George Packer

A Little Explosion

Adnan: How do you see yourself in five years?

Intisar: On a bicycle.

Adnan: Be serious.

Intisar: I am very serious! Okay. In five years? (Smiling, indulging her dreams a little) Working at UNESCO, in Paris. Bringing English literature to Arab countries, especially the books we were not allowed to read.

Betrayed

Millions of Iraqis, spanning the country’s religious and ethnic spectrum, welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But the mostly young men and women who embraced America’s project so enthusiastically that they were prepared to risk their lives for it may constitute Iraq’s smallest minority. I came across them in every city: the young man in

November 27, 2006 | Save Whomever We Can

The New Republic A few days ago, the brother of my friend Osman was one of seven Sunni workers in a shop in a mixed neighborhood of western Baghdad who were rounded up at gunpoint by Mahdi Army militiamen and taken to the local Shia mosque. There, they were taunted about Saddam Hussein’s death sentence