Iraq
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Sectarian relations between Sunnis and Shi'as in Iraq have undergone profound change since 2003. Perceptions of domination, empowerment and marginalization have been reversed amongst both groups with consequences for national and regional politics. In this presentation, the dynamics of sectarian relations and 'sectarianism' will be examined with a specific emphasis on the drivers of sectarian identity and the paradoxical nature of sectarian relations in Iraq. Understanding 'sectarianism' in Iraq requires us to view the issue through the prism of competing Iraqi nationalisms rather than as an existential struggle between two faith-groups. More importantly it is essential to acknowledge the fluctuating nature of sectarian relations; only then can we account for their apparently contradictory nature as evidenced by the descent into civil war alongside an immutable belief in unity.
Sunni identity and sectarian relations in post-civil war Iraq - 04 - 2012 - Events - Public events - Home
The US occupation of Iraq, coupled with its attendant deployment of sectarianism as a political technology, has foreclosed the possibility of non-sectarian modes of seeing, or critiquing political life in Iraq. In " Shiites and Sunnis in post-US Iraq: separate and unequal; some predict dissolution of country ," the five contributors, four of whom are writing from Iraq, adopt this lens in reflecting on the contentious relationship between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq. In the article, originally published by The Associated Press and re-posted by The Washington Post and The Washington Times , the authors hone in on the Shia persecution of vulnerable Sunnis in the aftermath of the withdrawal of US troops. Such a portrayal produces the occupying imperial power as a neutral arbiter of Iraq’s religious communities, or in the authors’ words, as Iraq’s “peacemakers.” Without them, we are told, Iraq’s Sunni minority has to fend for itself in a now Shia-dominated country.
Beating the Drums of Orientalism
BBC - Adam Curtis Blog: BODYBUILDING AND NATION-BUILDING
At first sight the search for peace and stability in Iraq, and the search for physical and mental fitness in the extreme contortions of modern Yoga seem to have absolutely nothing in common. But curiously they do. Both the terrible structural problems and distortions that underly Iraqi society today, and the strange, contorted poses that millions of people perform every day in things like Bikram's Hot Yoga, actually come from the fevered imagination of the British ruling class one hundred years ago. As they felt Britain's power declining they wanted desperately to go back into the past and create a purer and more innocent world, uncorrupted by the messiness of the modern industrial world - a new Eden forged both by strengthening and purifying the human body and by inventing new model countries round the world.
Some of the uprisings in the Arab world in 2011 demonstrated the appeal and the power of nonviolent protest. Others, however, bore witness to the enduring appeal of violence , both for embattled regimes and for those trying to unseat them. For the former, violence and the threat of violence promises to restore order and discipline; for the latter it promises direct access to power. It thus becomes in the projection of power both a symbol and an instrument of the seriousness of the political project, expressing resolve and representing the very embodiment of sovereignty: the ability and the right to grant life and death. For government, violence presents itself as a realist resource for stability, the key in fact to ‘stability operations’ – yet one more euphemism to make violence so seductive. For the opposing forces, violence equally is a token of their own seriousness and determination, a graphic way of portraying ‘what the struggle is all about’.
The seductions of violence in Iraq | openDemocracy
Charles Tripp · Militias, Vigilantes, Death Squads: Iraq’s Shadow State · LRB 25 January 2007
At a Downing Street meeting in November 2002 attended by Tony Blair, Jack Straw and six academics familiar with Iraq and the Middle East, two things became clear. The first was that Straw thought post-Saddam Iraq would be much like post-Soviet Russia and could thus be easily pigeonholed as that strange creature, a ‘transitional society’. Either he had been persuaded of this by the recycled Cold Warriors clustering round the Bush administration, or they had failed to inform their ‘key ally’ of their determination to dismantle Iraq’s state and security structures. More ominously, Blair seemed wholly uninterested in Iraq as a complex and puzzling political society, wanting confirmation merely that deposing Saddam Hussein would remove ‘evil’ from the country.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports from Baghdad where families of innocent detainees face extortion from corrupt officials The walls of Um Hussein's living room in Baghdad are hung with the portraits of her missing sons. There are four of them, and each picture frame is decorated with plastic roses and green ribbons as an improvised wreath for the dead.
Corruption in Iraq: 'Your son is being tortured. He will die if you don't pay' | World news | The Guardian
“Not a year has passed without hunger in Iraq,” wrote the great Iraqi poet al-Sayyab (1926–1964) more than half a century ago in his memorable poem “Rainsong.” Now, many years and many wars later, there is hunger aplenty. Were he alive today, al-Sayyab would have expressed nothing short of horror at the massive hunger in the “new” Iraq, especially when considering the obscene wealth that has been and is still being plundered and squandered by its rulers. One in six Iraqis live in poverty . This is in a nation with the second highest oil reserves in the world and a budget surplus of more than fifty billion US dollars in 2011.
