NON-FICTION: HUBRIS AND MISCALCULATION
Ahmad Faruqui
The Achilles Trap
By Steve Coll
Penguin
ISBN: 978-0525562269
576pp.
The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. In The Achilles Trap, Steve Coll, a professor of journalism at Columbia University and the author of nine books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the decisions that led to the war.
The book is based on more than 100 interviews with several individuals who had first-hand involvement in the invasion of Iraq and transcripts of tape recordings made by the regime of Saddam Hussain. This allows Coll to take a deep dive into the minds of the two men who made the war possible: US President George W. Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussain.
The book is a searing indictment of how Saddam governed Iraq and an even bigger indictment of Bush. Not only were some of George W.’s senior advisers opposed to the war, so also was the former President George H.W. Bush, his father. The elder Bush expressed his opposition via his former national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, who penned an editorial, ‘Don’t Attack Saddam’ in the Wall Street Journal.
Coll concludes that “The president careered toward an unnecessary war… based on unabashed fear-mongering.” None of Iraq’s neighbours wanted the US to invade Iraq, worried that it would destabilise the region.
The US did not have any evidence that Iraq had ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ and Saddam assumed the CIA knew that and thus the US was unlikely to attack Iraq. The book is entitled The Achilles Trap because both sides assumed the other had a fatal weakness, which did not exist.
Washington assumed that Saddam did not have the guts to fight the US. Saddam assumed that the US would never attack Iraq because it did not have the guts to incur large-scale battlefield casualties: “Saddam thought of the CIA as all-knowing. This contributed to his misunderstandings of America, which were at least as profound as America’s misunderstandings of him.”
The CIA’s record in Iraq after 1991 “was mostly one of operational and analytical calamities.” Even within the agency, the Iraq Operations Group was known as “the ‘House of Broken Toys’.” Of course, that did not stop the CIA from being ruthless. As one observer put it, the agency was “completely prepared to burn down your house to light a cigarette.”
Bush just wanted to get rid of Saddam. When his secretary of state presented some made-up evidence on WMDs to the UN, he was met with scepticism. Iraq had no connection with the terrorist attacks of 9/11, yet the US thought it would carry out an even deadlier attack against the US.
Almost to the very end, citing new evidence, the book shows that the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was opposed to the invasion. But Bush was determined to attack Iraq to implement regime change, to turn Iraq into a Western-style democracy.
Saddam comes across as a dual-faced man wallowing in hubris. On the one hand, he had created an extensive social/welfare system within Iraq. On the other hand, he had created an equal system of terror, directed at his political opponents. If anyone dared speak against him, they could be arrested, tortured and executed within a matter of days. He did not have the slightest qualms in killing nearly 200,000 Kurds.
Soon after he came to power in 1979, Saddam plunged Iraq into a senseless war against Iran. It lasted for eight years and cost $500 billion. It left Iraq saddled with a debt of $80 billion, of which $35 billion was owed to Saudi Arabia and $10 billion to Kuwait. Hundreds of thousands were killed on both sides.
Ahmad Faruqui
Published October 13, 2024
DAWN
The Achilles Trap
By Steve Coll
Penguin
ISBN: 978-0525562269
576pp.
The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. In The Achilles Trap, Steve Coll, a professor of journalism at Columbia University and the author of nine books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the decisions that led to the war.
The book is based on more than 100 interviews with several individuals who had first-hand involvement in the invasion of Iraq and transcripts of tape recordings made by the regime of Saddam Hussain. This allows Coll to take a deep dive into the minds of the two men who made the war possible: US President George W. Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussain.
The book is a searing indictment of how Saddam governed Iraq and an even bigger indictment of Bush. Not only were some of George W.’s senior advisers opposed to the war, so also was the former President George H.W. Bush, his father. The elder Bush expressed his opposition via his former national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, who penned an editorial, ‘Don’t Attack Saddam’ in the Wall Street Journal.
Coll concludes that “The president careered toward an unnecessary war… based on unabashed fear-mongering.” None of Iraq’s neighbours wanted the US to invade Iraq, worried that it would destabilise the region.
