Post-withdrawal Prospects for Iraq’s ‘Ultra-minorities’

The signing of Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law on 8 March 2004 ushered in a new, more pluralistic era for Iraq. It was now a ‘country of many nationalities’. In addition, all Iraqi citizens were equal in their rights ‘without regard to gender, sect, opinion, belief, nationality, religion, or origin’; ‘discrimination on the basis of gender, nationality, religion, or origin’ was prohibited. However, ‘ultra-minorities’ have been the subjects of sustained oppression and active persecution. This chapter explores the successes and failures with regard to Iraq's ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities, referring especially to recent human rights reports, making for a valuable case study in the way contemporary states deal with their minority groups.

The Dangerous Legacy of a Flawed Constitution: Resolving Iraq’s Kurdish ‘Problem’

This chapter examines the complex trajectories of Kurdish politics since 2003 with an emphasis on the problematic legacy of the 2005 Iraqi constitution. At the time that Iraq's constitution was drafted, few Arab Iraqis seriously questioned that a high level of autonomy for the Kurds was both justified and inevitable. What derailed the constitutional drafting process and has subsequently thwarted all efforts to clarify and complete this unfinished document was the refusal to limit this level of autonomy to the Kurds. The potential application of Kurdish levels of autonomy to an Iraq-wide system of federalism is deeply disturbing to many Iraqis and, so long as the constitution continues to allow for this eventuality, it cannot form the basis of durable sectarian reconciliation and a stable political order.

‘If You’re a Female, You Risk Being Attacked’: Digital Selves, Warblogs and Women’s Rights in Post-invasion Iraq

This chapter engages with the stories told by two female Iraqi bloggers, who write a digital self online: ‘Riverbend’, as she is known, whose blog is titled Baghdad Burning; and Faiza al-Araji, whose blog is titled A Family in Baghdad. Both blogs tell the story of women growing up and working (before the war) in Baghdad. Faiza and Riverbend are tied together by friendship. They are digitally networked, prominent figures in the Iraq War blogosphere, due partly to their position as two of the first female Iraqi bloggers, and partly to their ability to capture their audience with eyewitness accounts of life in Iraq. Many of Faiza's posts are translated by Riverbend. Many of Riverbend's stories and calls for justice are echoed in Faiza's own blog.

Doing Democracy in Difficult Times: Oil Unions and the Maliki Government

Today, Iraq suffers not only from the legacy of the top-down model of democracy imposed by the United States in the form of the increasingly authoritarian political elite that governs the country, but also from the legacy of the failure of the United States to foster a genuine civil society that could adequately confront the ‘raw power’ of the current Iraqi government. This chapter examines the specific case of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU), Iraq's largest and most powerful independent workers' union. It focuses on the tensions between IFOU and the Maliki government, and examines the extent to which IFOU has served as a bulwark against the state's rising authoritarianism. The chapter begins with a brief history of Iraqi trade unions under the Baathist regime and concludes that examples of civil society movements such as IFOU are perhaps Iraq's only real hope for genuine democratisation.

Between Aqalliya and Mukawin: Understanding Sunni Political Attitudes in Post-Saddam Iraq

This chapter discusses how the toppling of the Sunni-dominated Baathist government in 2003 and the subsequent Shia Arab and Kurdish power grabs has left the Sunnis at the political margins. This sequence of events has fostered a growing Sunni resentment of the central government and left an entire segment of the population susceptible to the promises of religious zealots and violent fundamentalists such as ISIS. Contemporary Iraqi political discourse offers two useful terms between which the Sunni appear to fall: aqalliya (‘minority’) and mukawin (‘component’). In current Iraqi political usage, aqalliya refers exclusively to the smaller minorities such as the Christians, Turkmens, Yazidis, and so on. The 2005 Iraqi constitution avoids the use of this term and substitutes it with the term mukawin, referring to all components of the Iraqi population, whether large or small.

Iraq, the Illusion of Security and the Limits to Power

This chapter examines the legacy of the Iraq War for two further global concerns, referred to as the ‘globalization of insecurity’ and the ‘limits to empire’. Underpinning this analysis is an examination of the extent to which the Iraq War in fact served to strengthen the enemies of the United States and created a less secure global environment. Paradoxically, the United States also saw their economy falter during the war, giving way to rising cynicism about their status as a super-power and leaving them isolated with few supporters and little legitimacy even in the eyes of Coalition partners.

Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq: The Politics of Protection and Rescue

This chapter examines the legacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, notably the impact it has had on doctrines of humanitarian intervention. Of particular relevance are the contemporary emphases on such events as the intervention in Libya by NATO forces in March 2011, arguably the first instance of what is now termed the responsibility to protect. The mixed humanitarian rhetoric behind the Iraq intervention provided a template for what to avoid. The chapter highlights the fact that notions of humanitarian intervention have achieved renewed vigour in the wake of Iraq, which has been retrospectively understood as an intervention that underemphasised the humanitarian dimension.

Shia Ascendancy in Iraq and the Sectarian Polarisation of the Middle East

This chapter focuses on the evolution of sectarianism in post-2003 Iraq, looking in particular at the issue of Sunni–Shia political relations and how sectarianism in the formative stages of the new Iraq has come to define the Iraqi state and society today. Against this backdrop, it analyzes the impact it has had on the sectarian polarisation of the region. It argues that the 2003 toppling of the Baath regime set in motion a series of events that, in the absence of authoritarian and violent containment, allowed pre-existing cycles of sectarian divisions and struggles to spin at a much more destructive rate, with far-reaching consequences for Iraq and the broader region. In this respect, the first legacy of the Iraq War is the intensification of sectarian tensions in Iraq, namely the divide between Iraq's Sunni and Shia communities; the second is the impact this has had on the definition and identity of the Iraqi state, as a result of the rise and liberation of the Shias and the Shia identity, and ultimately on sectarian polarisation in the Middle East.

Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq: Internal and External Displacement

This chapter documents both the internal and external displacement of Iraqis since the onset of the war. The Iraqi refugee exodus has been examined at four-year intervals, beginning in 2002 before the onset of the Iraq War, then in 2006 before the upsurge in Sunni–Shiite violence that lasted until 2008. The 2010 examination took place after the separation of most Sunnis and Shiites and the flight of minority populations but before both the March 2010 Iraq elections and the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. These cross-sectional historical and ethno-religious slices dealing with internally displaced peoples and refugees over twelve years depict the dimensions and character of the Iraqi refugee problem and its legacy in Iraq. They also demonstrate that the war has changed the human geography of Iraq, probably for decades to come, as a direct result of the failure of the United States and its allies to provide a stable and secure environment for its people.

Shattering the Shia: A Maliki Political Strategy in Post-Saddam Iraq

This chapter considers Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's efforts to utilise his incumbency to maintain the veneer of democracy while becoming increasingly dictatorial and authoritarian. In doing so, Maliki's government shares much in common with other ‘hybrid regimes’ in which governments hijack nominally democratic mechanisms such as elections, media freedoms, political opposition, and civil society as part of their strategy to retain, rather than diffuse, power. The chapter focuses on Maliki's first two terms in power and examines the ways in which he has been able to systematically fracture the Shia political elite to such an extent that once tenuously united factions now stand bitterly divided. It concludes by reflecting on the reasoning behind such an approach and the prospects of Iraq's democracy moving beyond the blatant power grab of the incumbent Maliki government.