A RESPONSE TO TAREQ ISMAEL'S REVIEW of RED STAR OVER IRAQ: IRAQI COMMUNISM BEFORE SADDAM

Extract

It was with great expectation that I awaited IJMES' review of my book on the Iraqi communist movement, Red Star over Iraq: Iraqi Communism before Saddam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), published in the November 2012 issue. However, any hope of a balanced assessment of my work—the result of many years of painstaking research—disappeared as soon as I began reading Professor Tareq Ismael's review. Ismael, who is the author of the only other work on the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) that has been published in English in recent times, might seem like an appropriate scholar to offer a specialist view on the topic. But this proved not to be the case.