Precis - Imperial Life in the Emerald City

283 Words2 Pages
Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. In Imperial Life in the Emerald City Chandrasekaran makes it his point to show us that favoritism, political clashing within our government, and personal agendas are not restricted to the confines of the United States. The detriment of the Green Zone within Baghdad was the result of favoritism and political favors. Those chosen to lead the restructuring of Iraq were certainly not done so based on experience or postwar planning capabilities (p.40), but mainly those with the correct party economic agendas (p.70,130). The CPA plan for Iraq didn’t consider the countries needs or past, just the republican bottom line, loyalty to the party (p. 221), and a free market balanced economy backed by foreign corporations (p.178). The CPA agenda was to create a likeness of the United States in the Middle East (p. 211), but ultimately all they accomplished was further entrenching occupational authority into day-to-day Iraqi operations. The CPA whether knowingly or inadvertently always put favoritism, loyalty, and perhaps even cronyism above all else. Chandrasekaran clearly dug deep into the trenches of both the Emerald City and Washington to be able to uncover such a vast amount of information about the American occupation of Iraq. Firsthand accounts and interviews seemed crucial in unveiling the republic political agenda in Iraq. The author’s focus on political favoritism and agenda is unwavering throughout the entirety of the book. With the breakdown of Imperial Life in the Emerald City by topic from industry to communications Chandrasekaran continues to pound into the reader connections between political agendas and their consequences in
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