A nation must think before it acts.
Moderator
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, FPRI assembled a group of its scholars to assess the war and what lessons must be drawn to guide future American policy. Three of our scholars (Dave Danelo, Sam Helfont, and Mike Noonan) are veterans of the war, having served in the Marines, the Navy, and the Army, respectively. Notably, Helfont is writing his dissertation, drawing on the 2 million Iraqi documents that were captured in that war and will provide unique insights into the internal thinking of the Iraqi leadership; Danelo is author of Blood Stripes: a Grunt’s View of the War in Iraq; and Noonan blogs regularly for both FPRI’s Geopoliticus and the US News and World Report. Rounding out the panel will be Barak Mendelsohn, a student of the Middle East and Islamic studies; and Ed Turzanski, who has extensive experience in the US intelligence community, with service in the Middle East and Central Asia. The discussion will jump off from a prophetic article by James Kurth, published in 2004, under the title “Iraq: Losing the American Way.” One of the nation’s leading strategic thinkers, Professor Kurth will also join us for this discussion, which will be moderated by Walter McDougall, a Pulitzer Prize winning historian who chairs FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West, and is himself a veteran of the Vietnam War.