THE INSURRECTION IN MESOPOTAMIA ...

Moby Lives points to this article in the Guardian about General Sir Aylmer Haldane's hard to find 80 year old book, The Insurrection in Mesopotamia, 1920. Undoubtedly, Paul Bremer and Donald Rumsfeld would like to know how Haldane managed to put a regime in place in the middle eastern abstraction called Iraq because it lasted from 1920 until 1958. I found two copies of Haldane's book, one for Paul and one for Don, at abe.com, but I'm warning you: as Josh Marshall paraphrases him, Edmund Morgan was right."History never repeats itself. It only seems like it does to those who don't know the details." The editors of Foreign Affairs recently quoted a phrase commonly attributed to Mark Twain:"history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes." I know. I know. Mark Twain probably never said any such thing, but we and the Iraqis should be so fortunate.