The Baathist ideology requires continual conflict and bloodshed. Saddam likes to call himself The Struggler, and his rule has been marked by incessant strife. He led his nation through a bloody eight-year war with Iran that produced World War I level casualties, a ruthless campaign of genocide against the Kurds, the invasion of neighbouring Kuwait, a war with the United States and the rest of the world, civil wars in the north and south of his country, and now another potential war with the United States and its allies over weapons of mass destruction. There has been no respite. The...