First, Cambodia was not, in 1991, a failed state. I found that most of its primary organs worked reasonably well, other things being equal. There was no anarchy, no brutal police state, and no war by October. Trade was conducted at all levels, fuel was available for commerce, and capital city hospitals were functioning at varying levels. Second, shortcomings in the operation were not UNTAC's fault, but the fault of the Paris Peace Agreement. This vessel carried peace not for Khmers in the first instance, but for the Perm-5's concerns, specifically the United States and China, regarding their relations with Viet Nam. It was not UNTAC's fault that they could not conduct an unfeasible (in practice) mandate. More importantly, the statement reflects a simplistic analysis of the peace process in and above Cambodia and seems to reflect a notion of Western superiority and the poverty of Khmer politics. This is quite noticeable when the writers discuss how a Japanese proposal, with European backing and support, provided for Prince Ranariddh to reenter Cambodia for the 1998 election after he had run away prior to the July 1997 fighting. They state that “once again, members of the international community helped provide a pathway to open Cambodia's deadlocked politics” (p. 303). But it equally can be argued that there was no domestic deadlock. A new prime minister had been appointed, the Assembly continued in its deliberations, and stability ensued in Phnom Penh, where it had been absent before. Some might view the writers' perspectives as patronizing.

These perspectives are also reflected in the title of the work. It seems that Cambodia has “confounded” the “peacemakers.” That is, the West, irreproachable for all its valiant efforts at peacemaking, has been undermined by the efforts primarily, if the book is to be believed, of an arch-strongman, Prime Minister Hun Sen. It must be considered that the virtuous West ignored Cambodia in its darkest years and then created a peace framework ordained to ensure the inclusion of the Khmer Rouge in a political settlement.

That framework also rejected domestic peace overtures, such as those between Sihanouk and Hun Sen in 1987 and 1989, which would have dispensed with the need for foreign intervention. One senses a certain set of values that that are “offended” by Cambodian actions that undermine a Western “rescue,” when in fact the Khmer elite were prevented from undertaking their own peace plans. The man most responsible for either steering Cambodian decision making or resisting Western planning is clearly Mr. Hun Sen, and he is the target of uncritical and partisan analysis. There is a strong sense that Hun Sen has been responsible, mainly, for the demise of the West's valiant attempts to “save” a nation. This is strongly evident in the section on the July 1997 “coup.” This term is repeated frequently throughout the book in an uncritical manner that does not even consider the possibility that Hun Sen was forced to defend himself against Ranariddh's illegal practices or, indeed, that any other explanations exist. Since July 1997, a raft of evidence has been provided, some by the Khmer Rouge, that Ranariddh was involved in private deals with the former guerrillas aimed at militarily changing the balance of power against his coalition partner.

The treatment of sources is also problematic in this context. For example, Brown and Zasloff subtly challenge the veracity of Ranariddh's smuggling of private weapons disguised as machine parts by stating that Hun Sen “accused” Ranariddh of the above crime (p. 262). Similarly, in the Epilogue, the authors conceal through omission that Ranariddh was proven guilty of smuggling weapons, etc. They write that Hun Sen “contended” that Ranariddh had been guilty, and that Hun “postured” various things (p. 302). In fact, Ranariddh confessed to the act, and the papers were full of the story at the time. Given this, and given the authors' considerable use of local papers from Phnom Penh, this has been curiously avoided or neglected.

Indeed, the book leaves the impression that Hun Sen is the bogeyman of Cambodian politics. Again, such analysis is uncritical. Identifying him as authoritarian is right in some respects, but most scholars of this subject, including those who are diametrically opposed on many issues, agree that both Ranariddh and Rainsy are equally authoritarian in nature; however, this is not addressed. Indeed, Rainsy seems to have grown a halo in some parts of the book, most notably in Chapter 8, which reviews the period 1993–1997. The authors do, however, redeem themselves in recognizing Rainsy's virulent racism against Viet Namese people during and after the 1998 elections. Indeed. This section (Epilogue) contains much to commend it. It offers a clear review of the polling and, because the authors were present, recreates the atmosphere of the time, reminding even of the 1993 election. It also avoids the tedious accusations that the election was critically rigged by the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and neutrally considers the arguments concerning the role of the CPP-biased National Election Commission in the preelection period. But once again, omission is evident. Concerning the period after the July fighting, the authors note “extra judicial killings” and then lend legitimacy and credibility to that statistic by attributing it to the U.N. Special Representative for Human Rights (no less). But there is no mention of the fact that four of those “dead” miraculously reappeared alive, undermining the credibility of the Human Rights body and embarrassing the Special Representative. Equally, no mention is made that some of the killings were undoubtedly score settling and turf wars, not extra-judicial political acts blamable on the CPP elite.

Clearly much effort was involved in the writing of this book, and the authors have studied the politics closely and visited the country. However, their analysis is often weak and evidently biased against a key political actor, undermining the neutrality and credibility of the book. The work also does not criticize the peace plan for propriety in the context of Khmer conflict management culture and does not discuss whether the shortcomings in the peace plan of a cultural nature led to more, but different, conflict within Cambodia. As a U.S. Ambassador once noted, “In 1991, we settled the Cambodian war. In 1997, the Cambodians settled the Cambodian war.” Read with caution.