Fanar Haddad has written a valuable book on the controversial issue of sectarianism in Iraq. Haddad’s main concern is to combat two opposing oversimplifications that too often dominate discussions of the subject. On the one hand, those promoting Iraqi nationalism promote the myth that ‘we are all brothers’—in other words, that sectarianism is not really an Iraqi problem at all, and that apparent evidence of it is merely the result of foreign plots. Haddad quickly shows the inaccuracy of this myth, pointing out that it is merely an example of the conspiracy theorizing so popular in the Middle East. This myth is also the result of a sort of Iraqi political correctness: in Iraq, ‘sectarianism’ is a pejorative word, so to accuse someone of it is an insult or an attack.

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