The Achilles Trap
Saddam Hussein, the United States and the Middle East, 1979-2003
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The Achilles Trap
Buy Now for $33.99
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Narrated by:
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Malcolm Hillgartner
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By:
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Steve Coll
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
The Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the people, ploys of power and geopolitics that led to America's disastrous war with Iraq and, for the first time, details America's fundamental miscalculations during its ruinous, decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein.
Beginning with Saddam's rise to power in 1979 and the birth of Iraq's secret nuclear weapons programme, Steve Coll traces Saddam's motives through understanding his inner circle. He brings to life the diplomats, scientists, family members and generals who had no choice but to defer to their leader - a leader directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the torture or imprisonment of many more. This was a man whose reasoning was impossible to reduce to a simple explanation, and the CIA and successive presidential administrations failed to grasp critical nuances in his paranoia, resentments and inconsistencies - even when the stakes were incredibly high.
Using unpublished and underreported sources, interviews with surviving participants, and Saddam's own transcripts and audio files, The Achilles Trap is a remarkable picture of a dictator who was convinced the world was out to get him and acted accordingly. A work of great historical significance, it is the definitive account of how corruptions of power, lies of diplomacy and vanity - on both sides - led to avoidable errors of statecraft: ones that would enact immeasurable human suffering and forever change our political landscape.
intriguing
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The Achilles Trap is Steve Coll’s deeply researched examination of the long, complicated relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein—one defined by miscalculations, cultural misunderstandings, and layers of geopolitical hubris. Coll traces events from Saddam’s ascent in the late 1970s and the beginnings of Iraq’s nuclear ambitions through to the 2003 U.S. invasion and the collapse of his regime. Drawing on unpublished transcripts, rare interviews, and previously inaccessible sources, the book explores how American intelligence failures—and Saddam’s own paranoia and strategic ambiguity—culminated in one of the most consequential and costly foreign policy disasters of the modern era.
This audiobook is incredibly well informed and undeniably thorough. Coll covers an enormous timeframe, from the 1960s/70s all the way through the fall of Saddam, weaving together political manoeuvring, CIA errors, diplomatic misreadings, and the murky question of Iraq’s supposed WMDs. At its best, the book shines when illuminating Saddam himself and the often-misunderstood history of the Middle East in the late 20th century. The sections on young Saddam, the Iran-Iraq War, and Iraq in the 1980s are genuinely fascinating. The reporting is excellent, and the access to rare sources makes for compelling listening.
However, the sheer volume of detail is both a strength and a weakness. Coll often struggles to shape this wealth of information into a cohesive, well-paced narrative, and at times it feels like the book can’t quite see the forest for the trees. After the Gulf War, the narrative loses much of its richness, shifting heavily toward U.S. and U.K. political figures—Clinton, Blair, Bush—at the expense of the Iraqi people whose lives were most impacted by sanctions, conflict, and instability. For a book of this scope, the lack of focus on everyday Iraqis is noticeable. And at nearly double the length it needed to be, the pacing can be punishingly slow, especially in the later chapters.
As a purely historical work, I’d probably rate it closer to a 3.5 or even 4 stars. It offers valuable insight into the WMD controversy, CIA missteps, and the geopolitical chain reactions that led to the Iraq War. You will learn a lot about Saddam. But for the casual reader (or listener) simply wanting a clearer understanding of U.S./Iraq history, this may feel overwhelming, overly long, and, at times, frustratingly dry.
A strong historical source? Absolutely. An accessible or tightly crafted narrative? Not quite.
A Dense but Insightful Iraq War History
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