“Focusing on post-2003 problems in the Iraqi political system, this book helps explain some of the reasons why the government in Baghdad was so weak when Sunni militants launched their takeover of northwestern Iraq in June 2014.  A lawyer who worked on UN technical projects in Iraq from 2005 to early 2011, Al-Ali […] describes how incompetent, corrupt political elites and the breakdown in public administration between 2006 and 2008 made it nearly impossible to establish a rule of law or rebuild the country’s infrastructure.  […] [The book’s] earlier chapters paint a devastating picture of the structural political flaws that have brought the country to the point of breakup.”