Presented by the Global Peace, Security, and Human Rights Lecute Series

Saddam Hussein is high on America's enemies list-but does an Iraq without him hold the seeds of the next Yugoslavia? To the dismay of many in the West, the Gulf War ended with Saddam Hussein still in control, still defiant, and determined to use any means of striking back. This book sounds an urgent note of caution: a future Iraq without Hussein could be even more unstable and more problematical to the security of the United States. The Reckoning is an account of the forces-historical, religious, ethnic, and political-that produced Saddam's dictatorship. Forged after World War I from the Mesopotamian region of the collapsed Ottoman Empire, Iraq's people have never had a national identity or a sense of common purpose. Hussein, ruling by terror rather than persuasion, has pitted the various ethnic groups, religious interests, and tribes against each other and in so doing achieved the destruction of Iraq's middle class and civilized society. After he goes, however he goes, the country could be the site of conflict even more vicious than the Balkan wars.

Sandra Mackey is also the author of The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom (1987); Lebanon: Death of a Nation named to the New York Times list of Notable Books of 1989; Passion and Politics: The Turbulent World of the Arabs (1995), and The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation. (1996).

She is a frequent guest on CNN and has appeared as a commentator on Middle East events on Nightline, ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings, BBC, CBC, National Public Radio, Monitor Radio as well as many other media outlets. She has been featured in People Magazine and has appeared as a guest on the comedy program Politically Incorrect.

Sandra Mackey spent four years in Saudi Arabia working as an underground journalist reporting on Saudi politics, economics, military affairs, and the society. Her articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Quarterly, and many other publications.

Mackey holds an MA in International Affairs from the University of Virginia and has taught political science at Georgia State University. She has served as a visiting scholar in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

This event is part of the "Global Peace, Security, and Human Rights" lecture series being sponsored by UCSB Arts & Lectures, Global and International Studies Program, and Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. It is being put on in partnership with the Santa Barbara Committee on Foreign Relations, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, PAX 2100, International Studies Association at Santa Barbara City College, and the International Studies Program at Ventura College.

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