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861. Special Report No. 213: Reconciliation Strategies in Iraq

Author:
David Steele
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
A Window of opportunity now exists for post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq despite the resurgence of violence in the spring of 2008. The creation of Sunni Awakening Councils, the ongoing presence of sufficient U.S. troops, and the decrease in combat activity by the Mahdi Army provide a real, though tenuous, opportunity to continue building on the gains of the past year. In all societies emerging from conflict, reconciliation efforts are the glue that holds the post-conflict reconstruction process together. Reconciliation must be pursued not only on national but also on local levels and not only in the political but also in the social domain. At all points within a society, people and groups must be encouraged to work together constructively for the common good. Reconciliation in Iraq must be approached with sensitivity to its shame-oriented culture, which emphasizes community, authority, honor, and hospitality. Reconciliation must also be approached with an awareness of the importance of primary identity markers—religion, ethnicity, tribe, and family—and the possibilities for creating bonds based on secondary markers—class, profession, internally displaced persons (IDP) status, and so forth. Moving toward reconciliation in the context of slevere and widespread violence requires that special attention be given to steps one can take to break the pattern of revenge and transform relationships. These steps include mourning, confronting fears, identifying needs, acknowledging responsibility, envisioning restorative and operational justice, and choosing to forgive. When good groundwork has been laid in relationship building, then groups in conflict are better able to engage in constructive dispute resolution. Seven elements form the basis for this process of negotiation or problem solving: identifying interests, alternatives, options, and criteria, and working on relationships, communication, and commitments. Internationals need to develop programming that focuses on process, rather than substance, to train and equip local Iraqis to be more effective mediators and facilitators. This programming should include conflict assessment, psychosocial and spiritual healing, conflict resolution training, facilitated dialogue, and problem solving.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Civil Society
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

862. Special Report No. 216: The Treasury Approach to State-Building and Institution-Strengthening Assistance: Experience in Iraq and Broader Implications

Author:
Jeremiah S. Pam
Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The U.S. Treasury Department's approach to helping states build and strengthen their public institutions responsible for financial management is worth studying both because of the intrinsic importance of these institutions to an adequately functioning government and because it illustrates some key dynamics underlying state-building assistance more generally. A key premise of Treasury's approach is a primary orientation toward assisting local government institutions on mutually agreed-upon reform programs, based on a thorough understanding of the local administrative systems to be reformed. This orientation is reinforced by the fact that Treasury's contribution is typically only a small number of policy officials and embedded technical advisors, rather than large U.S.-funded programs. In the conventional case where state-building and institution-strengthening are pursued as part of a long-term development strategy, Treasury provides assistance through two activities that are organizationally and functionally distinct: advisors fielded by Treasury's Office of Technical Assistance (OTA), who are technical experts and usually based within local institutions at the request of host governments, and financial attachés, who act as financial policy officials/diplomats and are based at the U.S. embassies in a smaller group of countries. extraordinary situations where state-building follows an intervention (as in Iraq), deployed technical experts need to be partnered with a senior policy official (such as the Treasury attaché) who can create space for local institution–oriented work by shaping (and, where necessary, resisting) the many “centrifugal” external forces— from Washington, the military, and other civilian and international agencies—pulling in other directions. Improving interagency coordination mechanisms in Washington might do relatively little to enhance effectiveness by itself. Indeed, tighter Washington interagency “alignment” could end up strengthening Washington coordinating bodies at the expense of knowledgeable field officials and experts. It may be better to create the conditions for more effective interagency coordination in the field by deploying senior policy champions who both understand the importance of a local institution-oriented approach and possess sufficient delegated authority to tame the centrifugal forces necessary to make space for it. An expeditionary corps of technical experts by itself is insufficient to deal with the unconventional challenges presented by post-intervention state-building operations because the centrifugal forces present in such an environment are strong enough to undermine even the most sound assistance program absent the support of appropriately oriented policy champions.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Washington, and Middle East

