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Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America's Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy
The dramatic insider account of why we invaded Iraq, the motivations that drove it, and the frustrations of those who tried and failed to stop it, leading to the most costly misadventure in US history. A single disastrous choice in the wake of 9/11-the decision to use force to remove Saddam Hussein from power-did enormous damage to the wealth, well-being, and reputation of the United States. Few errors in U.S. foreign policy have had longer-lasting or more harmful consequences. Yet how the decision came to be made remains shrouded in mystery and mythology. To this day, even the principal architects of the war cannot agree on it. Michael Mazarr has interviewed dozens of players involved in the deliberations about the invasion of Iraq and has reviewed all the documents so far declassified. He paints a devastating of portrait of an administration fueled by righteous conviction yet undercut by chaotic processes, rivalrous agencies, and competing egos. But more than the product of one bungling administration, the invasion of Iraq emerges here as a tragically typical example of modern U.S. foreign policy fiascos.Leap of Faith asks profound questions about the limits of US power and the accountability for its use. It offers lessons urgently relevant to stave off similar disasters-today and in the future.
438 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 19, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 4, 2020
A very effectively argued and urgent book from 2019 by a RAND analyst that provides one of the most compelling works on the Iraq War to date. Let's start with the main arguments. Mazarr's explanation for the Iraq War is more about emotion, culture, and psychology than ideas. He does not mention the Bush Doctrine, the "nexus" threat, or much in the way of neoconservatism. Rather, Mazarr places the ultimate root of the Iraq War in the missionary culture of the United States, the belief that the US has a special mission to carry its civilization and political system forth to the world . This reminded me a lot of Walter Mead's argument about "Special Providence." Mazarr claims that this impulse, which he imparts to both parties almost equally, combined with the panic and fear of the post-911 moment and the imperative for the Bush administration to stop terrorist attacks on the United States. Iraq was simultaneously a way for the US to demonstrate its will and ability to crush rogue states, a potentially threatening foe, and a regime that many US policy-makers and politicians had been somewhat obsessed with toppling since the PG War.
That's the first of Mazarr's major arguments. The second relates more to the shoddy decision-making and planning for the war. Mazarr fruitfully uses behavioral psychology and decision theory to show how a sense of rightness and necessity overwhelmed any process of responsible decision-making/planning. He also goes deep into the personalities and leadership styles of major players: Bush's incurious fixity of mind, Rumsfeld's bizarre mix of micro-managing, indecision, and bullying, Cheney's unwarranted certainty and exclusion of countervailing opinions, Franks' hyper-focus on the strictly military part of the war and ignoring of the reconstruction side, the absolute dilettantism and borderline fanaticism of neocons like Feith and Wolfowitz, Powell's loyalty above all-else, and Rice's failure to create a thorough, effective coordination of policy-making. Really, as Mazarr rightfully argues, these were all failures of the President; failures to support his national security advisor against the bullying hubris of Rumsfeld and Cheney, failure to pull in actual Iraq experts, failure to question assumptions (like what would happen if the exiles proved to have no legitimacy or competency as governing authorities, which should have been obvious and WAS to dozens of people). Much of this book is a familiar but convincing litany of the myriad failures of planning for Iraq, but what Mazarr really contributes is a clear sense of the myopia and irresponsibility of the planning process.
So what separates this book from the herd, so to speak? I'd say Mazarr's biggest contributions are A. His exhaustive set of high-level interviews that provide much deeper insight into the administration's planning and decision-making B. An interesting (if imperfect) grand explanation for the war. C. A thorough raiding of extant sources and D. a compelling conclusion that spells out a theory of "policy-making negligence," charting out a 4-part set of questions that can be used to evaluate whether a policy-making process if proceeding responsibly and realistically. I thought the concept of negligence is a really good standard for foreign policy leaders. Criminal responsibility and straight-up evil are rarely applicable, but negligence, even in just the policy process, if something that the American people have a clear right to expect from their people.