Plundering the Past: Scholarly Treasures
Iraq and Beyond
Ideas Matter Ideas Matter, a joint project of Boston Review and MIT’s Political Science Department, is a lecture series that brings our writers together with other experts and practitioners for substantive debate on the challenges of our times. The series, free and open to the public, will offer four events in the 2011–12 academic year. Return to this page for dates and information on forthcoming events on the responsibility of intellectuals, ethical consumption, and more.The politics of Kurdish Nationalism
Iraq: Reading...
Posted by Reidar Visser on Wednesday, 21 December 2011 13:23 Exactly one year ago, the second government of Nuri al-Maliki was approved by parliament in Baghdad . At the time, the event was celebrated by commentators in the international community as a sign of Iraq’s prospering democracy. The Obama administration was jubilant that a pluralistic form of democracy embracing all of Iraq’s ethno-sectarian groups had prevailed. What was forgotten by commentators back then was that the formation of the government was only partial. A projected strategic policy council, intended to accommodate the leader of the secular Iraqiyya party which won the most votes in the March 2010 parliamentary elections, remained at the drawing board.
On His Uneasy One-Year Anniversary as Premier, Maliki Escalates Iraq’s Political Conflict « Iraq and Gulf Analysis
China / Iraq relations...
A simmering conflict over territories and resources in northern Iraq is slowly coming to a boil. In early April 2012, the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) suspended its supply of oil for export through the national Iraqi pipeline, claiming Baghdad had not fully repaid operating costs to producing companies. The federal government responded by threatening to deduct what the oil would have generated in sales from the KRG’s annual budget allocation, potentially halving it. This latest flare-up in perennially tense Erbil-Baghdad relations has highlighted the troubling fact that not only have the two sides failed to resolve their differences but also that, by striking out on unilateral courses, they have deepened them to the point that a solution appears more remote than ever. It is late already, but the best way forward is a deal between Baghdad and Erbil, centred on a federal hydrocarbons law and a compromise on disputed territories.
Iraq and the Kurds: The High-Stakes Hydrocarbons Gambit
2003-2011 Iraq war
Iraq - curators...
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Iran / Iraq Relations
Bombings Roil Iraq as Sunni Arabs Re-arm | Informed Comment
The death toll in Thursday’s bombings and attacks in Baghdad and environs rose to about 67 dead, with hundreds wounded. Most of the attacks honed in on soft targets (schools and markets) in Shiite neighborhoods, though some Sunni areas, considered collaborationist by the guerrillas, were also hit. The Sunni Arab guerrilla groups believe that the Iraqi government as stood up by the United States is an unholy alliance of Shiites and Kurds against their community, and that it is fragile and can eventually be overthrown if the situation is sufficiently destabilized. They have been launching big coordinated strikes about once a season, with the last in August. This one comes as the Sunni-backed Iraqiya Party, which had been willing to cooperate with the Shiite-dominated government, has suspended its participation in the cabinet and the parliament after Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused a vice-president from Iraqiya of plotting terrorist attacks.Baghdad - Eight American soldiers were killed in attacks by insurgents over the past the two days, the military said today, as a renewed wave of violence continued. Today's attacks came after at least 33 people were killed on Monday in car bomb blasts aimed at Iraqi Shiites in what appeared to be the latest attempt to exploit the sectarian divisions that have tormented the country. Three United States soldiers with a Task Force Baghdad convoy were killed when a car bomb exploded at about 1:30 p.m. today in the central part of the city, a military spokesman said. About an hour later, in the same area of Baghdad, gunmen shot and killed an American soldier at an observation post. The soldier later died from his wounds, said the spokesman with Task Force Baghdad, Sgt. First Class David Abrams.
Iraqi Torture Scandal Touches Highest Levels of NATO | Truthout
Few people now remember that for many months after the First World War ended in November 1918 the blockade of Germany, where the population was already on the edge of starvation, was maintained with full rigour. By the following spring, the German authorities were projecting a 50 per cent increase in the infant mortality rate. In a later memoir, John Maynard Keynes attributed the prolongation of civilian punishment In the event, the ban on food imports was lifted (for fear of promoting Bolshevism) before Germany accepted the punitive terms of the Versailles treaty, but blockades have retained their popularity as a weapon deployed by strong powers against the weak.
LRB · Andrew Cockburn · Worth It
US / Iraq relations...