Iraq starts to get grip on security

Career diplomat Sir Jeremy Greenstock, now chairman of London-based Gatehouse Advisory Partners and of Lambert Energy Advisory, is optimistic about Iraq's future

As security forces struggle to oust Islamic State (IS) from its outpost in Mosul, Iraq is elbowing its way back into the international headlines. The battle to retake the northern Iraqi city was approaching its ninth month as Petroleum Economist went to press. Iraqi forces, backed by US troops, were trying to dislodge a hard-core of jihadists from the west of the city. The parallels with the situation in 2003, as the US-led occupation forces swiftly swept aside Saddam Hussein, are plain—then, too, the question was what would come next. It's a question that Sir Jeremy Greenstock grapples with in his new book Iraq: The Cost of War. The book has been suppressed for 11 years by the British gover