Still, I think there are productive criticisms to be made of Leap of Faith. Mazarr's sort of sub-rationalist account of the war neglects a deeper intellectual/strategic lineage that would include the democratic peace concept as well as America's reaction to the intertwined problems of rogue states, failed states, and transnational terrorist groups. I think he at least needs to talk about the Bush doctrine, the nexus problem, pre-emptive war and other key aspects of Bush's decision making process/rationale that I don't think were simply cover for a pre-made position. Furthermore, Mazarr doesn't give much of an explanation as to why the alternative to regime change-containment-became so widely discredited and was so unpopular in the 1990s. This is what my book is about (shameless self-promotion coming) . Lastly, I think Mazarr underestimates the significance of the neocons (or at least a set of obsessed Iraq hawks that had enormous power in the Bush administration) in bringing about the war. The neocons/Iraq Hawks (Wolfowitz, Feith, Rumsfeld, later Cheney) were absolutely crucial in putting Iraq on the table and keeping it there in late 2001 and early 2002, not just as a problem to be dealt with but as a war that would form the centerpiece of the response to terrorism. I think their role was absolutely crucial, and I struggle to see a similar group of Gore advisors, however relatively hawkish on Iraq they may have been, steering the policy ship so forcefully in that direction.
If I had to make a sort of "starting 5" for books on the Iraq War at this point, I'd go with Mazarr, George Packer's Assassin's Gate for the intellectual history, Ricks' Fiasco and The Gamble for the military history, Richard Haass' "War of Necessity/War of Choice" as the most thoughtful memoir from within the Bush administration, and and David Finkel's "The Good Soldiers" as the best journalistic account of soldiers' experiences. This of course leaves out numerous great books and memoirs, but I want to emphasize that Mazarr really deserves a spot on the shortlist of Iraq War books. This is a book by a scholar who really seems to love his country, who sees Iraq as a terrible tragedy rather than a manifestation of evil (I tend to agree but am torn), and who wants his country to do better.
That's the first of Mazarr's major arguments. The second relates more to the shoddy decision-making and planning for the war. Mazarr fruitfully uses behavioral psychology and decision theory to show how a sense of rightness and necessity overwhelmed any process of responsible decision-making/planning. He also goes deep into the personalities and leadership styles of major players: Bush's incurious fixity of mind, Rumsfeld's bizarre mix of micro-managing, indecision, and bullying, Cheney's unwarranted certainty and exclusion of countervailing opinions, Franks' hyper-focus on the strictly military part of the war and ignoring of the reconstruction side, the absolute dilettantism and borderline fanaticism of neocons like Feith and Wolfowitz, Powell's loyalty above all-else, and Rice's failure to create a thorough, effective coordination of policy-making. Really, as Mazarr rightfully argues, these were all failures of the President; failures to support his national security advisor against the bullying hubris of Rumsfeld and Cheney, failure to pull in actual Iraq experts, failure to question assumptions (like what would happen if the exiles proved to have no legitimacy or competency as governing authorities, which should have been obvious and WAS to dozens of people). Much of this book is a familiar but convincing litany of the myriad failures of planning for Iraq, but what Mazarr really contributes is a clear sense of the myopia and irresponsibility of the planning process.
So what separates this book from the herd, so to speak? I'd say Mazarr's biggest contributions are A. His exhaustive set of high-level interviews that provide much deeper insight into the administration's planning and decision-making B. An interesting (if imperfect) grand explanation for the war. C. A thorough raiding of extant sources and D. a compelling conclusion that spells out a theory of "policy-making negligence," charting out a 4-part set of questions that can be used to evaluate whether a policy-making process if proceeding responsibly and realistically. I thought the concept of negligence is a really good standard for foreign policy leaders. Criminal responsibility and straight-up evil are rarely applicable, but negligence, even in just the policy process, if something that the American people have a clear right to expect from their people.
