The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an act of frivolity without parallel in United States history. The destruction of the Baathist state caused Iraqis to flee into their ancient sectarian and racial communities, and laid out a killing-ground where animosities suppressed in other Muslim countries could be fought out to the last Iraqi. By early 2006, when Sunni extremists (usually called al-Qa’eda) blew up the holy Shia mosque in Samarra, the country was in civil war.
The United States kept its nerve. With the dogged support of President George W. Bush in Washington, five additional fighting brigades and uncounted tons of reinforced concrete, Generals David H. Petraeus and Raymond T. Odierno separated and broke up the insurgents, stabilised the country, warned off the Iranians and retrieved the honour of the United States armed forces. The Endgame, a long book by two New York Times writers, tells the story in great detail, from White House conferences to a single tank firing canister-shot down the alleys of Baqubah to cut the cat’s cradle of wires linked to buried bombs and booby-trapped houses.
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