November 04, 2005

Books

Neocon Men

The Assassins' GateAmerica in IraqGeorge PackerFarrar, Straus & Giroux, $25, 454 pp.

Andrew J. Bacevich

As the epigraph for his new book on the politics of America’s intervention in Iraq, George Packer has chosen a verse by the Arab nationalist poet Nizar Qabbani: “Dive into the sea, or stay away.” The poet’s charge aptly captures the thesis of The Assassins’ Gate: a great enterprise requires unequivocal commitment; to act half-heartedly is worse than not acting at all. (...)


 

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