Andrew Cockburn writes:

While the Iraqi opposition in general heightened its international profile after 1991, SCIRI (Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) remained firmly under Tehran’s control – a fact not immediately apparent in the otherwise informative book by Hamid al-Bayati, currently Iraq’s UN ambassador, about his years as the party’s London representative and his post-invasion career in the Iraqi government. Bayati gained his original position at SCIRI when his predecessor accepted an invitation to the inaugural convention of the Iraqi National Congress, designed by the CIA to consolidate Iraqi exile efforts under the direction of Ahmad Chalabi. Ayatollah al-Hakim vetoed involvement with the new congress, summarily dismissed the erring representative and appointed Bayati in his place. Anxious to widen contacts with Western governments that paid lip-service to the notion of overthrowing Saddam, Bayati was a tireless campaigner. Time and again he secured opportunities for Ayatollah al-Hakim to meet with senior Western politicians only to have them rejected on grounds that it was unfitting for a senior ayatollah and leader of SCIRI to meet with anyone other than a prime minister or president. (The archbishop of Canterbury passed muster.)

(LRB 1 December 2011)

University of Pennsylvania Press | Hardback 304 pp. |ISBN: 9780812242881