After simmering in the background through the nineties, Iraq burst into the awareness of many when it became a battleground against the war on terror under the Bush administration. Few realize that in the midst of the fierce policy battles, one partially implemented state-building exercise took root, and Iraq became the first country in the Middle East, democracy or otherwise, to have a constitutionally mandated independent judicial branch. In The Judiciary in Iraq, Madhat al-Mahmood, chief justice of Iraq, examines the many elements contributing to the creation of the first independent...