Commons

Mark Perry, American Conservative: How Saddam Hussein Predicted America’s Failure in Iraq

One of his top generals provides a window into the former dictator's mind.

In early 1917, during World War I, British general Sir Frederick Stanley Maude led an army of sixty thousand British and Indian soldiers from Basra up the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to Baghdad. His enemy was a Turkish army, some twenty-five-thousand strong, defending a province of what was then a part of the decrepit Ottoman Empire. Maude was hardly a creative campaigner (his troops called him “systematic Joe”), but then his conquest of Mesopotamia wasn’t much of a fight. “The Turkish Army that was recently before us,” he reported to his superiors, “has ceased to exist as a fighting force owing to its casualties, prisoners, demoralization and the loss of a large proportion of its artillery and stores.” Maude led his army into Baghdad on a prancing horse on March 11 and then, in the finest British tradition, issued a proclamation: “We come as liberators, not occupiers,” it said. The Iraqis thought otherwise.

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- October 31, 2017

America Never Understood Iraq -- Robert Ford, The Atlantic

The unseen costs of dethroning 'rocket man' -- Max Brooks, The Hill

“Everyone will become rich”: in China, the newly wealthy live in contrast with the old rural poor -- Nick Holdstock, Prospect Magazine

China's Vision of Global Leadership Takes Shape -- Jack Goldstone, RealClearWorld

Inside view of Myanmar’s Rohingya insurgency -- Carlos Sardiña Galache, Asia Times

Lithuania, Leery of Moscow, Spars With Belarus over nuclear reactor -- Reid Standish, Foreign Policy

It Seems Inconceivable That We’re Still Fighting In Afghanistan…And Yet Here We Are -- Jason Dempsey, Task & Purpose

The Catalan crisis: Is the contemporary nation-state in jeopardy? -- Patrick Lawrence, Salon

What Europe can do for the Western Balkans -- Vessela Tcherneva, ECFR

With new Wall of Grief, Russia grapples with Soviet crimes -- Julia Chapman, DW

In the new Cold War, Putin is employing Lenin’s counsel -- Kristofer Harrison, The Hill

Russia again casts a long shadow over Cuba -- Andreas Knobloch, DW

The War on Drugs: The Narco States of North America -- Earl Anthony Wayne, National Interest

OPEC who? US oil producers are moving into the Asian market -- Sri Jegarajah, CNBC

Is It Ever Really Appropriate to Use Nuclear Weapons? -- Rod Lyon, National Interest