Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq

“Chilling—and often scathing—detail . . . Should be read by anyone interested in understanding why the United States’ quick military victory has given way to an increasingly virulent insurgency.”—The New York Times

In the fall of 2003, Stanford professor Larry Diamond received a call from Condoleezza Rice, asking if he would spend several months in Baghdad as an adviser to the American occupation authorities. Diamond had not been a supporter of the war in Iraq, but he felt that the task of building a viable democracy was a worthy goal. But when he went to Iraq, his experiences proved to be more of an education than he bargained for.

Squandered Victory is Diamond’s provocative and vivid account of how the American effort to establish democracy in Iraq was hampered not only by insurgents and terrorists but also by a long chain of miscalculations, missed opportunities, and acts of ideological blindness that helped assure that the transition to independence would be neither peaceful nor entirely democratic. And in a new Afterword for the paperback edition, Diamond shows how the ongoing instability in Iraq is a direct result of the shortsighted choices made during the fourteen months of the American occupation and the subsequent Iraqi interim government.

“A forceful and detailed critique of the invasion’s aftermath. . . . A searing indictment.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Larry Diamond has a flair for making incisive points at the right moment. . . . [Squandered Victory] explodes with the frustrations he felt working for the U.S. occupation.” —The New Republic