863. Higher Education and the Future of Iraq

Author:
Imad K. Harb
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Iraq's higher education sector has the potential to play an important role in overcoming the country's widening sectarian divides and fostering long-term peace and stability. As a leading actor within Iraq's civil society, it could offer an institutional venue for resolving the country's political, social, and economic problems while promoting respect for human rights and democratic principles both on campus and in the wider society. Iraq's universities flourished in the 1960s and 1970s. However, after the rise of Saddam Hussein to power in 1979, they gradually lost their intellectual dynamism and became increasingly politicized in the service of the regime. UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 helped to isolate and impoverish the higher education sector. Universities, many of which were already in poor physical shape, were looted in the chaos that accompanied the invasion of 2003. Hundreds of millions of dollars are needed to rehabilitate campuses, but the budget for higher education is meager and most is earmarked for wages and salaries. Universities have also been hit hard by the violence that has followed the invasion. Hundreds of university professors and administrators have been killed and thousands have fled abroad. Meanwhile, sectarianism has begun to cast a dark shadow over student life. Campuses are highly politicized with student organizations vying, sometimes violently, for influence. There also has been an increase in religiosity and in efforts, especially in the south, to enforce veiling of women and separation of the sexes. The dismal situation is made worse by the fact that curriculum materials in all fields are in short supply, textbooks are outdated, administrative authority is overcentralized, new students are poorly prepared, and the teaching staff is inadequately trained. The international community has made a variety of efforts to support the rejuvenation of Iraq's universities by donating funds, providing expertise, and launching cooperative initiatives. International assistance has been helpful, but if the higher education sector is to reclaim its earlier dynamism and play a leading role in national reconstruction, it needs a comprehensive program of reform. Any package of reforms must emphasize the need to update and expand the curriculum. Universities should embrace new disciplines that will instruct students in conflict resolution, reconciliation, intercommunal tolerance, institution building, civil society development, women's studies, democracy, and human rights. Another pressing requirement is to give academics and students access to foreign scholars and publications through a series of international seminars and workshops and via a large-scale program of translating foreign-language books and journals into Arabic. Efforts must also be made to train faculty in new technologies and subjects and to increase the number of faculty who hold doctoral degrees. Foreign donors and governments should also offer scholarships abroad to Iraqi students and professors to help alleviate the burden of training a new class of university personnel. Like other public-sector institutions, higher education institutions are overcentralized and need more freedom to determine their own policies, procedures, and curricula. Iraqis cannot accomplish these reforms by themselves. They need the sustained support of foreign governments, international bodies, and non-governmental organizations if they are to demonstrate how universities in a divided society can play a leading role in promoting civic peace.
Topic:
Democratization, Education, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

864. "Ignorance Cannot Be Realistic: A Critique of the Mearsheimer-Walt Thesis"

Author:
Ofira Seliktar
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Middle East Review of International Affairs
Institution:
Global Research in International Affairs Center, Interdisciplinary Center
Abstract:
The debate about American support for Israel has been part of the U.S. foreign policy discussion for more than half a century. In their 2007 book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt depict this support in a negative light. The authors claim that the Israel lobby, acting as an agent of the State of Israel, has seized control of Washington's foreign policy and undermined the American national interest. Particularly damning is the accusation that the lobby pushed the United States into an unnecessary and disastrous war in Iraq.
Political Geography:
Iraq, America, and Israel

865. "Impediments to Stability in Iraq: The Elusive Economic Dimension"

Author:
Robert Looney
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Middle East Review of International Affairs
Institution:
Global Research in International Affairs Center, Interdisciplinary Center
Abstract:
Of the major contributors to stability in Iraq--military, political, and economic, the economic dimension has received the least attention from both the United States and the Iraqi authorities. In turn, the country's failed economy has undermined efforts in the other two key areas. While many mistakes have been made in trying to jump-start the economy, a number of lessons emerge from these efforts. Rather than piece-meal programs, economic recovery must be part of a comprehensive strategy oriented toward creating a virtuous circle whereby improved security leads to economic gains which in turn facilitate improvements in governance and market reforms.
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

866. "Harsh Readjustment: The Sunnis and the Political Process in Contemporary Iraq"