The US did not have any evidence that Iraq had ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ and Saddam assumed the CIA knew that and thus the US was unlikely to attack Iraq. The book is entitled The Achilles Trap because both sides assumed the other had a fatal weakness, which did not exist.
Washington assumed that Saddam did not have the guts to fight the US. Saddam assumed that the US would never attack Iraq because it did not have the guts to incur large-scale battlefield casualties: “Saddam thought of the CIA as all-knowing. This contributed to his misunderstandings of America, which were at least as profound as America’s misunderstandings of him.”
The CIA’s record in Iraq after 1991 “was mostly one of operational and analytical calamities.” Even within the agency, the Iraq Operations Group was known as “the ‘House of Broken Toys’.” Of course, that did not stop the CIA from being ruthless. As one observer put it, the agency was “completely prepared to burn down your house to light a cigarette.”
Bush just wanted to get rid of Saddam. When his secretary of state presented some made-up evidence on WMDs to the UN, he was met with scepticism. Iraq had no connection with the terrorist attacks of 9/11, yet the US thought it would carry out an even deadlier attack against the US.
Almost to the very end, citing new evidence, the book shows that the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was opposed to the invasion. But Bush was determined to attack Iraq to implement regime change, to turn Iraq into a Western-style democracy.
Saddam comes across as a dual-faced man wallowing in hubris. On the one hand, he had created an extensive social/welfare system within Iraq. On the other hand, he had created an equal system of terror, directed at his political opponents. If anyone dared speak against him, they could be arrested, tortured and executed within a matter of days. He did not have the slightest qualms in killing nearly 200,000 Kurds.
Soon after he came to power in 1979, Saddam plunged Iraq into a senseless war against Iran. It lasted for eight years and cost $500 billion. It left Iraq saddled with a debt of $80 billion, of which $35 billion was owed to Saudi Arabia and $10 billion to Kuwait. Hundreds of thousands were killed on both sides.
US troops pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad | Reuters
Unable to repay the debt, Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The US failed to anticipate Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but neither did Saddam realise that the invasion would turn the world against him. After the US captured him, Saddam left his US investigators befuddled by saying: “If you didn’t want me to go in, why didn’t you tell me?”
Equally naïve was the king of Saudi Arabia. King Fahd knew that the presence of American and European troops on Saudi soil would upset many Saudis and the clergy. But under US pressure, he caved in. Later, Osama bin Laden would capitalise on anti-Saudi sentiments to launch the 9/11 attacks. As shown in the book by Nelly Lahoud, The Bin Laden Papers, he did not expect the US would invade the Muslim world. He thought the US would withdraw from the region.
In March 2003, when the US finally attacked Iraq, Saddam invoked the “Mother of all Battles” metaphor and thought he would defeat “the treacherous criminal Bush … because this is a fight between good and evil.” He also thought the Iraqi army would go underground and fight a guerilla war on his behalf.
But there was no love lost between the conscripts and the dictator. After the US dropped 150,000 “dumb” gravity bombs, killing some 10-12,000 Iraqi soldiers, most surviving soldiers simply took off their uniforms and went home.
The book also paints a damning picture of other actors in the tragedy. King Hussein of Jordan had served as America’s lackey in the Arab world. He fancifully thought that “by helping engineer a regime change in Baghdad, he might somehow restore his own extended family’s royal rule in Iraq.”
Earlier, in 1996, Madeleine Albright, the former US ambassador to the UN, said that even though the economic sanctions imposed by the US after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had killed 500,000 Iraqi children, the price was worth it.
In April 2003, Scott McLaughlin, the former weapons inspector in Iraq and now a CIA analyst, cross-examined the head of Iraq’s nuclear programme, Jafar Dhia Jafar, and said: “We made a terrible mistake.” But that did not slow down the US invasion of Iraq, which would then turn into a multi-year occupation. More than 200,000 Iraqi civilians eventually died. More than 4,400 US servicemen died and more than 30,000 were wounded.
Early on, when Iraq was looking for nuclear weapons, its leaders would often cite the example of Pakistan, which they believed had moved to acquire a bomb to deter and balance India. An Iraqi scientist said that Iraq was at least as advanced as Pakistan and should be able to do it.
