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61. The Lessons We Choose to Draw

Author:
Paul J. McKinney
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
In September 2003, just a few violent months after the Bush administration proclaimed major combat operations had ended, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) – the US-led civilian body charged with administering occupied Iraq – organized a two-day workshop in Baghdad to identify best practices for countries transitioning from state-led to market economies. Seeking to draw lessons that may be applicable to Iraq, the CPA invited former ministers and finance officials from Central and Eastern European countries to share their experiences. Evidently impressed by Poland’s “shock therapy,” in which Warsaw introduced a drastic neoliberal package during the country’s emergence from Soviet domination in the early 90s, the CPA appointed the former Polish finance and prime minister responsible for those reforms, Marek Belka, to head the CPA’s Office of Economic Policy. With Belka at the helm, lessons learned from Poland’s transition would be universalized and superimposed onto Iraq, with little regard to contextual factors. Iraq was, after all, seen as a blank canvas upon which the West could project its own visions. Zealously driven by a belief that markets are the most efficient way to organize a society and, by extension, to optimize individual freedom, the CPA issued what can only be described as the economic equivalent to the U.S. military’s “shock-and-awe” campaign. Within a year, the CPA issued an astoundingly high number of Orders to build the new neoliberal state. Some of the most notable included, for example, selling about 200 state-run enterprises, eliminating the right to unionize in most sectors, outlawing labor strikes, opening Iraq’s banks to foreign ownership and control, mandating a regressive flat tax on income, lowering the corporate rate to a flat 15%, eliminating taxes on profits repatriated to foreign-owned businesses, and even prohibiting Iraqi farmers from re-using “protected” varieties of genetically modified seeds.
Topic:
Security, Markets, Reform, and Iraq War
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

62. No Good Way to Occupy a Country: Conceptions of Culture in the Iraq War

Author:
Rochelle Davis
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
CCAS Professor Rochelle Davis’ latest book project examines the role that the U.S. military’s conception of culture played in the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her work—which makes use of interviews with U.S. servicemembers and Iraqis, as well as military documents, cultural training materials, journalist reports, and soldier memoirs—analyzes the narratives that are told about Iraqis, Afghans, Arabs, and Muslims and explicates the paradoxical military objectives of cultural sensitivity and occupation. Professor Davis, who has published two prior books on Palestine, is currently finalizing the manuscript for No Good Way to Occupy a Country. She shares a bit about her project below.
Topic:
Occupation, Interview, and Iraq War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Middle East, Palestine, and United States of America

63. CCAS Conference on Iraq Twenty Years On: Prospects of Epistemic Reconstruction

Author:
Motasem Abuzaid
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Commemorating the 2003 invasion of Iraq twenty years on, CCAS hosted a conference exploring the invasion’s economic, social, and geopolitical consequences, as well as its representation in Iraqi arts and culture. The conference, held on March 31 in partnership with George Mason University’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and the Arab Studies Institute, also included a screening of the 2004 documentary, About Baghdad, the first film made after the fall of the Ba‘th regime. The film screening provided a way of foregrounding native Iraqi voices and perspective on the aftermath of the war and was followed by a discussion with the film’s directors. The conference’s first panel session, titled “The Invasion of Iraq and After: Twenty Years On,” offered concise insights from a broad range of angles: the occupying forces, the state, the geopolitical order, and most importantly, ordinary Iraqis. It convened panelists with a considerable history of intellectual engagement with the subject, who had the challenge of presenting their work in only twelve minutes each—twelve minutes for “twenty years and more, and one million lives,” remarked Iraqi writer Sinan Antoon on the magnitude of responsibility in the task at hand. With emphasis on the process of constructing historical narratives while silencing certain historical events, Antoon highlighted how the “United States of Amnesia” has ignored or romanticized its actions (read congenital crimes) in the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These actions, he asserted, led to the devastation of Iraq’s infrastructure, economic collapse, and the suffering of its people under American sanctions.
Topic:
Reconstruction, Iraq War, Conference, and Invasion
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

64. Astute War

Author:
Shano Mohammed
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Yesterday my town fell ill at dead of a sunless dawn from its eyes, a fire blazed dazzlingly everyone rode From a Phoenix bird to ants’ swarms. At the feet of astute war, brought to their knees, until they grew frail, mothers in faint voices wept from what they have bled, for what they have borne. on sidewalks and under tents, children were born others were abandoned little girls were placed, Under barren trees and on hills, for fate to step in.
Topic:
Poem, Literature, and Iraq War
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

65. Dispatches: Life Beyond the Borders

Author:
Shano Mohammed
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
I was born in March 1991, at the back of a lorry carrying nearly 100 women and children fleeing the horrors of Saddam Hussein’s regime. My life started amid the Kurdish uprising in Iraq, during which my family sought refuge in the Kurdish region of neighboring Iran. Being born under these circumstances, in war-torn, conflict-ridden, indeed blood-soaked Kurdistan, shaped my life and colored my personality in ways that I continue to discover every day. My mother was forced into a marriage at the age of twelve, to an older man, who abused her for sport. My faint memory of home is of the recurring cries, screams, aches, and pains of mother and daughters abused by father and brother, while outside the confines of my so-called home, everyday life teemed with loud explosions and airstrikes. Everyone seemed to proceed with their ordinary lives, but I could not.
Topic:
War, Kurds, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

