The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein

by Sandra Mackey

Saddam Hussein is high on America's enemies list―but does an Iraq without him hold the seeds of the next Yugoslavia? To the dismay of many in the West, the Gulf War ended with Saddam Hussein still in control, still defiant, and more determined to use any means of striking back. How far did he go? And now that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban has been vanquished and the al Quaeda network scattered, how far should the United States go in pursuit of its war on terrorism? The central question posed in this book is whether a future Iraq without Saddam Hussein will be even more unstable and more problematical to the security of the United States. The Reckoning is an account of the forces―historical, religious, ethnic, and political―that produced Saddam's dictatorship. Forged after World War I from the Mesopotamian provinces of the collapsed Ottoman Empire, Iraq has never had a national identity or a sense of common purpose. Hussein, ruling by terror rather than by persuasion, pitted the various ethnic groups, religious interests, and tribes against one another and in so doing achieved the destruction of Iraq's middle class and civilized society. After he goes, however he goes, the country could be the site of conflict even more vicious than the Balkan wars. Now more than ever, the future of Iraq is of critical importance to America's dealings with the Muslim world, and Sandra Mackey's informed narrative gives us a new understanding of the politics and national character of the country. 16 b/w photographs; 6 maps.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, Middle East

427 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Sandra Mackey was an American writer on Middle Eastern culture and politics.

Reviews

[Sincerae Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about Iraq covering even parts of its ancient Mesopotamian history on through into its' modern political era up until the eve of the first Gulf War.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The appended book description accurately describes Mackey's thesis that a US invasion of Iraq would be a big mistake. It was. What it fails to represent is how The Reckoning is primarily a history of Iraq from WWI until its composition just after 9/11, a history which substantiates her thesis.

Would that the decision-makers in the USA and UK who led us into this mess had read it while there was still time.

Post Script: One asks, what alternatives are suggested? Mackey is not clear on this point. She regards Hussein's regime as negatively as Bush et alia, even buying into some of the, since substantially disproven, arguments that it still maintained stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Her emphasis, however, is on its disservice to Iraqi society and threat to its immediate neighbors, not on any threat to Europe or the Americas. This risk is contrasted to another, equally important, namely, the risk of Iraq fragmenting into warring factions which would attract the interest and involvement of Iran, Syria, Turkey and Israel. Hussein held it together in the short term although his methods of maintaining power were ultimately disruptive.

Insofar as Mackey second-guesses the history of U.S. involvement, she does suggest several things that ought have been done differently. (1) Israel has had, to her view, too much influence on US policy and the US has been too uncritical of Israel's policies. Consequently, and rightly, we are viewed by Arabs and the Muslim world as complicit in their crimes. (2) US officials are culpably ignorant of Arab and Muslim realities. As regards Iraq, the idea of imposing a representative democracy on their currently riven polity is absurd. (3) US, particularly Republican, policy has been too much driven by Christian fundamentalists. (4) Military invasion should only be attempted with broad support from Arab and Muslim states in the area as was done in the first Bush administration. (5) The policy of isolating Iran was carried too far, too long. And, most substantively, (6) the no-fly orders promulgated after the first invasion of Iraq should have been stronger, including armed helicopters as well as fixed-wing aircraft.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to read about why Iraqis are the way they are? Want to learn about how the British f'd everything up after WWI for the middle east? Well just grab this book and read away. From Faisal the 1st to Saddam, to those damn Mongolians this book gives a very open, non-bias history lesson in the area once home of Saddam.

[Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for anyone serving in Iraq.