Dr A.Q. Khan, known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, sensed an opportunity and reached out to Iraq with an offer of assistance that was spurned by Iraq, according Coll. Meanwhile, Israel, under Prime Minister Menachem Begin, bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Tuwaitha without the knowledge, let alone the permission, of the US.
There are several lessons to be learned from the tragic history of the Iraq War, which this book vividly brings out. First, wars, instead of solving problems, create more problems. Second, wars are often based on faulty assumptions. Third, military superiority does not guarantee victory. Fourth, the US understands the Middle East even less than the UK, which colonised the region for decades. Finally, dictators, who rule through fear, delude themselves into believing that the population would rise to support them when a war breaks out.
The book leaves some big questions unanswered, however. How competent is US intelligence about other parts of the globe, given how incompetent it was about Iraq? When will the US ever learn any lessons from the wars it wages around the globe? Is it necessary to spend nearly a trillion dollars on the US military, which exceeds the sum of the next 10 countries combined? Would that money not be better spent on human, social and economic development of the US?
Even despite these unanswered questions, the book is a great read for anyone with a serious interest in US foreign policy. It will also interest the general reader, since it reads like a thriller.
The reviewer is the author of Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan:
The Price of Strategic Myopia.
X: @ahmadfaruqui
Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, October 13th, 2024
Unable to repay the debt, Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The US failed to anticipate Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but neither did Saddam realise that the invasion would turn the world against him. After the US captured him, Saddam left his US investigators befuddled by saying: “If you didn’t want me to go in, why didn’t you tell me?”
Equally naïve was the king of Saudi Arabia. King Fahd knew that the presence of American and European troops on Saudi soil would upset many Saudis and the clergy. But under US pressure, he caved in. Later, Osama bin Laden would capitalise on anti-Saudi sentiments to launch the 9/11 attacks. As shown in the book by Nelly Lahoud, The Bin Laden Papers, he did not expect the US would invade the Muslim world. He thought the US would withdraw from the region.
In March 2003, when the US finally attacked Iraq, Saddam invoked the “Mother of all Battles” metaphor and thought he would defeat “the treacherous criminal Bush … because this is a fight between good and evil.” He also thought the Iraqi army would go underground and fight a guerilla war on his behalf.
But there was no love lost between the conscripts and the dictator. After the US dropped 150,000 “dumb” gravity bombs, killing some 10-12,000 Iraqi soldiers, most surviving soldiers simply took off their uniforms and went home.
The book also paints a damning picture of other actors in the tragedy. King Hussein of Jordan had served as America’s lackey in the Arab world. He fancifully thought that “by helping engineer a regime change in Baghdad, he might somehow restore his own extended family’s royal rule in Iraq.”
Earlier, in 1996, Madeleine Albright, the former US ambassador to the UN, said that even though the economic sanctions imposed by the US after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had killed 500,000 Iraqi children, the price was worth it.
In April 2003, Scott McLaughlin, the former weapons inspector in Iraq and now a CIA analyst, cross-examined the head of Iraq’s nuclear programme, Jafar Dhia Jafar, and said: “We made a terrible mistake.” But that did not slow down the US invasion of Iraq, which would then turn into a multi-year occupation. More than 200,000 Iraqi civilians eventually died. More than 4,400 US servicemen died and more than 30,000 were wounded.
Early on, when Iraq was looking for nuclear weapons, its leaders would often cite the example of Pakistan, which they believed had moved to acquire a bomb to deter and balance India. An Iraqi scientist said that Iraq was at least as advanced as Pakistan and should be able to do it.
Dr A.Q. Khan, known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, sensed an opportunity and reached out to Iraq with an offer of assistance that was spurned by Iraq, according Coll. Meanwhile, Israel, under Prime Minister Menachem Begin, bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Tuwaitha without the knowledge, let alone the permission, of the US.
There are several lessons to be learned from the tragic history of the Iraq War, which this book vividly brings out. First, wars, instead of solving problems, create more problems. Second, wars are often based on faulty assumptions. Third, military superiority does not guarantee victory. Fourth, the US understands the Middle East even less than the UK, which colonised the region for decades. Finally, dictators, who rule through fear, delude themselves into believing that the population would rise to support them when a war breaks out.
