This piece, which Oliver Craner originally posted at his personal website last summer, offers a deep reading of Iraq’s post-invasion trajectory. Craner’s piece isn’t definitive. He gives a little too much credence to canny purveyors of the given such as journalist George Packer. Still, Craner’s account of Kanan Makiya’s journey beats what’s been on offer in most think pieces tuned to the 20th Anniversary of “shock and awe.” I commend, in particular, Cramer’s return to The Rope — Makiya’s own attempt to reckon with what happened in Iraq. The Rope, which refers to the one used to hang Saddam Hussein, tells the story of a Shiite militia-man whose life comes down to one sectarian betrayal after another. The anti-hero of the book — an orphan who looks up to his uncle as more than a mentor — will find out (before the book’s end) the uncle was behind the murder of the militia-man’s father. Iraq in a nutshell? It’s important to add, though, The Rope isn’t simply a fable. As Craner notes, Makiya’s fiction was founded on real events such as…