Author of travel stories, Virginie Page unexpectedly finds herself in the middle of a major conflict that will mark the decades to come. In the summer of 1990, when she meets Saddam Hussein, she learns that the Iraqi dictator is preparing to invade Kuwait. In the context of the interviews conducted for her book dealing with Islam in the Arab countries, Virginia meets the Emir of Osman, Khaled Hourani, a character out of the ordinary. Between the rumblings of Saddam's tanks and American planes, a story is created between them, destined to last. They are both aware of the issues of their time and if their passionate discussions revolve around how each fills the life of the other, they also focus on the radical Islam that made the clash of civilizations a reality and made our terrifying world ... Through the meeting of two individuals that nothing opposes except their belonging to different cultures, through their journey in the period that saw the Bush clan and its allies in the Middle East destabilize the world order, Saïdeh Pakravan offers us a novel of breathtaking intelligence on the genesis of one of the most dangerous confrontations of our time.