The book leaves some big questions unanswered, however. How competent is US intelligence about other parts of the globe, given how incompetent it was about Iraq? When will the US ever learn any lessons from the wars it wages around the globe? Is it necessary to spend nearly a trillion dollars on the US military, which exceeds the sum of the next 10 countries combined? Would that money not be better spent on human, social and economic development of the US?
Even despite these unanswered questions, the book is a great read for anyone with a serious interest in US foreign policy. It will also interest the general reader, since it reads like a thriller.
The reviewer is the author of Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan:
The Price of Strategic Myopia.
X: @ahmadfaruqui
Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, October 13th, 2024
NON-FICTION: FISK’S FINAL WORDS
Published September 22, 2024
DAWN
Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East
By Robert Fisk
Fourth Estate
ISBN: 978-0007255481
672pp.
Robert Fisk’s book Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East was published posthumously and is a reminder of the strength and courage of his voice and words, not only as a journalist but also as a historian.
In the Night Of Power, Fisk ponders over the 35 years he spent as a Middle East correspondent for The Independent, witnessing an almost Dante’s Inferno-level of darkness, bloodshed and tragedy wrought upon that part of the world. His constant struggle to stay true to what he saw underlies all his writing, as he acknowledges, “Our own cowardice, the manufacture of deceit, the safe, formulaic expressions used to mask the reality of this tragic place, have turned us journalists into blood-soaked brothers of the politicians who go to war.”
Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East
By Robert Fisk
Fourth Estate
ISBN: 978-0007255481
672pp.
Robert Fisk’s book Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East was published posthumously and is a reminder of the strength and courage of his voice and words, not only as a journalist but also as a historian.
In the Night Of Power, Fisk ponders over the 35 years he spent as a Middle East correspondent for The Independent, witnessing an almost Dante’s Inferno-level of darkness, bloodshed and tragedy wrought upon that part of the world. His constant struggle to stay true to what he saw underlies all his writing, as he acknowledges, “Our own cowardice, the manufacture of deceit, the safe, formulaic expressions used to mask the reality of this tragic place, have turned us journalists into blood-soaked brothers of the politicians who go to war.”
That is who he was, a journalist who reported from the dangerous side, the ‘other’ side.
It would be convenient to qualify this book as a memoir of an award-winning journalist reflecting upon events that he covered, but it is so much more than that. Night Of Power outlines the cataclysmic events of post-invasion Iraq and its impact on the Middle East as a whole. Fisk navigates his way through a country where, “Killings were now like heartbeats in Iraq”, witnessing the callousness of the occupiers who showed wanton disregard for the path of destruction they paved on their way to their ‘Emerald Cities’, the green zones they allocated themselves.
Journalist Robert Fisk’s posthumously published book about the Middle East is an analysis of his decades of reporting from that part of the world and a reminder of the power his words wielded
He takes stock: the bodies that pile up because of the shootings, bomb blasts, private contractors who kill with a blood lust that would rival the Saddam-era secret police. Then there are the diseases and cancers left behind, children born with deformities, stillbirths, birth defects, a result of the use of phosphorus shells and other uranium-laced weapons. Fisk is matter of fact; he does not allow his pain to distract him from his purpose. He writes, “You go on a story in a war and you’re there to report on the atrocity, to speak for the dead, but not to cry.”
It will be pertinent to mention here that Robert Fisk was perhaps one of the most significant voices of our time. His ability to look past innate biases and identify the context in which events occur has always been immaculate. In the chapter ‘Walking on Windows’, he reminds us of the plague that was Blackwater and other private defence contractors. He recorded their actions with meticulous detail, the contempt and arrogance they showed towards the Iraqis and the shooting down of innocent people with complete impunity.
He reminds us that, “like all wars…[the Iraq war’s] reasons [were] fraudulent, its occupation ferocious, its ‘victors’ ever more cruel in responding to the insurgency that overwhelmed them…” Mercenary casualties were not included in the military fatality/injury lists put out by occupation authorities.
