The Legacy of Iraq From the 2003 War to the ‘Islamic State’ Edited by Benjamin Isakhan 44628_The628_The LegacyLegacy ofof Iraq.inddIraq.indd i 225/02/155/02/15 111:491:49 AAMM © editorial matter and organisation Benjamin Isakhan, 2015 © the chapters their several authors, 2015 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 11/13 Adobe Sabon by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 9616 1 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 9617 8 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 0500 3 (epub) The right of the contributors to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). 44628_The628_The LegacyLegacy ofof Iraq.inddIraq.indd iiii 225/02/155/02/15 111:491:49 AAMM Contents Acknowledgements v Notes on Contributors vii Introduction: The Iraq Legacies – Intervention, Occupation, Withdrawal and Beyond 1 Benjamin Isakhan Part I: The Aftermath of War: Strategic Decisions and Catastrophic Mistakes 1. The De-Baathifi cation of post-2003 Iraq: Purging the Past for Political Power 21 Benjamin Isakhan 2. The Contested Politics of Iraq’s Oil Wealth 36 Philippe Le Billon 3. Torture at Abu Ghraib: Non-disclosure and Impunity 50 Aloysia Brooks Part II: Iraqi Politics since Saddam 4. Shattering the Shia: A Maliki Political Strategy in Post-Saddam Iraq 67 Benjamin Isakhan 5. The Dangerous Legacy of a Flawed Constitution: Resolving Iraq’s Kurdish ‘Problem’ 82 Liam Anderson 6. Between Aqalliya and Mukawin: Understanding Sunni Political Attitudes in Post-Saddam Iraq 97 Ronen Zeidel 7. Post-withdrawal Prospects for Iraq’s ‘Ultra-minorities’ 110 Nicholas Al-Jeloo 44628_The628_The LegacyLegacy ofof Iraq.inddIraq.indd iiiiii 225/02/155/02/15 111:491:49 AAMM iv contents Part III: The Plight of Iraqi Culture and Civil Society 8. Doing Democracy in Diffi cult Times: Oil Unions and the Maliki Government 125 Benjamin Isakhan 9. ‘If You’re a Female, You Risk Being Attacked’: Digital Selves, Warblogs and Women’s Rights in Post-invasion Iraq 138 Perri Campbell and Luke Howie 10. The Impact of Coalition Military Operations on Archaeological Sites in Iraq 152 Diane C. Siebrandt Part IV: Regional and International Consequences of the Iraq War 11. Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq: Internal and External Displacement 167 Howard Adelman 12. Shia Ascendency in Iraq and the Sectarian Polarisation of the Middle East 181 Ranj Alaaldin 13. Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq: The Politics of Protection and Rescue 195 Binoy Kampmark 14. Iraq, the Illusion of Security and the Limits to Power 208 Joseph A. Camilleri Conclusion: The Iraq Legacies and the Roots of the ‘Islamic State’ 223 Benjamin Isakhan References 236 Index 271 44628_The628_The LegacyLegacy ofof Iraq.inddIraq.indd iviv 225/02/155/02/15 111:491:49 AAMM Acknowledgements In mid-2014, as the fi nal edits were being made to each of the chapters included in this volume, the situation in Iraq changed dramatically. Within a matter of weeks, the Sunni fundamentalist terrorist network, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), had taken several important cities across northern and western Iraq and declared an independent caliphate. They quickly imposed their deadly and austere vision on local populations and a sequence of dramatic humanitarian disasters unfolded, to the horror of the international community. With a mixture of surprise and fury, militias claiming to represent the Shia majority of southern Iraq surged north and the nation spiralled, once again, into a period of horrifi c sectarian vio- lence. The Kurds of northern Iraq capitalised on the ISIS advance to seize new territory, including the important city of Kirkuk, and once again threatened to secede from the rest of the country. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government in Baghdad fl oundered under international scrutiny before a rapid sequence of political negotiations saw Prime Minister Maliki ousted and a new Iraqi government emerge. While the chapters collected here did not predict this rapid turn of events, they do point to several of its root causes. There is simply no way to fully comprehend the ‘Islamic State’ advance, the spike in sectar- ianism, the most recent Kurdish push for independence and the political rotation in Baghdad without coming to terms with the complex legacies of the 2003 Iraq War. This book therefore not only documents several of the more troubling legacies, but also argues that key mistakes made by the US-led occupation and the fl edgling Iraqi government since 2003 set in train a sequence of events that have served as the collective cata- lyst for the crisis that began in mid-2014. To ignore the legacies of the Iraq War and to deny their connection to contemporary events means that vital lessons will be ignored and the same mistakes will be made in the future. Each of the contributors to this volume was therefore asked to refl ect on a key legacy of the Iraq War of 2003 and to document the trajectory of a given issue from the time of the intervention through more than a decade of failed projects and broken promises, through trauma, displacement, violence and disorder. I would like to thank each of them for the timely delivery of quality chapters. The professionalism and calibre of the authors involved and their detailed knowledge of the subject matter made the job of editing this volume a pleasure. 