Dispatches from Baghdad

After spending two years in Baghdad's Green Zone as his first post, a young embassy officer left Iraq (and the State Department) to try his fortune in Paris. Here are some of the musings Christian Isely — who doubles as a development economist and an aspiring writer of fiction and non-fiction — wrote privately during his time in Mesopotamia.

• Paris Dispatch: America’s Manpower Deficit in Iraq
• Final Baghdad Dispatch: Post-Imperial Blues and Iraqi Sovereignty
• Baghdad Dispatch: The Banality of Bureaucracy: Organizational Failure in Iraq
• Baghdad Dispatch # 30: Leaving Iraq After Two Years in the Green Zone
• Baghdad Dispatch # 25: Middle Eastern Revolutions?
• Baghdad Dispatch # 24: Success and Sacrifice
• Baghdad Dispatch # 23: The Conditional Republic and the Babylonian Captivists
• Baghdad Dispatch # 22: To the West Bank
• Baghdad Dispatch # 21: From Iraq to Lebanon
• Baghdad Dispatch # 1: Freedom is not a phrase just thrown around but sincerely uttered and meant