Starting in the late twentieth century, the "Epic of Gilgamesh" began to be read again in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, the former President of Iraq, had a lifelong fascination with Gilgamesh. Hussein's first novel "Zabibah and the King" (2000) is an allegory for the Gulf War set in ancient Assyria that blends elements of the "Epic of Gilgamesh" and the "One Thousand and One Nights". Like Gilgamesh, the king at the beginning of the novel is a brutal tyrant who misuses his power and oppresses his people, but, through the aid of a commoner woman named Zabibah, he grows into a more just ruler. When the United States pressured Hussein to step down in February 2003, Hussein gave a speech to a group of his generals posing the idea in a positive light by comparing himself to the epic hero.