44628_The628_The LegacyLegacy ofof Iraq.inddIraq.indd v 225/02/155/02/15 111:491:49 AAMM vi the legacy of iraq This book would not have come to fruition without the generous sup- port of four signifi cant institutions and their staff. Firstly, the Australian Research Council and their Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE120100315), a fellowship which has enabled me to complete this volume. Secondly, the Middle East Studies Forum within the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University, with special men- tion going to Fethi Mansouri. Thirdly, the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore and the kind support of Michael C. Hudson and Peter Sluglett. Finally, thanks also go to Gareth Stansfi eld at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter where I undertook a brief visiting research fellowship while putting the fi nishing touches on this volume. Among many other colleagues, I am also indebted to Amin Saikal and Liam Anderson for their enthusiasm and support for the project from its inception. In addition, I owe thanks to the administrative talents of Cayla Edwards, the research assistance of Kelsie Nabben and Verena Woeppel, the expertise and organisational skills of Wael Elhabrouk and the editorial acumen of Jennifer Kloester. I am also grateful to the anonymous referees who read earlier versions of the chapters as well as the staff of Edinburgh University Press who have contributed to the production of this book, particularly Nicola Ramsey and John Watson for their initial interest and confi dence in the work. On a more personal note, I would like to thank my family and friends for their much-needed words of encouragement and love. Special mention must go to the ever-supportive and always patient Lyndal Isakhan and little Thomas Isakhan, who makes all the hard work so worthwhile. 44628_The628_The LegacyLegacy ofof Iraq.inddIraq.indd vivi 225/02/155/02/15 111:491:49 AAMM Notes on Contributors Howard Adelman was most recently a research professor at the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffi th University, Australia. He has authored and co-authored hundreds of publications, most rele- vantly No Return, No Refuge: Rites and Rights in Minority Repatriation (Columbia University Press, 2011) and Protracted Displacement in Asia: No Place to Call Home (Ashgate, 2008). In addition to his numerous writ- ings on refugees, he has written articles, chapters and books on the Middle East, multiculturalism, humanitarian intervention, membership rights, eth- ics, early warning and confl ict management. Ranj Alaaldin is a doctoral candidate at the Department for Interna- tional History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom. He is also a visiting scholar at Columbia University, United States. His research focuses on Iraq, looking in particular at Shia mobilisation, sectarianism and the Kurds. The author has conducted extensive fi eldwork throughout Iraq and has published widely on Iraq and the Middle East region. Nicholas Al-Jeloo has recently graduated with a PhD in Syriac stud- ies from the University of Sydney, Australia. Among his publications are Modern Aramaic (Assyrian/Syriac) Phrasebook and Dictionary (Hippocrene, 2007), as well as a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals documenting his empirical research on the history and cul- ture of Assyrians in Iraq and other countries. His research interests concern Eastern Christianity, minorities and Semitic languages, and he conducted numerous fi eld trips to Iraq and among Iraqi refugee com- munities in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon between 2002 and 2010. Liam Anderson is Professor of Political Science at Wright State Univer- sity, United States. His research interests focus on issues of constitutional design, particularly with reference to ethnically divided states, such as Iraq. His publications include The Future of Iraq: Dictatorship, Democracy, or Division? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 – with Gareth Stansfi eld), Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Confl ict and Compromise (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009 – with Gareth Stansfi eld) and An Atlas of Middle Eastern Affairs (Routledge, 2011). His most recent book, Federal Solu- tions to Ethnic Problems: Accommodating Diversity (Routledge, 2013), examines the effi cacy of different models of federal design to alleviate ethnic confl ict.