So said an anonymous American soldier surveying a decimated French village in 1944, as quoted by Max Miller in The Far Shore. The weapons of war may change, but the death and destruction do not.
As this magazine goes to press, U.S. and U.K. forces are marching on Baghdad with an avowed goal of liberating Iraq. The run-up was confusing, bitter and divisive. Assuming the coalition wins and ousts Saddam Hussein, what will the aftermath be like -- for Iraq, the region and the world? The answers are not easy, and certainly not obvious; the fog of war shrouds its consequences as well.
What follows in this special report is a variety of possible outcomes -- from an analysis of the impact that frayed diplomatic relationships may have on the advancement of free trade to a close reading of how France’s efforts to enact critical economic reforms have become mired in domestic and, ironically, global politics.
The insights gleaned by Institutional Investor‘s staff writers and guest commentators are illuminating and often disturbing. Clinton counterterrorism chief Steven Simon warns that the war may touch off a “second jihadist terror,” and former New York Times Middle East correspondent Youssef Ibrahim fears that the effort to topple Saddam Hussein may backfire by producing regime changes among pro-Western Arab states. Economists naturally disagree on the war: Lehman Brothers’ John Llewellyn says that a satisfactory conclusion to the war could trigger a 10 percent market rally, while Morgan Stanley’s Stephen Roach worries that a feel-good “victory recovery” will worsen dangerous global economic imbalances.
