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On the rapidity of change: “The Gulf today is very much as it has always been—turbulent, backward, intrinsically unstable—and it is this instability which poses the greatest threat to Western interests in the region.”

There is plenty on Persia, and just enough on Iraq, to understand the Shah’s fall and the current fighting— about what you’d expect when delinquents are let loose in a gun shop. But Kelly’s is more a preface to future wars than a primer on the present one; it is a unique and indispensable work.

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Ellen Wilson

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On the rapidity of change: “The Gulf today is very much as it has always been—turbulent, backward, intrinsically unstable—and it is this instability which poses the greatest threat to Western interests in the region.”

There is plenty on Persia, and just enough on Iraq, to understand the Shah’s fall and the current fighting— about what you’d expect when delinquents are let loose in a gun shop. But Kelly’s is more a preface to future wars than a primer on the present one; it is a unique and indispensable work.