Table of Contents

The Mother of All Battles; State-Building on the Ruins of Mesopotamia; From the Tribesman to the Mythmaker; Terror and Enticement; The Iran-Iraq War: Saladin and the Messiah; Inside the Middle East Cauldron; The Arming of Iraq; A Case Study in a Failed Policy; The Regional Superpower; The Invasion of Kuwait; The Drift to War; The Degradation of Iraq; Appendix; A Chronology of Events; Bibliography; Acknowledgements; Index.