After World War II, the victorious Allied Powers restructured the map of the world by reconfiguring remnants of the defeated Ottoman Empire into independent nation-states. In the Levant, the British and French oversaw the development of Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, in Mesopotamia, the vilayets (regions) of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul were pieced together to create Iraq. 

For decades the ethnically diverse nation of Iraq was held together first under the authority of the British puppet regimes and then by the iron-fist rule of Saddam Hussein and his Baathist henchmen.

Almost a century later, Iraq was invaded again by the United States and the despotic leader, Saddam Hussein, the erstwhile glue that held Iraq together, was toppled. As a result, the country fragmented roughly along pre-WWI ethnic lines sparking a violent contest to fill the political void.

In her presentation, Amanda Roraback reviews the causes and consequences of Iraq's civil war and offers five possible state-building solutions.