The War over Iraq: Selling War to the American Public

The Holocaust has become an important part of the everyday discourse of American life. Indeed, it has become one of the central historical analogies for thinking about U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War world. The received wisdom about the Holocaust among most Americans is that the United States and the rest of the civilized world turned away Jews seeking to escape Nazi Germany before World War II, and then sat idly by while the Third Reich murdered nearly 6 million of them during the course of the war. In light of this reprehensible indifference, the United States shares some responsibility for the Holocaust, and it must “never again” allow large numbers of people to be slaughtered because of their race, ethnicity, or religion. Historical analogies are ubiquitous in foreign policy debates. Not only do they routinely shape state behavior, they usually do so for the worse. Hence, we should be wary of all historical analogies and examine them carefully to make sure they are based on sound history and used wisely by policymakers. The widely accepted Holocaust analogy illustrates, in my view, both how analogies are frequently based on a faulty reading of history and that policies based on them have not always served U.S. interests.     

伊拉克战争中的心战手法综述

古往今来,军事谋略家都重视舆论宣传在战争中的重要作用。我国著名军事家孙子曰:“攻心为上,攻城为下。”诸葛亮也曾言道“心战为上,兵战为下”。伴随着现代传播技术和媒体的迅猛发展,舆论宣传战已成为一种重要作战手段。人们从伊拉克战争中美伊双方的攻守,更是很好地领略到了这一点。     

Re-negotiating the Just War: The Invasion of Iraq and Punitive War

This article examines the arguments pertaining to punitive war presented by President George W Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair and various just war theorists, in order to examine how they relate, first, to the case made for war against Iraq in 2003 and, second, to the classical just war tradition. In highlighting the confluence between contemporary justificatory rhetoric and the classical just war tradition, this article sketches an account of the mode by which the tradition has developed over time. By drawing attention to the homologies linking just war arguments, classical and contemporary, it constructs a basis for a critical perspective: understanding the idea of punishment as it has figured historically in just war tradition past may enable us to gain a degree of critical purchase on how it figures in just war tradition present.     

Fixing the Meaning of 9/11: Hegemony,Coercion, and the Road to War in Iraq

As the costs of the invasion and occupation of Iraq mount, scholars have sought to explain how the United States came to launch this war in the first place. Many have focused on the “inflation” of the Iraq threat, and indeed the Bush administration did frame the national dialogue on Iraq. We maintain, however, that the failure of most leading Democrats to challenge the administration's case for war in 2002–2003 cannot be explained fully by the bully pulpit, Democrats' reputation for dovishness, or administration misrepresentations. Rather, we argue that leading Democrats were relatively silent in the run-up to war because they had been “rhetorically coerced”, unable to advance a politically sustainable set of arguments with which to oppose the war. The effective fixing of the meaning of the September 11 attacks in terms of the “War on Terror” substantially circumscribed political debate, and we explain why this discourse became dominant. The Bush administration then capitalized on the existing portrait of Saddam Hussein to bind Iraq tightly into the War on Terror and thereby silence leading Democrats and legitimate the war. The story of the road to war in Iraq is not only one of neoconservative hubris and manipulated intelligence. It is also the story of how political actors strove effectively after 9/11 to shape the nation's discourse of foreign affairs and of how the resulting dominant narratives structured foreign policy debate. Behind the seemingly natural War on Terror lurk political processes of meaning-making that narrowed the space for contestation over Iraq.     

伊拉克战争解读

伊拉克战争是一场有着巨大争议的战争,国际社会的反对与美国国内很高的支持率形成了鲜明的对照。反战者与战争发动者都有着无可争议的理由,但他们的理由又都不是压倒一切的。伊拉克战争不是一场偶然的战争,它是国际社会基本矛盾不可调和的产物。     

伊拉克战争与中国外交

中国在从对伊武器核查到伊拉克战争这场重大国际危机前后 ,始终坚持维护《联合国宪章》和国际法基本原则 ,主张在联合国框架内政治解决伊拉克问题 ,反对“先发制人”打击的单边主义行为 ;同时又在本国力量和利益所及的范围内进行有理、有利、有节的斡旋与斗争 ,采取战略明确、战术超脱的灵活策略 ,在坚持国际道义的同时 ,最大限度地维护国家利益 ;既发挥了负责任大国应有的作用 ,又成功地实现了我国外交战略的“韬光养晦”与“有所作为”方针的辨证统一。     

