In her book The Reckoning, author and journalist Sandra Mackey gives an account of the forces - historical, religious, ethnic, and political - that produced Saddam’s dictatorship. Hussein, ruling by terror rather than persuasion, has pitted the various ethnic groups, religious interests, and tribes against each other and in so doing, destroyed Iraq's middle class and civilized society.  Given that, a future Iraq without Hussein could be even more unstable and threatening to the rest of the world. (#7076)