Still, I think there are productive criticisms to be made of Leap of Faith. Mazarr's sort of sub-rationalist account of the war neglects a deeper intellectual/strategic lineage that would include the democratic peace concept as well as America's reaction to the intertwined problems of rogue states, failed states, and transnational terrorist groups. I think he at least needs to talk about the Bush doctrine, the nexus problem, pre-emptive war and other key aspects of Bush's decision making process/rationale that I don't think were simply cover for a pre-made position. Furthermore, Mazarr doesn't give much of an explanation as to why the alternative to regime change-containment-became so widely discredited and was so unpopular in the 1990s. This is what my book is about (shameless self-promotion coming) . Lastly, I think Mazarr underestimates the significance of the neocons (or at least a set of obsessed Iraq hawks that had enormous power in the Bush administration) in bringing about the war. The neocons/Iraq Hawks (Wolfowitz, Feith, Rumsfeld, later Cheney) were absolutely crucial in putting Iraq on the table and keeping it there in late 2001 and early 2002, not just as a problem to be dealt with but as a war that would form the centerpiece of the response to terrorism. I think their role was absolutely crucial, and I struggle to see a similar group of Gore advisors, however relatively hawkish on Iraq they may have been, steering the policy ship so forcefully in that direction.
If I had to make a sort of "starting 5" for books on the Iraq War at this point, I'd go with Mazarr, George Packer's Assassin's Gate for the intellectual history, Ricks' Fiasco and The Gamble for the military history, Richard Haass' "War of Necessity/War of Choice" as the most thoughtful memoir from within the Bush administration, and and David Finkel's "The Good Soldiers" as the best journalistic account of soldiers' experiences. This of course leaves out numerous great books and memoirs, but I want to emphasize that Mazarr really deserves a spot on the shortlist of Iraq War books. This is a book by a scholar who really seems to love his country, who sees Iraq as a terrible tragedy rather than a manifestation of evil (I tend to agree but am torn), and who wants his country to do better.
March 20, 2022
To better understand Putin's catastrophic invasion of Ukraine, I read Michael Mazzar's "Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America's Greatest foreign Policy Tragedy." If you couldn't guess, it's about the US's decision to invade Iraq.
Mazzar proposes that foreign policymakers can arrive at a decision through two dichotomous routes: a consequence driven approach or an imperative (moralistic) approach. A consequence driven approach reaches a decision by developing a set of clear goals, evaluating the risk, identifying ways to mitigate the risks and then weighing those against the policymakers' interests. An imperative driven approach reaches a decision based on a belief or feeling that a certain course of action needs to take place. In an imperative driven approach, inconvenient facts are ignored, critics are marginalized, and rhetoric rather than reason prevails. Decision makers are not consciously choosing one over the other but are instead responding to events.
As Mazzar documents in great detail, the decision to invade Iraq was the result of an imperative based approach that replaced the more typical consequence based process managed by the National Security Council (NSC). Why? The 9/11 attacks created an emotional environment that, in the minds of senior Bush administration figures, demanded expansive action: the war on terrorism.
The emotional impacts of 9/11, the feuding between the Defense Secretary and Secretary of State, the heavy hand of Vice President, the relatively light hand of the National Security Advisor, and a President who was both self-confident and uninterested in details resulted in what Mazzur calls "policy negligence." Or what others might call a $2.4 trillion self-inflicted clusterfuck that left somewhere between 110,000-210,000 Iraqi civilians dead.
Mazzar proposes that foreign policymakers can arrive at a decision through two dichotomous routes: a consequence driven approach or an imperative (moralistic) approach. A consequence driven approach reaches a decision by developing a set of clear goals, evaluating the risk, identifying ways to mitigate the risks and then weighing those against the policymakers' interests. An imperative driven approach reaches a decision based on a belief or feeling that a certain course of action needs to take place. In an imperative driven approach, inconvenient facts are ignored, critics are marginalized, and rhetoric rather than reason prevails. Decision makers are not consciously choosing one over the other but are instead responding to events.
