Post‐war Iraq: an assessment

Sir Terence Clark is a Council Member of the Society. He retired from the Diplomatic Service after a distinguished career spent mainly in the Middle East, where he was Ambassador to Iraq and Oman. He is the author of many articles in specialist journals and co‐author of Oman in Time (2001). On 18 June 2003, Sir Terence, together with Sir Harold Walker, Chairman of the Society, spoke to the Society about the situation in Iraq as it then appeared. The following is an edited and updated version of Sir Terence's talk.     

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in the Iran–Iraq war: an unconventional military’s survival

Abstract

As Iraqi forces invaded the Iranian border shortly after the Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) participated in the battle along with the debilitated Iranian Army. The IRGC was a young religious-revolutionary institution that lacked the resources that revolutionary armies and militias conventionally rely on. Nevertheless, it survived the battle pressure and even achieved relative military successes in the second year of the war. By examining personal narratives written by Iranian veterans, this article argues that in the void of conventional resources in the first year of the war, the Guards retrieved elements of their Shia background to recognize a religiously inspired charisma in every combatant who would devotedly step up for martyrdom. This shared understanding of the omnipotent charisma was then acknowledged in action—by commanders’ deployment of it to impose order and through frequently held Shia rituals on the battlefield. It thereby created an alternative source of cohesion and motivation that led to the IRGC’s survival and prepared them for further successful steps by the end of the war’s first year.     

A note on the Ottoman socio‐economic structure and its response to the Balkan war of 1912

Agrarniye strukturi stran Vostoka, Agrarian Structure of the Countries of the East (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1977; 280 pp.)

Idiyolojiyat al‐Dimuqratiyya al‐Thawriyya al‐Ifriqiyya, The Ideology of African Revolutionary Democracy (Moscow: The Soviet Academy of Science, 1983; 144 pp.)

Partii v riyevolyutsionniy protsyess b stranakh Azii i Afriki, sbornik statyey, Parties in the Revolutionary Processes in the Countries of Asia and Africa: A collection of articles (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1983; 254 pp.)

Kharaktyerniye chyerti sotzial'no‐politichyeskogo razvitiya Arabskikh stran v 1950–1970ye godi, Characteristic Traits of the Socio‐Political Development of the Arab Countries from the 1950s to the 1970s (Erevan: The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Soviet Armenia, 1980; 208 pp.)

Arabskiye strani, istoriya i sovryemyennost, The Arab Countries: History and Contemporary Affairs (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1981; 248 pp.)

Contemporary Development of the Arab Countries (Oriental Studies in the USSR, No. 8 – Moscow: ‘Social Sciences Today’ Editorial Board for the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1984; 236 pp.)

V.L. Fatis's Liviya (Moscow: Misl’ Press, 1982; 160 pp.)

N.I. Proshin's Istoriya Livii v novoye vryemya (syeryedina XVI – nachala XXv.), The History of Libya in Modern Times: The Mid‐Sixteenth Century to the Beginning of the Twentieth (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1981; 288 pp.)

Aldzhirskaya narodnaya dyemokratichyeskaya ryespublika, konstitutsiya i zakonodatyel'nye akti, The Algerian Popular Democratic Republic: The Constitution and Legislative Documents (Moscow: Progress Press, 1983; 414 pp.)

Istoriya Aldzhirskoy ryevolyutsii, 1954–1962, History of the Algerian Revolution, 1954–62 (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1983; 287 pp.) by R. G. Landa

Sturm und Drang years, V.S. Svyetlov's Aldzhir syegodnya, Algeria Today (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1981: 222 pp.)

Ochyerki Marokkanskoy istorii (Moscow: Progress Press, 1982; 384 pp.)

V.G. Rasnitsin's Marokko na rubyedzhye dvukh epokh, 1956–1960 g., Morocco Between Two Epochs, 1956–60 (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1983; 144 pp.)

Anna Kowalska‐Lewicka's Mavritaniya, Mauritania (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1981; 304 pp.)     

Fighting on behalf of the state—the issue of pro-government militia autonomy in the Donbas war

This study investigates the degree of autonomy the Ukrainian volunteer battalions had from the regular forces during the war in Donbas. The findings indicate that the degree of autonomy was high and that in particular, three initial conditions were decisive for this outcome: (1) the relative level of militia military strength in the initial states of conflict; (2) the degree of agenda overlap; (3) the degree of bottom-up organization. The empirical evidence further suggests that the three factors produced the identified outcome through the mechanisms of “institutional lock-in,” “performance interdependence,” and “entitlement.” Consequently, the Ukrainian state and regular forces ended up accepting a higher degree of autonomy, in terms of command and control, on the part of the volunteer battalions than they otherwise probably would have preferred. This outcome contributed significantly to saving the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state in 2014–2015, but may also have created conditions for challenges to the same state further down the road.     

Extract from the report of the UN secretary‐general on UN deployment in the DRC 1

While Tanzania's parliamentary processes have improved rapidly over the years, the executive remains too powerful and the overall process is undermined by serious financial constraints.     

Elective affinity or comprehensive contradiction? Reflections on capitalism and democracy in the time of finance-dominated accumulation and austerity states

The often-asserted relation of formal adequacy or elective affinity between capitalism and democracy is historically contingent on both sides of the relation. First, it holds for what Weber called “formally rational capitalism” – which is the form that Marx had previously investigated in Das Kapital – rather than others, such as traditional commercial capitalism or politically oriented capitalism. Second, it holds only to the extent that “the comprehensive contradiction” identified by Marx at the heart of the democratic constitution can be resolved: the contradiction between a universal franchise that potentially gives subaltern classes control over legislative and executive powers and a constitution that protects property rights favourable to capital. Building upon Poulantzas, it is then argued that these conditions are being undermined by the rise of new forms of political capitalism, especially finance-dominated accumulation, that are facilitated in turn by the consolidation of both neoliberalism and “authoritarian statism”. This involves the intensification of “exceptional” elements in a formally democratic shell, and the emergence of a permanent state of austerity. The article concludes with comments on the limits of finance-dominated accumulation and the austerity state.