墨西哥与伊拉克危机

“九一一”事件之后,美国把伊拉克问题与反恐斗争联系在一起。阿富汗战争结束后,美国随即将矛头指向伊拉克,欲以武力推翻萨达姆政权。为获得联合国安理会对伊拉克开战的授权,美国展开了频繁的外交活动。面对美国的百般拉拢和国际社会日益高涨的反战呼声,作为安理会成员国的墨西哥究竟何去何从?这引起世人的关注。     

叙利亚与伊拉克战争--兼论巴沙尔政府执政后对本地区政策的调整

巴沙尔执政后 ,为扭转不利于叙利亚的中东时局 ,调整了叙利亚对本地区的政策 ,与周边国家改善关系 ,加强与本地区大国的合作。伊拉克危机爆发后 ,叙利亚逐步卷入其中 ,先是对美国“倒萨”采取不合作立场 ,继续推进与伊拉克的和解 ,继而又在安理会表达强硬的反战立场。其用意则是借力伊拉克问题 ,凸显阿以冲突。伊拉克战争期间 ,叙美矛盾激化 ,导致叙利亚地区政治环境转趋恶化。虽然巴沙尔灵活务实的外交政策使紧张的叙美关系暂趋缓和 ,但伊拉克战争后 ,叙美分歧依旧 ,叙以僵局、黎巴嫩问题等仍将是巴沙尔政府面临的难题。     

伊拉克战后的航空货运

20 0 3年3月1 8日美国对伊拉克战争正式打响,不到一个月,萨达姆政权就倒台了,伊拉克政权的变更比人们预想的要快得多,但伊拉克战后经济基础设施的重建,却比人们预想的要缓慢、复杂和困难得多。国际商人在争先恐后地涌向伊拉克,在伊拉克各地,尤其是首都巴格达,来自世界各国的航空货运代理人员渐增,其首要任务是在巴格达和伊拉克各地为自己的贸易公司与合伙人建立航空货运办事处、联络点,忙着与伊拉克贸易公司和批发商签订贸易代理协议。已抵达伊拉克和迅速开展商业活动的航空货运代理们希望在伊拉克的航空货运上发一笔大财。据悉,伊拉克有相…     

The Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War: Neoconservatives Versus Realists

The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of both the debate over the war in Iraq and its implications for the future of U.S. foreign policy by examining the relationship between neoconservatism and realism. The article begins by establishing the connection between the tenets of neoconservatism and the arguments for war against Iraq. The primary focus is on the neoconservative Bush Doctrine that served as the primary justification for the Iraq War. Next, we turn to the arguments that realists put forth in their attempt to steer America away from the road to war. The realists, however, proved to be unsuccessful in their attempt to prevent war and in the final section we address the central question of the article; why did realism fail in the debate over Iraq?     

美伊战争的前景与影响

随着美国进攻伊拉克的准备和部署逐步到位,美伊战争已难以避免。美伊战争的前景和结果及影响如何,已成为国际社会关注的焦点。     

伊拉克战争与美国的大战略失误

美国发动对伊战争有着长远的战略考虑,但伊拉克战争本身在目标和手段上都无助于实现或推进美国在“9.11”事件后所确立的大战略目标。美国在伊拉克战争期间的大战略失误,突出地表现为大战略目标与单个军事行动目标之间的模糊和抵触,大战略目标与手段之间严重失衡。长远地看,如果美国偏重于单边主义和军事力量,其巩固“单极”世界的图谋会遇到更大的国际障碍。     

伊拉克战争后的中东问题--中国社会科学院第六届国际问题论坛综述

10月 11日至 12日 ,中国社会科学院科研局和西亚非洲研究所联合承办了该院第六届国际问题论坛。中国社会科学院副院长陈佳贵、外交部前副部长杨福昌、外交部西亚北非司前司长安惠侯出席了本届论坛。出席这次论坛的还有 :中国社会科学院西亚非洲研究所、世界经济与政治研究所、世界宗教研究所、中国国际问题研究所、中国现代国际关系研究院、北京大学、总参谋部外交学院、对外经济贸易大学、上海社会科学院、云南大学、上海外国语大学、环球时报、世界知识出版社等单位的专家、学者和新闻工作者 4 0余人。中国社会科学院西亚非洲研究所所长杨…     