As Mazzar documents in great detail, the decision to invade Iraq was the result of an imperative based approach that replaced the more typical consequence based process managed by the National Security Council (NSC). Why? The 9/11 attacks created an emotional environment that, in the minds of senior Bush administration figures, demanded expansive action: the war on terrorism.
The emotional impacts of 9/11, the feuding between the Defense Secretary and Secretary of State, the heavy hand of Vice President, the relatively light hand of the National Security Advisor, and a President who was both self-confident and uninterested in details resulted in what Mazzur calls "policy negligence." Or what others might call a $2.4 trillion self-inflicted clusterfuck that left somewhere between 110,000-210,000 Iraqi civilians dead.
July 22, 2019
Mazarr’s Leap of Faith is an exceptionally good history of the leadup to the Iraq War. Integrating psychological theories, detailed historical research, and multiple interviews with midlevel bureaucrats and policymakers engaged in the planning and execution of the Iraq invasion, this book offers a thorough and comprehensive examination of why the U.S. went to war and why the war went so poorly. Importantly, Mazarr remains even-handed throughout the book, avoiding the ludicrous conspiracy theories of the left while also never pulling punches when addressing the actions of the Bush administration. In the end, one is left feeling that the war was not some grand conspiracy but instead the product of Bush’s self-assurance and almost religious zeal regarding his role and the role of the United States in the world. The book benefits from Mazarr’s time working at OSD Policy and RAND, as he has a very detailed knowledge of the interagency process and connections to sources within the government that usually do not get asked their opinion. But while the analysis of American politics and policymaking is exceptionally good, the book tends to ignore the role of allies. This is not a significant problem for me, however, as that is not this book’s purpose and there are many other exceptionally good works on, for example, the British decision to support the invasion of Iraq. The book is also valuable for its conclusion, which offers a holistic assessment of the decision to invade Iraq and a framework for improving decisionmaking in the future. Instead of offering blanket condemnations and seeking out villans, the book offers important lessons for future policymakers faced with similarly vexing foreign policy conundrums. For me, at least, this is greatly appreciated.
August 9, 2019
When I first saw the title of this book "Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence and America's Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy," I expected a political hatchet job on the Bush Administration and its decision to invade Iraq. Hindsight is always 20-20 and it's easy to second-guess our leaders., I thought.
However, when I started reading this book I quickly realized that this was no politically-motivated hack job. It was a disturbing but balanced look at the process and people behind the decision to go to war.
Before reading this book, my view about the Iraq War was that the U.S. intelligence agencies simply got it wrong about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and this miscallculation led to an unnecessary war. However, Michael Mazarr's analysis led me to a much different realization. For me, the best summary of the war and this book was found in these words: "The larger truth is that these American officials had been fatally handicapped by the largest misjudgment of all; the idea that the United States could crash into Iraq, cobble together a government and get out, without major cost to itself or injury to the Iraqi people. This was the ultimate hallucination of the U.S. decision to invade: it was a product of a decision poorly made and poorly executed, and it fatally handicapped the often courageous and insightful American military and civilian leaders who tried to make the best of an unfolding disaster."
What is so tragic is that there were plenty of lower-level voices in the government who sounded the alarm but the top leadership in the White House and the Defense Department refused to heed the warnings until it was too late.
Perhaps what is most disturbing is the author's final quote from an unnamed senior official in the Bush administration who contended our "missionary thinking" is endemic to our system. "You know, it will happen again," he said. "We'll do it again."
We are still calculating the losses in lives and money associated with this mistake. I would hope future decision-makers will take the time to read this book before we find ourselves in another disaster of our own making.
However, when I started reading this book I quickly realized that this was no politically-motivated hack job. It was a disturbing but balanced look at the process and people behind the decision to go to war.
