Iraq has dominated international headlines in recent years, but its controversial role in international affairs goes back much further. The key arena for these power politics over Iraq has been the United Nations Security Council. Spanning the last quarter century,The International Struggle over Iraq examines the impact the United Nations Security Council has had on Iraq - and Iraq's impact on the Security Council.

The story is a fascinating one. Beginning in 1980, in the crucible of the Iran-Iraq War, the Council found a common voice as a peacemaker after the divisions of the cold war. That peacemaking role was cemented when a UN-mandated force expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991, offering a glimpse of a new role for the UN in the 'New World Order'. But unilateralism soon set in, as the Security Council struggled under the weight and bureaucratic demands of its changing identity. The Security Council gradually abandoned its traditional political and military tools for the legal-regulatory approach, but was unable to bridge the gap between those who believed allegations of Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction and those who didn't. Growing paralysis led eventually to deadlock in the Council in 2002, with the result that it was sidelined during the 2003 Coalition invasion. This relegation, when combined with the loss of some of its best and brightest in a massive truck bomb in Iraq later that year, precipitated a deep crisis of confidence. The future role of the UN Security Council has now, once again, become uncertain.

The paperback edition contains a substantial new preface covering recent developments. Drawing on the author's unparalleled access to UN insiders, this volume offers radical new insights into one of the most persistent crises in international affairs, and the different roles the world's central peace-making forum has played in it.

David M. Malone's profile page

David M. Malone, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, is today Canada's High Commissioner in India. From 1998 to 2004 he served as President of the International Peace Academy in New York. A scholar of the political economy of violent conflict and of US foreign policy, he is the author of numerous books and articles.

"This book provides an illuminating account of the 25 years of tangled Security Council involvement with Iraq...It is a fascinating portrait of the changing and often conflicting uses of the Security Council by the major powers, played out against a backdrop of shifting security threats, geopolitical realities, and U.S foreign policy ambitions...This book is essential reading for those who want to use the lessons of the Security Council's tumultuous encounter with Iraq to guide UN reform."

--John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs

"Iraq has long been a recurring item on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council. Drawing on unparalleled access to UN insiders, David Malone, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN and former president of the International Peace Academy, offers an illuminating and fascinating account of the impact of the Security Council on Iraq -- and Iraq's impact on the UN -- from 1980 to 2005. Though the entire work is an important addition to the understanding of modern Iraq, Malone's analysis of the recent history of UN involvement in Iraq, and the "crisis of confidence" within the UN when it was largely sidelined following the march to war by a "coalition of the willing" without a Council mandate, will stand as a vital, must-read study."

--The Toronto Globe and Mail

Review from previous edition: "A uniquely clear and lucid account of the workings and background of the UN Security Council's fateful refusal to legitimize US military action against Iraq in 2003 and of the international fall-out of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

--Sir Brian Urquhart, New York Review of Books

"Avoiding the politics- and media-driven ideological assaults that characterize much of the public discussion of the UN these days, this scholarly book analyzes the flow of events to build towards conclusions on how the Security Council can do better in the future."

--Rami G Khouri, Agence Global

Review from previous edition: "A uniquely clear and lucid account of the workings and background of the UN Security Council's fateful refusal to legitimize US military action against Iraq in 2003 and of the international fall-out of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

--Sir Brian Urquhart, New York Review of Books

"David Malone's excellent and comprehensive new history of the interaction between the UN and its most troublesome member-state, Iraq, should be very welcome to Australian readers...This is a work of history written for the specialist, but the layperson will benefit from it too."

--Australian Book Review