Despite its pessimism, Theodore Dalrymple’s great new article on the failure of even the most well motivated and plausible imperial plans for social reform is well worth a read. I think Dalrymple hits on the central issue–the real block to modernizing reform in the non-Western world. Dalrymple’s account of the networks of extended family obligation in non-Western nations tells us much of what we need to know about why countries like Iraq can accommodate modern education and professionalism, yet still produce a monster like Saddam Hussein. I’ve treated these issues myself in my extended review of Bernard Lewis’s, What Went Wrong? and in an earlier piece for NRO, “With Eyes Wide Open.”