The New Turkish Republic. Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World

Arab History and the Nation‐State: A Study in Modern Arab Historiography 1820–1980 by Youssef M. Choueiri. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. Pp.xix + 238, appendices, glossary, index. £35.00.

Baytun fi Baghdad, a novel by Ishaq Bar‐Moshe, with an introduction by Shmuel Moreh. Jerusalem: Association for Jewish Academics from Iraq (Dr David Sala's Library for Jewish Authors from Iraq) 1983. Pp.424.

Ayyam al‐'Iraq, a novel by Ishaq Bar‐Moshe, with an introduction by Mahmud ‘Abbasi. Shefaamru: Dar al‐Mashriq, 1988. Pp.392.

al‐Khuruj min al‐'Iraq: dhikrayat 1945–1950, by Ishaq Bar‐Moshe. Jerusalem: Council of Sephardi Community, 1975. Pp.600.

Deltio Kentrou Mikrasiatikon Spoudon, Vol.6, 1986–87, edited by Paschalis M. Kitromilides. Athens: Centre of Asia Minor Studies, 1988,470 pp.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Fiasco, the American Military Adventure in Iraq , by Thomas E. Ricks. Insurgency and Counter‐Insurgency in Iraq , by Ahmed S. Hashim. Al Qaeda Now: Understanding Today's Terrorists , edited by Karen Greenberg The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq , Brendan O'Leary, John McGarry and Khalid Salih, eds. Two Birthdays in Baghdad, by Anna Prouse . Translated by Elizabeth Griffith. The Three Occupied UAE Islands: The Tunbs and Abu Musa , by Thomas R. Mattair. Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope , by Shirin Ebadi, with Azadeh Moaveni The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al‐Asad and Modern Syria , by David W. Lesch One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli‐Palestinian Impasse , by Ali Abunimah Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions , by Ellen Lust‐Okar.     

The Failures of Neo‐Liberal State Building in Iraq: Assessing Australia's Post‐Conflict Reconstruction and Development Initiatives

This article examines Australia's post‐conflict reconstruction and development initiatives in Iraq following the intervention of 2003. Overall, it finds that Australia privileged the neo‐liberal model of post‐conflict state building by investing in projects that would enhance the capacity of the new Iraqi state, its key institutions and the private sector towards the imposition of a liberal democracy and a free‐market economy. To demonstrate, this article documents the failures of the Australian government's stated aims to “support agriculture” and “support vulnerable populations” via interviews conducted in Iraq with rural farmers and tribal members and those working in, or the beneficiaries of, Iraq's disability sector. It concludes by noting that such failures are not only indicative of the inadequacy of the neo‐liberal state building model, but also that these failures point the way forward for future post‐conflict reconstruction and development projects which ought to be premised on a genuine and sustained commitment to addressing the needs of those made most vulnerable by war and regime change.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East , by Leon Hadar Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq , by Larry Diamond Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam , by Robert Dreyfuss The Road Ahead: Middle East Policy in the Bush Administration's Second Term , edited by Flynt Leverett My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope , by L. Paul Bremer III with Malcolm McConnell The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism , by Michael Provence Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad , by Natana J. Delong‐Bas Reframing Anti‐Semitism: Alternative Jewish Perspectives , Jewish Voice for Peace, eds. Parting Ways: The Crisis in German‐American Relations , by Stephen F. Szabo     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Massacre in Munich: The Manhunt for the Killers behind the 1972 Olympics Massacre , by Michael Bar‐Zohar and Eitan Haber. One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation “Wrath of God,” by Simon Reeve. Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response , by Aaron J. Klein. Tr. by Mitch Ginsburg. Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter‐Terrorist Team , by George Jonas. Neo‐Conned!: Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq, and Neo‐Conned! Again: Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq , D.L. O'Huallachain and J. Forrest Sharpe, editors. Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Society, Foreign Affairs , Paul Aarts & Gerd Nonneman, editors.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Understanding Iraq , by William R. Polk. Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco , by David L. Phillips. Understanding Terror Networks , by Marc Sageman. Islamic Fundamentalism since 1945 , by Beverley Milton‐Edwards. Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism , by Judith Palmer Harik. Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab‐Israeli Conflict since 1967, Third Edition , by William B. Quandt. How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate, a Cross‐Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process , by Tamara Cofman Wittes, editor. Defending Israel: A Controversial Plan Toward Peace , by Martin van Creveld. Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire , by Flynt Leverett. The World According to Whitbeck , by John Whitbeck. Endgame in the Western Sahara: What Future for Africa's Last Colony? by Toby Shelley.     

