This incisive study by historian Lester Brune examines the background and implications of these events. Considering the late twentieth-century involvement of the United States in Iraq, Brune discusses the policy of containment and the decision to go to war a second time in the region in the twenty-first century. He traces the situation up to the creation of an Iraqi government and Saddam Hussein's capture and trial. The continuing implications of the wars are also analyzed.