The duplicity is enraging and, as one continues to read the book, Fisk’s own anger is very much tangible. With meticulous detail, he deconstructs the ‘truths’ we have been fed by the media and by our governments and politicians. Language is weaponised, as he illustrates how mainstream Western media has toed the line when it comes to ‘selling’ the Iraq invasion to the public.
Later, when news of torture cells, black sites, mercenaries, and terrifying rebellions began creeping into headlines, many prominent newspapers provided space for advocacy of war crimes that were being committed by occupation soldiers, under the pretext that Saddam’s torturers were attacking US troops. Even today, mainstream media stands accused of promoting a one-sided narrative and working to drown Palestinian voices as the assault on Gaza continues.
Robert Fisk | AP
Mainstream media has never been less reliable and, as governments rush to curtail free speech, we are reminded by Fisk that, “I always believed that those who suffered on the ‘other’ side deserved to have their story told, that Western powers should not have the press corps as their foot-soldiers.”
Fisk was that rare journalist who had the ability to comprehend the enormity of what he was witnessing, stepping back and placing it into context. In this book, he lays it out, calling the Iraq invasion for what it was, a “vast and lamentable occupation.” He makes it clear though that, while Britain and the US have consistently denied that this was also an ‘oil-grab’, let’s be abundantly clear: “if the major export of Iraq had been beetroot, did anyone believe the American 82nd Airborne would really have gone to Fallujah and Mosul?”
Fisk’s ability to use words that cut like the sword of a samurai is, frankly, inimitable. He credits author and activist Naomi Klein for being one of the first to recognise “the boldest attempt at crisis exploration” in Iraq by the US and Britain, as they prepared to re-organise the country’s oil exports.
Fisk is detailed and judicious in his condemnation of the many ‘client states’ of the West, the despots and dictators of the Middle East and South Asia. He explains in great depth how the Middle East has been carved up and divided amongst authoritarian figures who are in a constant state of war with their own citizens. They are tolerated, armed even, and oftentimes ignored for their crimes by the ‘upright, civilised’ world for as long as they maintain a status quo for the US and its allies.
He writes of how the depravity of the Assads, Saddams and Mobaraks birthed a network of ruthless secret police and ‘elite’ army units that work within the shadows, stoking the fires of sectarianism, weaponising religion and crushing even a whisper of dissent. And yet, all dictators are not created equal. The West decides who becomes a liability and when. In the case of Saddam, it was the invasion of Kuwait and not his feared torture cells or use of chemical weapons against fellow Iraqis that made him unacceptable.
Night of Power is a testimony from one of the most prominent journalists of our time. Robert Fisk had called the Arab world home for more than 40 years and so stands as a giant among his peers. One of the first witnesses of history in the making, he was an analyst and interpreter par excellence. Each chapter in this book looks back on moments in history that have shaped the Middle East in one way or the other.
Fisk’s words are clinical and succinct, yet there is heartbreak and pain as he faces the bloody abyss that is the Middle East at the hands of its own leaders and the West. Fisk reminds the reader that this book is not about him, it is not a memoir, instead it is a cautionary tale, a tragedy and the story of betrayal and deceit. He tells the story as it stands, regardless of consequences.
If Robert Fisk were alive today, I wonder what he would report when confronted by the more than 40,000 innocent civilians viciously killed in Gaza and the tens of thousands more buried under the rubble since October 7, 2023? What would Fisk think after seeing photographs of the Haditha Massacre that were acquired and published by The New Yorker on August 28, 2024, showing the grisly aftermath of the bloody rampage carried out by US Marines.
Fisk had covered the Haditha atrocity extensively in 2005, where he asked his readers if this could be the “tip of the mass grave?” (It is pertinent to note that not a single perpetrator spent a day in prison.) How would he respond to the horrific images coming from Gaza that flood our social media timelines? How would he have reported on the brave young men and women studying in high profile universities scattered across the Western world, as they risked their futures to set up encampments in protest for a free Palestine, for an end to the siege that he and many others had reported on and that imprisons the people of Gaza?
It is difficult to read when he writes about the Nakba, and the pain behind his words is difficult to hide. “Keys must always be the symbol of the Palestinian Nakba,” he writes. “That terrible last turning of the lock of those front doors. Goodbye — only for a few days.”
