Lensman. E.E. "Doc" Smith. Classic space opera with pure-as-Boy-Scout heros and unrelentingly evil bad guys fighting for control of planet-squishing "doomsday devices."
The German armies were now being pressed into an ever-smaller area between Falaise and Argentan, and relentlessly pounded with artillery and air strikes.
In Iraq's case this was the Baath, or Renaissance, Party, a vehicle which he ultimately transformed, through terrifyingly capricious ruthlessness, into a fascistic tool for his own absolute control.
He saw people as puppets, controlled by some pitiless force much as he, in boyhood, had controlled his own marionettes in his toy theatre, making Mr Punch jibber and squawk in nonsense-language.