Author:
Ronen Zeidel
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Middle East Review of International Affairs
Institution:
Global Research in International Affairs Center, Interdisciplinary Center
Abstract:
This article is the first in-depth analysis of the situation of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq after April 2003. Beginning with the Sunni predicament before 2003, it goes on to show how the threat to Sunni identity contributed to the construction of a distinctive identity after 2003. Although Sunni Arab cohesion is challenged by the debate over the political process and internal strife, the article delineates the Sunni Arab vision for a future Iraq.
Political Geography:
Iraq and Arabia

867. The Fight for Diwaniyah: The Sadrist Trend and ISCI Struggle for Supremacy

Author:
Patrick Gaughen
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of War
Abstract:
Even as U.S. operations to co-opt large elements of the Sunni insurgency and target irreconciliable al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters resulted in lower levels of violence during the summer, U.S. forces have simultaneously pursued rogue elements of Muqtada as-Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM). These operations, often in collaboration with Iraqi Security Forces friendly to Sadr's main Shi'a rival, the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq (ISCI), took place within the broader context of a violent struggle between ISCI and the Sadrist Trend for supremacy within the Shi'a community, the lucrative income from control of the Shi'a shrines, and control of southern oil fields. This struggle has increasingly centered on the city of Diwaniyah, located in southern Iraq, approximately halfway between the capital of Baghdad and the southern port city of Basrah.
Topic:
Religion, Terrorism, Military Strategy, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, and Syria

868. The New Middle East

Author:
Marina Ottaway, Paul Salem, Amr Hamzawy, Nathan J. Brown, and Karim Sadjadpour
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
After September 11, 2001, the Bush administration launched an ambitious policy to forge a new Middle East, with intervention in Iraq as the driver of the transformation. "The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution," declared President Bush on November 7, 2003. In speech after speech, Bush administration officials made it abundantly clear that they would not pursue a policy directed at managing and containing existing crises, intending instead to leapfrog over them by creating a new region of democracy and peace in which old disputes would become irrelevant. The idea was summarized in a statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the war between Lebanon and Israel in the summer of 2006. Pushing Israel to accept a cease- fire, she argued, would not help, because it would simply re-establish the status quo ante, not help create a new Middle East. The new Middle East was to be a region of mostly democratic countries allied with the United States. Regimes that did not cooperate would be subjected to a combination of sanctions and support for democratic movements, such as the so-called Cedar Revolution of 2005 in that forced Syrian troops out of the country. In extreme cases, they might be forced from power.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Lebanon

869. Targeting the Diyala Suicide Bombing Network

Author:
Eric Hamilton
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of War
Abstract:
Coalition operations have significantly degraded the Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) network over the last year, particularly in central Iraq. One of the main successes was the dismantling of AQI's vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) network. As the VBIED network was rolled up, AQI shifted to conducting more suicide bombings. A major component of the suicide bombing network was located in the Baqubah-Khan Bani Saad corridor in Diyala province, which lies northeast of Baghdad. In January and February Coalition and Iraqi forces set about dismantling this network. This backgrounder details AQI's shift to suicide bombings and the operations to dismantle the Diyala suicide bombing network. A number of conclusions are draw about how AQI continues to operate throughout Iraq, the increasing capacity of the Iraqi army, and the relationship between kinetic and non-kinetic aspects of counterinsurgency.
Topic:
Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

870. Sons of Iraq and Awakening Forces

Author:
Farook Ahmed
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of War
Abstract:
The United States' Joint Campaign Plan for Iraq has laid out a goal to achieve security in Baghdad and other critical parts of Iraq by the summer of 2008 and then extend a self-sustaining security environment to the rest of the country by the summer of 2009. To that end, the United States surged its combat troops and changed to a counter-insurgency strategy that focused on providing population security. This coincided with an opportunity provided by the discontent Iraq's Sunni Arab population felt towards al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) militants and their draconian rule. The United States took advantage of the situation by striking political deals with the disaffected local populations, most of whom are Sunni Arab.
Topic:
Security, Military Strategy, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Arabia