Recent BooksNovember/December 2019 205help avoid a repetition o those blunders
and misdeeds. Ironically, Mazarr himsel is
unable to pinpoint when and how the
decision to go to war was made. But his
story is an important one, and well told.Ill Winds: Saving Democracy From
Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and
American Complacency
BY LARRY DIAMOND. Penguin Press,
2019, 368 pp.If We Can Keep It: How the Republic
Collapsed and How It Might Be Saved
BY MICHAEL TOMASKY. Liveright,
2019, 288 pp.Diamond and Tomasky, both longtime
students o democracy, have produced
similarly impassioned works on the
current democratic crisis. Diamond’s view
is global, describing the worldwide slide
toward authoritarianism over the past two
decades. Tomasky focuses on what is
happening in the United States, tracing
the country’s current woes back almost to
its founding. The global trends Diamond
chronicles predate the election o U.S.
President Donald Trump, but his analysis
rests heavily on his “anguished knowledge”
o what the Trump presidency means for
governance around the world. By contrast,
Tomasky writes that “most o this book
could have appeared just as it now stands”
no matter who won the 2016 election.
Notwithstanding such dierences, both
authors identify the same ultimate saviors:
not politicians or legal or constitutional
changes but, in Diamond’s words, “the last
line o defense: ‘We the People.’”
Diamond compellingly traces a
“twelve-step program” that autocrats use
to solidify their power. But he inÁates the
conventional military threats that thequestion, “What are we trying to do
here?” They must be deeply versed in
the other side’s history and present
interests, demonstrate steely patience,
and know that the precondition for a
successful negotiation is “victory for both
sides.” Kissinger’s insightful conversa-
tions with Lord, a veteran diplomat who
worked as a close aide to Kissinger, are
refreshingly stripped o the formal
language o a published memoir, allowing
his insights to shine through.
Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and
America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy
BY MICHAEL J. MAZARR.
PublicAairs, 2019, 528 pp.
Mazarr begins with the pundit George
Will’s assessment that the decision to
invade Iraq in 2003 was “worse than
Vietnam, and the worst in American
history.” Yet, he notes, we still don’t know
when or how the decision to go to war was
made: our understanding o why this
catastrophe took place is “radically incom-
plete.” His attempt to close the gaps puts a
great deal o the story into one thoroughly
researched and eminently readable
volume. Mazarr attributes the decision to
invade to a characteristically American
“missionary impulse” combined with
“intuitive, value-driven judgment.” That’s
a polite way o saying that the war was
conceived by men and women who,
although not evil, were so sure in their
convictions regarding a country about
which they knew hardly anything that they
excused themselves from rigorous thought
about what they were doing and why they
were doing it and indulged in egregious
distortions o the facts regarding Iraq’s
weapons programs. It’s not obvious that
there are lessons in this sorry tale that will