66. The Rise and Fall of a Global Empire

Author:
Joseph Sassoon
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
It all started with David Sassoon, who fled Baghdad with his wife and four chidren in 1829 because of a conflict with the province’s corrupt Ottoman governor. The rest of his family remained in Baghdad, their home for the previous 2500 years (and I am one of their descendants). From his new home in Bombay, David gradually developed a trading business. Relying on his children, the number of which eventually grew to fourteen, he built an extensive trade network in cotton, textiles, opium, tea, and other commodities. By the time David died in 1864, the family mercantile business had grown into a global enterprise, leaving his children with a significant fortune of £4 million, about 500 million in today’s U.S. dollars. As tradition dictated, David’s will made Abdallah, the oldest son, the new head of the family. But Elias, the second eldest, who had spent years successfully developing the business in China, believed that he and Abdallah should co-run the business together. After three years of squabbling, the family split into two competing companies, both carrying the Sassoon name. Abdallah continued to grow his business despite increased competition from his brother’s firm and decided to move from Bombay to London, believing that establishing himself in the capital of the financial world would enhance the company and consolidate his trading power.
Topic:
History, Trade, Ottoman Empire, and Jewish community
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

67. Researching the History of a Family Dynasty

Author:
Joseph Sassoon and Vicki Valosik
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
CCAS Director Joseph Sassoon’s book, The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire (Penguin Random House, 2022), traces the rise and fall of the Jewish Baghdadi Sassoon family—”the Rothschilds of the East”—who built a vast empire through global finance and trade and became one of the world’s richest families of the 19th and 20th centuries. Professor Sassoon discusses his research process below.
Topic:
History, Trade, Ottoman Empire, and Jewish community
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

68. Roundtable with Special Representative Dilawar Syed (U.S. Business in Iraq)

Author:
Dilawar Syed and Randa Slim
Publication Date:
07-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Middle East Institute (MEI)
Abstract:
The Middle East Institute (MEI) was pleased to host a roundtable with the U.S. State Department's Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs, Dilawar Syed, moderated by Paul Salem, President & CEO with Randa Slim, Senior Fellow and Director, Conflict Resolution & Track II Dialogues Program. SR Syed had recently returned from a delegation trip to Baghdad with the U.S.-Iraq Business Council (USIBC). In this roundtable, he briefed a private sector and policy audience about his findings. During his visit, he held high level bilateral meetings with senior Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Al-Sudani. SR Syed also met with the Speaker of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, many of the Council of Representatives Iraq (COR) committees, and Iraqi entrepreneurs. SR Syed also spoke to opportunities and challenges for U.S. businesses in Iraq at large, responding to questions such as: Which economic sectors show the most promise for US-Iraqi economic cooperation in the short-, medium-, and long-term? What are the biggest challenges facing Iraq's economy and potential business partnerships with US companies? What were some of the private sector delegates impressions of Iraq today, and the economic opportunities available to US businesses? From this administration's perspective, how important (or high-priority) is our relationship with Iraq and what is the strategic rationale for improved and integrated economic cooperation? Looking past the delegation, how does the State Department intend to continue promoting active private sector partnerships? How do your Iraqi counterparts understand their relationship with the US, what are their hopes and fears as we look towards the future of this relationship, both economic and otherwise?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Business, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, and United States of America

69. From Threat to Opportunity: Harnessing Climate Change to Build a Prosperous Future for Iraq and the Region

Author:
Azzam Alwash
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Climate change and environmental degradation are adding serious strain to Iraqi coping capacities and governance mechanisms in a county already struggling with elevated water scarcity, instability and demographic growth. Widely recognised as a country at high-risk from climate change, Iraq faces the urgent need to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbon resources, while developing mechanisms of cooperation and co-dependency with regional neighbours to provide sustenance and opportunities to its youthful population. Drawing on Iraq’s history as a trade hub and bread basket for the region, Iraq and its neighbours need to urgently work together to overcome divisions and plan for a better future if the challenge of climate change is to be transformed into an opportunity capable of promoting stability and integration in an increasingly fragile Middle East.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Water, Sustainable Development Goals, and Energy
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

70. Transitional Justice in Iraq: The Challenges of National Healing and Recovery

Author:
Rend al-Rahim
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Transitional justice in Iraq is a record of squandered opportunities and compromised institutions. Over five decades, Iraqi society has endured human rights abuses on a wide scale, perpetrated by state and non-state actors. The post 2003 era offered a chance to heal wounds and promote national recovery by adopting policies of transparent judicial accountability, equitable reparations, truth-telling and documentation, and national reconciliation to repair the torn social fabric. Instead, in the immediate aftermath of the war of 2003, a victor’s justice prevailed, which deformed the principles of transitional justice and undermined its mechanisms through rampant sectarianism, clientelism and corruption, leading to new abuses, increased strife and deepening social fissures. Twenty years into the new political order, Iraqi policy-makers must reconsider their policies and reform their mechanisms to achieve social cohesion, or risk further social fragmentation and conflict.
Topic:
Human Rights, Transitional Justice, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East