Before reading this book, my view about the Iraq War was that the U.S. intelligence agencies simply got it wrong about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and this miscallculation led to an unnecessary war. However, Michael Mazarr's analysis led me to a much different realization. For me, the best summary of the war and this book was found in these words: "The larger truth is that these American officials had been fatally handicapped by the largest misjudgment of all; the idea that the United States could crash into Iraq, cobble together a government and get out, without major cost to itself or injury to the Iraqi people. This was the ultimate hallucination of the U.S. decision to invade: it was a product of a decision poorly made and poorly executed, and it fatally handicapped the often courageous and insightful American military and civilian leaders who tried to make the best of an unfolding disaster."
What is so tragic is that there were plenty of lower-level voices in the government who sounded the alarm but the top leadership in the White House and the Defense Department refused to heed the warnings until it was too late.
Perhaps what is most disturbing is the author's final quote from an unnamed senior official in the Bush administration who contended our "missionary thinking" is endemic to our system. "You know, it will happen again," he said. "We'll do it again."
We are still calculating the losses in lives and money associated with this mistake. I would hope future decision-makers will take the time to read this book before we find ourselves in another disaster of our own making.
November 24, 2021
Very informative. Painted a clear picture of the Bush administration's highly experienced senior officials and the dysfunction and competition that existed between them, their departments: the DoD, NSC, and various intelligence agencies. The book lays out the reasons why the US wanted Saddam out, when that goal and realization began (much earlier than the Bush 2 presidency), the planning for phase III and IV, the reasons for what lead up to war, the postwar planning (or lack thereof) which added to the confusion and incoherence of the postwar reality which in large part lead to the destabilization of Iraq. There is a lot to learn from the Iraq war experience for both the reader and for our leaders from a historical perspective and with regard to potential future conflicts. I recommend this book and think Michael Mazarr did a great job here.
June 14, 2020
Mr. Mazarr succeeds in writing George Bush's Iraq war folly's version of The Best and the Brightest. A very sad read of so called leaders who decided for whatever reason to not take any time - any - to think things through. They proved the 7 Ps of management: Prior proper planning prevents piss poor performance. So many lives were ruined because of NO planning and no thoughts of if we really needed to go to war and what would happen after we invaded Iraq. Just a very sad read.
Read
November 11, 2019Full disclosure: The author is a friend, so I’m not giving stars. But if you’re looking for a sober analysis of the Bush Administration’s decision-making (if you can call it that) on going to war in Iraq, this is well-reasoned & readable. I may not agree with all his conclusions (Oil played no role?), but I don’t have a PhD in public policy. So you’re probably better off listening to him.
April 19, 2019
Shame on the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Media
Tragic failure of our constitutional form of governance, exceptionally well told and documented. Pray that we have learned our lesson.
Tragic failure of our constitutional form of governance, exceptionally well told and documented. Pray that we have learned our lesson.
August 24, 2021
oh boy! I had heard about this book after reading some other books about Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Yes. I had already read about these occurrences and events. The author does well in conveying the messianic complex that governs American behaviour in assisting a troubled-troublesome country. In so many ways the characters make Cotton Mather and Increase Mather seem like intellectual dwarves with the same results. Salem witch trials with hangings under the auspices of lies-jealousies-vanity and just plain ignorance. It is a horrifying story based on fact...whereas the Salem Witch Trials were based just plain religious and cultural stupidity. Nobody gets out of this story safe. From Saddam really destroying his WMD supply and not letting his close confidantes tell the truth to the members of the White House knowing that there was no there there. Regime change is the bastard child of politics. If one group is trying to change a regime than they have to be prepared that mebbe their regime will also be forcefully changed against there will. Its a good book but you wish is was science fiction.But its not.
