Iraq will continue to be a major issue and involvement for the United States into the foreseeable future says William R. Polk, former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Council and professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Chicago. Iraq sits on the world's largest supply of oil, and with the world's energy requirements continuously rising, Iraq will play an ongoing role in the global economy and the political environment throughout the Gulf region and the Middle East.

Polk's concise, authoritative overview of Iraq's history shows how the pattern of outside intervention was established first by the Ottoman Turks and the Persian Safavids and later by England, Russia, and Germany. After World War I came British rule, followed by a brief and uneasy period of independence that sparked Iraqi nationalism, leading Saddam Husain to power with American military and financial aid and covert CIA involvement. The Iraq-Iran War and the invasion of Kuwait was followed by the Gulf War, the sanctions period, and the Bush administration's decision to invade. Finally, there is the American occupation and the challenges, opportunities, and options that Iraqis and Americans face now and in the future.

Foreign Affairs
Unlike many single-state histories that take the reader from the dawn of history to modern times in a scant page or so, Understanding Iraq begins with two substantial chapters entitled "Ancient Iraq" and "Islamic Iraq." They set the stage for the treatment of Iraq from the time it got its modern name. A chapter entitled "British Iraq" (covering 1917 to 1958) is followed by "Revolutionary Iraq" (1958 to 1991) and then "American Iraq" (1991 to the present). These diverse adjectives bespeak a country that has long been dominated by outsiders or homegrown strongmen, and Polk's history depicts as much. Britain burst into Iraq but failed to put together an effective state. A nominally sovereign ruling elite during the years of the Iraqi monarchy accomplished little. Then, after 1958, came sundry revolutionary leaders from Abdul Karim Kassem to the long, brutal tenure of Saddam Hussein. Now Iraq faces up to yet another outside invader. Polk's final chapter is entitled what else? "Whose Iraq?" There are no heroes here, only a sober and informed account of Iraq's history, culminating in a compelling critique of the U.S. intervention there.

Biography

William R. Polk taught Middle Eastern history and politics and Arabic at Harvard until 1961, when he became a member of the Policy Planning Council of the U.S. Department of State. In 1965, he became Professor of History at the University of Chicago, where he established the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. His many books include The Birth of America and Understanding Iraq.