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 Kurds in Iraq

The following briefs are edited versions of papers presented at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in Anchorage, Alaska, November 8, 2003. The editors were Hakan Yavuz and Michael Gunter, whose papers are included below. Why Kurdish Statehood is Unlikely , Michael M. Gunter, professor of political science, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Tennessee Transnational Networks: New Opportunities and Constraints for Kurdish Statehood , Denise Natali, visiting research fellow, Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI); director of WKI's transnational project Turkey and Kurdistan‐Iraq, 2003 , Robert Olson, professor of Middle East and Islamic history, University of Kentucky Could a Kurdish State Be Set Up in Iraq? , Nihat Ali Özcan, author of PKK (Kurdistan ýpçi Partisi) Tarihi, Ideolojisi ve Yönetimi (Ankara: Asam, 1999) Kurdish Reality in an Emerging Iraq , Khaled Salih, University of Southern Denmark Provincial Not Ethnic Federalism in Iraq , M. Hakan Yavuz, associate professor of political science, University of Utah     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this articles. Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy , by Andrew Cockburn. Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now , George McGovern and William R. Polk. What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat , by Louise Richardson. Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al‐Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today , by Marc Lynch. The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967‐1977 , by Gershom Gorenberg. Aid, Diplomacy and Facts on the Ground: The Case of Palestine , by Michael Keating, Anne Le More and Robert Lowe. Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad , by Matthew Levitt. Academic Freedom after September 11 , edited by Beshara Doumani. Cities of God and Nationalism: Mecca, Jerusalem, and Rome as Contested World Cities , by Khaldoun Samman. Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World , by Stephen O'Shea.     

IRAN’S STRUGGLE FOR STRATEGIC DOMINANCE IN A POST-ISIS IRAQ

Iran's influence and presence in Iraq have increased significantly in recent years. The collapse of the Saddam's dictatorship in 2003, after the US invasion, served to inflate Iran's influence in Iraq, particularly in the post-ISIS era. In this connection, Iran has used various means and tools to develop its strategy in Iraq. This article argues that Iran's current strategy in Iraq stems from a Realpolitik agenda rather than an ideological one, concerned more with political, economic, and security interests than pursuing revolutionary objectives per se. To this end, Tehran has largely relied on long-established relationships with several pro-Iranian political parties and militia groups. These relationships are often couched in religious ideological terms as a foundation and justification for its future strategy in post-ISIS Iraq. The questions that this paper will address are the following: what was Iran's role in defeating ISIS in Iraq? How has Tehran benefitted from its long-term relationships with Iraqi political parties and militia groups? What are the Iranian sources of power in Iraq and how do they help Iran gain strategic dominance in Iraq?     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. The Invention of the Jewish People , by Shlomo Sand. Jewish Terrorism in Israel , by Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger. My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq , by Ariel Sabar. Engaging the Muslim World , by Juan Cole. The Women of Hezbollah , directed by Maher Abi‐Samra. Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond , by Christopher M. Davidson.     

Challenging the anocracy model: Iran’s foreign policy in Iraq as an obstacle to democracy?

ABSTRACT

Since America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the consequent partial collapse of the state Iraq has been undergoing a process of deterioration and disintegration mainly because America’s vision of establishing a new, more democratic political order there encountered a lack of readiness to understand what the structure of a democratic state should be. The political process that Iraq has been going through – that is the transition from autocratic dictatorship to adopting a kind of democratic system is called anocracy, which means a political system that is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic.

Furthermore, the Iranian intervention into Iraqi politics that took place after 2003 has led to the creation of a virtually imperial model of regional power (Iran’s) that has turned Iraq into a kind of informal protectorate in ethnic and religious issues. This article wishes to offer a better understanding of the anocratic political shift that Iraq has been going through by adding the component of Iran’s influence and foreign policy upon it as an ambivalent factor that is both accelerating yet also preventing the process of democratization from properly establishing itself in Iraq.     

Website documents

South Africa's status and prestige as a country that successfully and unilaterally disarmed its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme enabled it to engage with the Saddam government of Iraq in the months leading up to the US-led invasion of March 2003. Following intense international diplomatic efforts, Saddam Hussein had agreed to allow UN and International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors to enter Iraq in November 2002. Acting outside the UN Security Council, the US and its coalition partners maintained that Iraq continued to maintain and produce WMD, a claim refuted by weapons inspectors, including a South African disarmament team that visited Iraq in February 2003. Employing three diplomatic strategies associated with niche diplomacy, South Africa contributed to attempts to avert the invasion by assisting with the orderly disarmament of Saddam-led Iraq and by practising multilateralism. These strategies, notwithstanding the US-led invasion signalling a failure of South Africa's niche diplomacy in this instance, provide valuable insight into the nuclear diplomacy of South Africa.     

