The radical colonels, courageous communists and burnt-out Ba'athists failed to establish a stable and just democratic republic, thus enabling a return visit by imperialism. Like the author’s previous work, Clash of Fundamentalisms, this book presents a magnificent cultural history, and a heart-felt homage to the great poets of Iraq and the Arab world whose influence remained strong throughout their long periods of exile, and who are united in poetic resistance to the latest catastrophe. This fully updated new paperback edition examines the strength of the Iraqi resistance and the political fallout of the war in the West.