The Legacy of Iraq From the 2003 War to the 'Islamic State'

by Isakhan, Benjamin

• ISBN13: 9780748696161
• ISBN10: 0748696164
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-08-01
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

The Legacy of Iraq critically reflects on the abject failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. It argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world.

Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq war and denying their connection to contemporary events could means that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.

Author Biography

Benjamin Isakhan is Australian Research Council Discovery (DECRA) Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, and Convenor of the Middle East Studies Forum at Deakin University, Australia. Ben is the author of Democracy in Iraq: History, Politics and Discourse (Ashgate, 2012) and the editor of five books including The Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy (Edinburgh University Press, paperback 2015, hardback 2012).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors

The Iraq Legacies: Intervention, Occupation, Withdrawal and Beyond
Benjamin Isakhan

Part I: The Aftermath of War: Strategic Decisions and Catastrophic Mistakes
1. The De-Baathification of post-2003 Iraq: Purging the Past for Political Power
Benjamin Isakhan
2. The Contested Politics of Iraq's Oil Wealth
Philippe Le Billon
3. Torture at Abu Ghraib: Non-disclosure and Impunity
Aloysia Brooks

Part II: Iraqi Politics since Saddam
4. Shattering the Shia: A Maliki Political Strategy in Post-Saddam Iraq
Benjamin Isakhan
5. The Dangerous Legacy of a Flawed Constitution: Resolving Iraq's Kurdish 'Problem'
Liam Anderson
6. Between 'Aqalliya' and 'Mukawin': Understanding Sunni Political Attitudes in Post-Saddam Iraq
Ronen Zeidel
7. Post-Withdrawal Prospects for Iraq's 'Ultra-Minorities'
Nicholas Al-Jeloo

Part III: The Plight of Iraqi Culture and Civil Society
8. Doing Democracy in Difficult Times: Oil Unions and the Maliki Government
Benjamin Isakhan
9. 'If you are female, you risk being attacked': Digital Selves, Warblogs and Women's Rights in post-Invasion Iraq
Perri Campbell and Luke Howie
10. The Impact of Coalition Military Operations on Archaeological Sites in Iraq
Diane C. Siebrandt

Part IV: Regional and International Consequences of the Iraq War
11. Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq: Internal and External Displacement
Howard Adelman
12. The Shia Ascendency in Iraq and the Sectarian Polarisation of the Middle East
Ranj Alaaldin
13. Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq: The Politics of Protection and Rescue
Binoy Kampmark
14. Iraq, the Illusion of Security and the Limits to Power
Joseph A. Camilleri

The Iraq Legacies and the Roots of the 'Islamic State'
Benjamin Isakhan

Index