The fundamental characteristics of the Kurdish nationhood project in modern Iraq

The protracted Iraqi-Kurdish conflict has plagued the country since the creation of Iraq in the 1920s. Iraqi-Kurdish relations are dominated by the clash of two contradictory nationhood projects: Kurdish and Iraqi. The Kurdish nationhood project was constructed with the perspective that the Kurds as a nation, could qualify for but is deprived of, achieving nation-state status. Based on the Kurdish project, Kurdistan and Iraq consist of two separate homelands: the Arab part of Iraq, which is part of the greater Arab homeland, and Iraqi Kurdistan which is part of the Greater Kurdistan region.     

Clientelism: factionalism in the allocation of public resources in Iraq after 2003

This article examines clientelism in Iraq as a case study of one form of corruption. Iraq is an unusual case of corruption, because a key feature of Iraq's corrupt environment is an institutionalised factional political system based on sectarian quotas. The article explores the many links between clientelism and political factionalism, discussing whether clientelism arose because of factionalism, or whether factionalism merely determines the ways that clientelism currently operates in Iraq. Using fieldwork data, the findings show there are two distinct levels of clientelism in Iraq, both of which are linked to political factions: the individual level and the organisational level. First, clientelism at the individual level entails the elites of many political factions regarding ‘money politics’ as a means of influence in Iraq/Kurdistan by buying people's affiliations and thereby governing people. Second, clientelism at the organisational level entails that the spoils of political office are shared out among the elites of the political factions in a proportionate fashion. The article concludes that clientelism is a form of political rather than economic corruption; and that while there may be some immediate value in clientelism, its long-term harm outweighs its short-term value.     

A crude marriage: Iraq,Turkey, and the Kirkuk–Ceyhan oil pipeline

Since the discovery of oil at Kirkuk in northern Iraq, oil has shaped relations between Iraq and Turkey, as the former needed markets and export routes to the Mediterranean and the latter reliable sources of supply. This article examines the origins of the Kirkuk–Ceyhan oil pipeline from northern Iraq to the Turkish Mediterranean coast, charting the period of Iraqi–Turkish economic rapprochement in the 1960s to the construction of the pipeline in the 1970s. It also seeks to add to our collective understanding of why transnational oil pipelines in the Middle East succeed or fail by examining the pipeline's operational record.     

Anti-Iraq War Protests in Turkey: Global Networks,Coalitions, and Context

This article examines how Turkish citizens participated in protests against the Iraq War and why civil society organizations were able to mobilize tens of thousands of people across the country despite the institutional weakness of the Turkish peace movement. The Iraq War case is important in that its scale and level of protest mobilization were unprecedented based on any other anti-war protests in Turkey. Using content analysis of newspaper reports of anti-Iraq War protest events, this article maps the patterns and forms of protest against the Iraq War and argues for the importance of global networks, coalitions among organizations, and political context for protest mobilization.     

The noble art of the chase in the Arab world

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, and is the author of many articles in specialist journals on hunting and co‐author of The Saluqi: Coursing Hound of the East (1995), Dogs in Antiquity (2001) and Oman in Time (2001). This article is based on a lecture delivered to the Society on 23 October, 2002.     

Shi’i division over the Iraqi state: decentralization and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq

ABSTRACT

This article traces the evolving political platform of one of Iraq’s oldest and most powerful Shi’i political parties, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). Drawing on an analysis of 15 years of primary materials produced by ISCI, it focuses principally on their promotion of decentralization as a path towards peace and stability in Iraq. However, the article also traces the origins of a deep schism that emerged within ISCI between the movement’s old guard who were beholden to the Iranian regime and their model of vilāyat-i faqīh, and the youth-led Iraqi nationalist faction who wanted to see the instalment of a civil government without religious oversight. The article demonstrates that this division is indicative of a theological debate between Shi’i religious scholars over differing interpretations of the role of Shi’ism in politics. The article concludes by arguing that understanding the extent to which such esoteric religious debates manifest themselves politically is crucial to interpreting divisions within Shi’ism not just in Iraq, but across the broader Middle East.     

Just War Doctrine and the Invasion of Iraq

In this article we adopt the framework of Just War doctrine to assess whether the 2003 invasion of Iraq was just. The six criteria against which we assess the justice of going to war are Just Cause, Right Authority, Right Intention, Reasonable Prospect of Success, Proportionate Cause and War as Last Resort. We focus upon what was known and said by the US, British and Australian governments around the time they decided to invade and consider whether there was sufficient justification and authorisation for the Iraq War. The key pre-war issues discussed include alleged Iraqi possession of WMD and links to terrorist organisations, and the meaning of UN Security Council resolutions. We conclude that, as the Just War criteria were not satisfied, the invasion of Iraq was unjust.