Backstabbing for Beginners

Resumen del libro

The year is 1997. C. Michael Soussan, an idealistic young graduate, has recently accepted his dream job at the United Nations' Oil-for-Food Programme, helping Iraqi civilians survive the impact of economic sanctions. Under conflicting guidance, the program would oversee the use of 64 billion petrodollars against a backdrop of simmering international tension that constantly threatens to erupt into an all-out war. An absolute beginner in the world of international diplomacy, Soussan initially struggles to negotiate his incomprehensible boss and one of the world's most Kafkaesque bureaucracies. As he learns more about the vast sums of money flowing through the program, Soussan finds himself embroiled in a world of spies, corrupt oil tycoons, and dysfunctional diplomats. Backstabbing for Beginners is at once an unsettling tale of one man's political coming of age, and a stinging indictment of the hypocrisy that prevailed at the heart of the United Nations.