Simple words, but they complete the job and, like a dagger, strike the heart of their reader. This was the power of the pen yielded by Robert Fisk.
The reviewer is a freelance writer with a background in law and literature. X: @ShehryarSahar
Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, September 22nd, 2024
Mainstream media has never been less reliable and, as governments rush to curtail free speech, we are reminded by Fisk that, “I always believed that those who suffered on the ‘other’ side deserved to have their story told, that Western powers should not have the press corps as their foot-soldiers.”
Fisk was that rare journalist who had the ability to comprehend the enormity of what he was witnessing, stepping back and placing it into context. In this book, he lays it out, calling the Iraq invasion for what it was, a “vast and lamentable occupation.” He makes it clear though that, while Britain and the US have consistently denied that this was also an ‘oil-grab’, let’s be abundantly clear: “if the major export of Iraq had been beetroot, did anyone believe the American 82nd Airborne would really have gone to Fallujah and Mosul?”
Fisk’s ability to use words that cut like the sword of a samurai is, frankly, inimitable. He credits author and activist Naomi Klein for being one of the first to recognise “the boldest attempt at crisis exploration” in Iraq by the US and Britain, as they prepared to re-organise the country’s oil exports.
Fisk is detailed and judicious in his condemnation of the many ‘client states’ of the West, the despots and dictators of the Middle East and South Asia. He explains in great depth how the Middle East has been carved up and divided amongst authoritarian figures who are in a constant state of war with their own citizens. They are tolerated, armed even, and oftentimes ignored for their crimes by the ‘upright, civilised’ world for as long as they maintain a status quo for the US and its allies.
He writes of how the depravity of the Assads, Saddams and Mobaraks birthed a network of ruthless secret police and ‘elite’ army units that work within the shadows, stoking the fires of sectarianism, weaponising religion and crushing even a whisper of dissent. And yet, all dictators are not created equal. The West decides who becomes a liability and when. In the case of Saddam, it was the invasion of Kuwait and not his feared torture cells or use of chemical weapons against fellow Iraqis that made him unacceptable.
Night of Power is a testimony from one of the most prominent journalists of our time. Robert Fisk had called the Arab world home for more than 40 years and so stands as a giant among his peers. One of the first witnesses of history in the making, he was an analyst and interpreter par excellence. Each chapter in this book looks back on moments in history that have shaped the Middle East in one way or the other.
Fisk’s words are clinical and succinct, yet there is heartbreak and pain as he faces the bloody abyss that is the Middle East at the hands of its own leaders and the West. Fisk reminds the reader that this book is not about him, it is not a memoir, instead it is a cautionary tale, a tragedy and the story of betrayal and deceit. He tells the story as it stands, regardless of consequences.
If Robert Fisk were alive today, I wonder what he would report when confronted by the more than 40,000 innocent civilians viciously killed in Gaza and the tens of thousands more buried under the rubble since October 7, 2023? What would Fisk think after seeing photographs of the Haditha Massacre that were acquired and published by The New Yorker on August 28, 2024, showing the grisly aftermath of the bloody rampage carried out by US Marines.
Fisk had covered the Haditha atrocity extensively in 2005, where he asked his readers if this could be the “tip of the mass grave?” (It is pertinent to note that not a single perpetrator spent a day in prison.) How would he respond to the horrific images coming from Gaza that flood our social media timelines? How would he have reported on the brave young men and women studying in high profile universities scattered across the Western world, as they risked their futures to set up encampments in protest for a free Palestine, for an end to the siege that he and many others had reported on and that imprisons the people of Gaza?
It is difficult to read when he writes about the Nakba, and the pain behind his words is difficult to hide. “Keys must always be the symbol of the Palestinian Nakba,” he writes. “That terrible last turning of the lock of those front doors. Goodbye — only for a few days.”
Simple words, but they complete the job and, like a dagger, strike the heart of their reader. This was the power of the pen yielded by Robert Fisk.
The reviewer is a freelance writer with a background in law and literature. X: @ShehryarSahar
Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, September 22nd, 2024
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