International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2008

This paper examines in detail the two drafts of the Oil and Gas Law in Iraq. By using a set of criteria the analysis identifies fundamental problems with the proposed legislation. Proposals are advanced to deal with the identified problems. Failure to address these problems effectively and comprehensively, the paper argues, would render the Law operationally dysfunctional, economically disadvantageous, politically undemocratic, ideologically non-patriotic, and the council it creates is organizationally inadequate. Considering the overwhelming and widespread resistance and opposition to the draft law, both professional and grassroots, the paper calls upon the Iraqi government, parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to radically rethink the issues addressed here, taking account of professional, academic and popular reflections.

This article discusses the historical development of the United States' special relationship with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI also known as SIIC or ISCI), one of the Shi'ite religious parties of Iraq. It surveys SCIRI's ideological heritage from the 1980s onwards, with particular emphasis on SCIRI's long-standing principle of subordination to the supreme leaders of Iran through the concept of wilayat al-faqih. The article then goes on to discuss the modalities by which the United States came to choose the most pro-Iranian of the Iraqi political parties as its preferred partner in Iraq after 2003. SCIRI managed to achieve this status by playing on the superpower's predilection for an ethnosectarian reading of Iraqi politics, by emphasizing professionalism in all its dealings with Washington, by exploiting the United States' lack of knowledge about how power works in Shi'ism, and by playing down its links to Iran. As a result of these manoeuvres, the Bush administration has chosen to sideline the other Iraqi Shi'ite parties (which historically have far weaker ties to Iran), and has ended up with a partnership that in the long term will probably mean a marked strengthening of Iranian influence in Iraq.

While the stated target of the 19902003 United Nations (UN) sanctions policy was the errant Iraqi regime, the Iraqi civilian population ultimately bore the brunt of its effects. The devastating record of this period is analysed in terms of the role played by the governments of the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) and, as such, in terms of the UN's failure to live up to its role as a guarantor of international law. The UN, as of yet, has failed to fully audit the consequences of this era, and in this failure, has failed to consider alternative measures to sanction rogue regimes. This article surveys the over twelve-year sanction period, highlighting the fundamental defects of comprehensive sanctions programmes. In this spirit, the authors subsequently posit alternative models for future UN action and places these alternatives within the larger discussion of UN reform. Finally, the past and present UN policy towards Iraq is argued to represent a breakdown of international order, with the role of the UN vis--vis contemporary Iraq presented as particularly worrisome.

In the aftermath of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi Kurds have made unprecedented political gains due to their alliance with the United States and the key role they have played in the post-Saddam government in Baghdad. Although Iraqi Kurds yearn for independence, their leaders have refrained from following such a course in view of Turkish and Iranian anxieties that an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq would stimulate nationalism among their restive Kurdish populations. Turkey and Iran have warned Iraqi Kurdish leaders against pursuing independence, and the former has warned the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) against plans to incorporate oil-rich Kirkuk. Although both countries engage in mutually beneficial trade with the KRG, the Turkish and Iranian governments have quarrelled with the Kurdish leadership over the activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), which have used KRG territory to launch attacks against Turkey and Iran respectively. In view of the acute vulnerability of Iraqi Kurdistan, prudence requires that the Iraqi Kurdish leadership avoid any needless provocation of Turkey and Iran, and to refrain from any hasty move toward independence.

This article discusses Japan's pro-US position in the Iraq War of 2003. This was an anomaly in Japanese Middle East policy, which is normally characterized by its balancing between Middle East oil interests and its alliance with the United States. The article explains why the US tie was prioritized over links with Iraq and other Middle East states, why Japan actively promoted US war policy and how Japanese policy-makers overcame public opposition and constitutional constraints in deploying Japanese troops in Iraq. It argues that Japanese policy-makers' perceptions of unchallengeable US international dominance and the expectation of US success in regime change in Iraq determined their preferences, while the personal popularity of the Japanese prime minister was important in allowing them to prevail.

Following the termination of its mandate in 1932, Britain precariously tried to retain its influence in Iraq. Nonetheless, nationalist endorsement of educational expansion precipitated the emergence of new intermediate social strata, which, unattached to traditional loyalties, became increasingly radicalized during the 1940s. Among these strata new anti-British political groups emerged who increasingly challenged the British presence in Iraq. The Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), founded in 1934, was arguably the greatest threat to British interests in Iraq during the monarchical period. Yet, British (and Iraqi) intelligence failed to fully understand the threat posed by the ICP, nor did it recognize the potentially dangerous role of the politicized intermediate strata. Dismissing the idea that Iraq with its traditional polity could produce ideologically committed Communists, British officers on the ground maintained that any signs of Communism in Iraq were inevitably a result of Russian imperialism. The stringent and disdainful attitude of these officers towards both the domestic politicized classes and the local Communists thus further isolated the British. This, in turn, helps explain the wide chasm that developed throughout the 1940s between the Iraqi elite and the British on the one hand and the popular classes on the other, culminating in the popular uprising known as the Wathbah in 1948.

The traditional art music of Iraq, the Iraqi maqam (IM), which is part of other core Islamic maqam traditions, has been historically designed to fulfil two purposes: a supranational frame and a diversity of local contents. Both of these underscore the idea of bringing together multi-ethnic and multi-social differences articulating them on a common ground of musical content, social contexts and performers.

By bringing together the study of the social and the musical, this article proposes to draw an insight into the question of Iraqi identity as expressed in the tradition of this musical genre. I argue that what structures the identity is above all the cultural marker and that IM is a strong cultural marker in that it represents what really forms the relation between the ethnic and the social groups in the country. The interaction appears in sacred and religious ceremonies, secular meetings and all social gatherings as it clearly appears in transmitted moral and aesthetic values.

Cultural Cleansing in Occupied Iraq: A Review Article

Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, Dahr Jamail, (2007) Chicago: Haymarket Books, 240 pp., ISBN 1931859477 (hbk), US 20.00

City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance, Haifa Zangana, (2007) New York: Seven Stories Press, 160 pp., ISBN 1583227792 (hbk), US 20.00

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein, (2007) New York: Henry Holt and Company, 576 pp., ISBN 0805079831 (hbk), US 28.00

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, (2007) New York: Knopf Publishing, 365 pp., ISBN 0307278832 (hbk), US 14.95

In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, Nir Rosen, (2007) Darby, PA: Diane Publishing Company, 264 pp., ISBN 1422368033 (hbk), US 26.00

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Jeremy Scahill, (2007) New York and San Francisco: Avalon Publishing Group, 452 pp., ISBN 1560259795 (hbk), US 26.95

The Israel Lobby and US Middle East Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, (2007) New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 496 pp., ISBN 0374177724 (hbk), US 26.00

Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Family, the Story of a Nation, Marina Benjamin, (2006) New York: The Free Press, 320 pp., ISBN 9780743258432 (hbk), US 25.00

A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq, Hans C. von Sponeck, (2006) New York: Berghahn Books, xii + 322 pp., ISBN 1-84545-2220-4 (hbk), 39.95/22.95