The following article appears in the 25th anniversary issue of World Policy Journal. For the month of November, read the entire 25th anniversary issue, fall 2008, for free!
On September 23, 2003, just six months after the American invasion of Iraq began, President George W. Bush went before the United Nations General Assembly to announce that he was prepared to make “the greatest financial commitment of its kind since the Marshall Plan” in order to help rebuild Iraq. At the same time, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, the top American civilian administrator in Iraq, was delivering the identical message to the Senate Appropriations Committee, telling the senators that America intended to do for Iraq what it had done for Europe following World War II.
In the five years since President Bush delivered his Marshall Plan speech, America has yet to restore basic services to many parts of Iraq, but the hope of providing the Middle East with foreign aid that will change it continues on. In his new book, A Path Out of the Desert, Kenneth Pollack, director for Persian Gulf affairs on President Clinton’s National Security Council, makes a passionate case for an American grand strategy in the Middle East that puts foreign aid front and center. Continue reading…