Stuff Happens: Donald Rumsfeld and the Iraq War

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld exercised great influence over U.S. policies in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. The Secretary's leadership presents a puzzle—accounts agree that Rumsfeld was a masterful bureaucratic infighter who ruthlessly gained control over the major decisions and marginalized colleagues, yet, having secured that control, was remarkably blasé about events on the ground in Iraq. I argue that Rumsfeld's paradoxical performance was rooted in key aspects of his worldview—measured through systematic content analysis of his verbal output on the principle that the words individuals say are related to the way they see the world—and his bureaucratic style, identified through interviews with Bush administration insiders. Rumsfeld's worldview centers on a low perception of the control of self in relation to macro-political events, and a very high conceptual complexity, indicating a nuanced view of issues. This low perception of control and heavily contingent worldview is the discursive, stuff happens side of Rumsfeld which so frustrated critics of the U.S. occupation. His bureaucratic style, however, was controlling, suspicious, and overbearing. I suggest that this approach offers a more complete explanation of Rumsfeld's actions, and so contributes to understanding of the Iraq story, as it is rooted in consideration of the basic dispositions that condition how individuals approach their roles.     

Capitalism,Democracy and the War in Iraq

Although Saddam Hussein was a bloody tyrant, and although deposing him served a noble purpose, one still may doubt the wisdom of the American war against Iraq. It is quite dubious whether the democratisation of Iraq can serve as a justification of the American war effort. Properly understood, the democratic peace proposition does not promise that poor, emerging, and illiberal democracies surrounded by autocracies are more peaceful than autocracies. By itself, the transition towards democracy is quite likely to imply some semi-democratic phase when the country is at risk of civil war. Moreover, the democratic peace proposition says nothing at all about the likelihood of success of democratisation in a poor, oil-rich, Arab and Muslim country where there is little common ground to unite the democracy-imposing occupier and the defeated country. Finally, defeating the insurgency in the Sunni triangle of Iraq might require means which a democracy cannot even wish to apply. Whereas the promotion of democracy by war looks like a dead end and is doomed to failure, the prospects of promoting peace by exporting capitalism, growth, and prosperity look much better. Such a strategy even serves the purpose of later democratisation of those countries that now accept only creeping capitalism.     

The Iraq War and International Relations: Implications for Small States

The Iraq War exposes the new shape of world politics. It discredits the idea of a benign hegemon defending world order, content to be an ‘offshore balancer’, exercising its power through multinational institutions and constrained by mutually agreed rules. Rather, the hegemon, facing few external constraints in a unipolar world, is driven by the particularistic interests of its ruling group, in the pursuit of informal empire wherein military force is used to impose client regimes and economic subordination. The impotence of both a realist power balance and of liberal institutions to restrain it calls into question the main bases of global order, leaving imperial overreach as the main limitation on hegemonic power. Small states may be able to adapt to, even temporarily profit from, bandwagoning with the hegemon, but it is they that are potentially most threatened when a hegemonic power undermines the international constraints on the use of power.     

Analysis: The effects of the Iraq War on the Kurdish issue in Turkey

This article examines the potential repercussions of the Iraq War on the Kurdish issue in Turkey. An introduction to the Kurdish problem and its securitisation in Turkey precedes an analysis of the Gulf War's impact on Turkey's policies towards the Kurds—in both Turkey and Iraq. The article briefly documents the struggle between the EU's pressures on Turkey after 1999 to improve Kurdish rights and the state's reluctance to implement reforms. Impacting reforms is the heightened sense of insecurity in Turkey after the Iraq War and the perceived threat of greater autonomy for the Kurds in Northern Iraq. In response, Turkey has identified the Turkmen minority as a key strategic concern. None the less, increasingly the ruling Justice and Development Party's attitude towards Iraqi Kurdish groups indicates the evolution of a more pragmatic approach. In conclusion, two possible options emerge: the continued desecuritisation of the Kurdish issue in Turkey or its re-securitisation.     

Highly Emotional States: French-US Relations and the Iraq War

Understanding the true nature of the relations between France and the United States is central to an understanding of the diplomatic crisis that broke out between them in 2003 over the War in Iraq. An analysis of the political cultures of France and the US offers considerable explanatory power to this dramatic diplomatic dispute. The inordinately emotional aspects of the Franco-US arguments of 2003 mask the fact that the two countries understand each other little. In the French case, its self-view and related diplomatic comportment in the twentieth century was informed by its relationship to Germany; and from it a range of cultural characteristics emerged, among them: vulnerability, self-regard, a romanticized view of itself, and the personalization of national identity. At the moment France’s response to its cultural heritage was beginning to shift to a different (post-Gaullist) paradigm, the dispute with the US erupted.