Yes. I had already read about these occurrences and events. The author does well in conveying the messianic complex that governs American behaviour in assisting a troubled-troublesome country. In so many ways the characters make Cotton Mather and Increase Mather seem like intellectual dwarves with the same results. Salem witch trials with hangings under the auspices of lies-jealousies-vanity and just plain ignorance. It is a horrifying story based on fact...whereas the Salem Witch Trials were based just plain religious and cultural stupidity. Nobody gets out of this story safe. From Saddam really destroying his WMD supply and not letting his close confidantes tell the truth to the members of the White House knowing that there was no there there. Regime change is the bastard child of politics. If one group is trying to change a regime than they have to be prepared that mebbe their regime will also be forcefully changed against there will. Its a good book but you wish is was science fiction.But its not.
September 4, 2025
very important read. i came across this book through a review on the @thepsmiths substack and i decided to pick it up. here's an excerpt from the review that captures perfectly the main essence of the book:
"The second story comes from an anonymous source who described to Michael Mazarr, the author of this book, the basic occupation strategy that the National Security Council was settling on. The concept was that once you “cut off the head” of the Iraqi government, you would witness a “rapid and inevitable march toward Jeffersonian democracy.” What I find amazing about this is that nobody even stopped to think about the metaphor — how many things march rapidly and decisively after being decapitated?"
if you want to know how the "best and brightest" ignored the lessons learned from vietnam and bay of pigs and genuinely thought they could export democracy (jk the plan was to install a carefully vetted group of pro-america iraqi exiles who hadn't been in iraq for years and had 0 political capital there) into an alien country (by force?) then read this book. mazarr has done an excellent job.
"The second story comes from an anonymous source who described to Michael Mazarr, the author of this book, the basic occupation strategy that the National Security Council was settling on. The concept was that once you “cut off the head” of the Iraqi government, you would witness a “rapid and inevitable march toward Jeffersonian democracy.” What I find amazing about this is that nobody even stopped to think about the metaphor — how many things march rapidly and decisively after being decapitated?"
if you want to know how the "best and brightest" ignored the lessons learned from vietnam and bay of pigs and genuinely thought they could export democracy (jk the plan was to install a carefully vetted group of pro-america iraqi exiles who hadn't been in iraq for years and had 0 political capital there) into an alien country (by force?) then read this book. mazarr has done an excellent job.
Read
May 7, 2022Thoroughly documented and too true for most Americans to believe that the US intent regarding Iraq in 2003 was every bit as incompetent and delusional as Russia's thrust into Ukraine. Until we face what was done in our name in Iraq, we will have little understanding of how Russia could make the same errors and commit the same wrongs. Incidentally, the book clearly proves Stroesser's thesis that a major cause of war in the last 125 years has been out-of-touch leaders deluded by their own self-righteousness and grossly misjudging the power of their imagined rival's abilities and intent, often due to pre-existing cognitive prejudices.
February 2, 2024
Meticulously researched and engagingly written, this is one of the best books I have read in the Global Security field in a long time. Uses the time since the event to reassess a number of decisions (and nondecisions) along the way, and draws insightful nonpartisan, nonideological conclusions about what happened. Really, really good read
October 25, 2025
This is a sound, well-researched book on the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War. He presents a cogent, well-researched argument that the United States' planning process was dominated by egos and personalities and did not consider the persistent issues that have marked its history, e.g., the Sunni-Shia Divide.
July 22, 2024
Even more thrilled to take his class
December 1, 2024
You will live to see bureaucratic horrors beyond your comprehension
March 26, 2023
The book seems giving all the blame to the exiled Iraqi called Ahmed Chalabi.
According to this book, Chalabi guy manipulated entire Bush administration & the secretaries & the president just 'believed" his lies.
Not only that. This book claims the war was not a criminal action, rather just a TRAGEDY.
Ridiculous.
According to this book, Chalabi guy manipulated entire Bush administration & the secretaries & the president just 'believed" his lies.
Not only that. This book claims the war was not a criminal action, rather just a TRAGEDY.
Ridiculous.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews