Iraqi transitions: From regime change to state collapse

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 26, Issue 4-5 SPEC. ISS., 2005, Pages 705-721

  Dodge, Toby ^a  

^a QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL WAR; POLITICAL CHANGE; POLITICAL POWER; POST-WAR;

ASIA; EURASIA; IRAQ; MIDDLE EAST;

EID: 31344455448     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436590500127982     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. See Robert S Litwak, 'The new calculus of pre-emption', Survival, 44 (4), 2002-03, p 53;
2. and The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html. This was made even more explicit in the President's 2003 State of the Union address: 'Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.'
3. See 'Remarks by the President at the 2002 Graduation Exercise of the United States Military Academy West Point, New York', 1 June 2002;
4. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, pp 1-2;
5. Richard N Haass, Director, Policy Planning Sta., 'The 2002 Arthur Ross Lecture, Remarks to Foreign Policy Association New York', 22 April 2002;
6. and G John Ikenberry, 'America's imperial ambition', Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2002, p 52.
7. Paul Wolfowitz at Camp David on 15 September 2001, while assessing the potential use of US troops in the aftermath of 9/11, said 'Iraq was a brittle, oppressive regime that might break easily. It was doable.' Quoted in Bob Woodward, Bush at War, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002, p 83.
8. See Nicholas Leman, 'After Iraq: The plan to remake the Middle East', The New Yorker, 17 February 2003.
9. For the number of post-cold war interventions, see James Dobbins, John G McGinn, Keith Crane, Seth G Jones, Rollie Lal, Andrew Rathmell, Rachel Swanger & Anga Timilsina, America's Role in Nation-building: From Germany to Iraq, Washington, DC: Rand, at http://www.rand.org/ publications/MR/MR1753/MR1753.pref.pdf.
10. See Lakhdar Brahimi, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN document A/55/305S/2000/809;
11. and The Responsibility to Protect, Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, IDRC, 2001.
12. See Steve Heder, 'Cambodia (1990-98). The regime that didn't change', in Roger Gough (ed), Regime Change. It's Been Done Before, London: Policyexchange, 2003.
13. Indeed, President Bush was, after 9/11, avowedly against using US troops for state building, '"I don't want to nation-build with troops," Bush said yet again.' Quoted in Woodward, Bush at War, p 229.
14. See also the 'no foreign policy as social work' campaign message delivered by Condoleezza Rice, 'Campaign 2000: Promoting the national interest', Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000, pp 47, 53-54.
15. Michael Mastanduno, 'Models, markets and power: Political economy and the Asia-Pacific, 1989-1999', Review of International Studies, 26 (4), 2000, p 499.
16. David Williams, 'Aid and sovereignty: Quasi-states and the international financial institutions', Review of International studies, 26 (4), 2000, p 568.
17. See Faleh A Jadar, Postconflict Iraq. A Race for Stability, Reconstruction and Legitimacy, US Institute of Peace Special Report, No 120, May 2004, p 14.
18. See Isam al-Khafaji, 'The myth of Iraqi exceptionalism', Middle East Policy, 4, 2000, p 68.
19. See Peter Boone, Haris Gazdar & Athar Hussain, 'Sanctions against Iraq: costs of failure', paper delivered at the 'Frustrated Development: The Iraqi Economy in War and in Peace' conference, University of Exeter, Centre for Gulf Studies in collaboration with the Iraqi Economic Forum, 9-11 July 1997.
20. A visit to any government institution during the 1990s was a sobering event. In the middle of May 2001 I secured an interview with a provincial governor in an area of southern Iraq where the government was feeling particularly vulnerable. On entering the building I had to step over a pool of raw sewage to reach his office door. Clearly the power of the state was not residing in this building.
21. Quoted in Michael Gordon, '"Catastrophic success"' the strategy to secure Iraq did not foresee a 2nd war', New York Times, 19 October 2004.
22. 'So massive was the looting that, just three days after the US secured the capital, computers were selling for as little as $35 in the thieves' market'. Mark Fineman, Robin Wright & Doyle McManus, 'Washington's battle plans: Preparing for war, stumbling to peace', Los Angeles Times, 18 July 2003.
23. See David L Phillips, 'Listening to the wrong Iraqi', New York Times, 20 September 2003.
24. Kanan Makiya and two other Iraqi exiles visited the president in the Oval O.ce in January 2003. They told President Bush that US troops would be greeted with 'sweets and chocolate'. See George Packer, 'Kanan Makiya, dreaming of democracy', New York Times Magazine, 2 March 2003.
25. This theme was also promoted by the influential Washington pundit Fouad Ajami in 'Iraq and the Thief of Baghdad', New York Times, 19 May 2002. Ajami's predictions were in turn quoted by Vice President Cheney in a speech in Summer 2002.
26. See Fineman et al, 'Washington's battle plans';
27. David Rieff 'Blueprint for a mess', New York Times Magazine, 2 November 2003;
28. and George Packer, 'Letter from Baghdad: War after war', The New Yorker, 24 November 2003.
29. See Isam al Khafaji, 'A few days after: State and society in a post-Saddam Iraq', in Toby Dodge & Steven Simon (eds), Iraq at the Crossroads: State and Society in the Shadow of Regime Change, London and Oxford: International Institute for Strategic Studies and Oxford University Press, 2003.
30. This finding was supported by an opinion poll carried out on 9 June by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies which found that 'that only 15.1% of Iraqis polled in Baghdad said that the political parties in Iraq represented their interests. Approximately 63% of those surveyed preferred a technocratic government, rather than one based upon political parties'. See Puneet Talwar & Andrew Parasiliti, 108th [US] Congress, 1st Session, Committee Print, 'Iraq: Meeting the challenge, sharing the burden, staying the course, a trip report to members of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate', p 9.
31. See International Crisis Group (ICG), Governing Iraq, Middle East Report No 17, Baghdad/ Washington/Brussels: ICG, August 2003, p 11.
32. The US organisers acknowledged that the meeting was 'not sufficiently representative to establish an interim authority'. Jonathan Steele, Guardian, 29 April 2003.
33. These issues dominated the thinking of senior UN civil servants that I interviewed in New York in May 2003. See Jonathan Steele, Guardian, 21 August 2003;
34. and Edward Mortimer, 'Iraq's future lies beyond conquest', Financial Times, 22 August 2003.
35. See Rend Rahim Francke, 'Iraq democracy watch: On the situation in Iraq', September 2003, at http://www.iraqfoundation.org/news/2003/isept/ 26_democracy_watch.html, pp 8-9.
36. Quoted in Robin Wright & Rajiv Chandrasekaban, 'US ponders alternatives to Iraq Governing Council', Washington Post, 9 November 2003.
37. Daniel Williams, 'Iraqi warns of delay on constitution vote', Washington Post, 10 November 2003.
38. See, for example, the results of polling carried out by the Iraqi Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, which has consistently indicated that Iraqis would prefer a technocratic government 'at least until elections can be held'. 'Factions tussle for post of Iraqi president', Financial Times, 31 May 2004.
39. On the Brahimi plan, see 'Statement of the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General, Lakdhar Brahimi, to the Security Council on the political transition process in Iraq', 27 April 2004;
40. and 'Briefing of Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General, Lakdhar Brahimi, to the Security Council on the political transition process in Iraq', New York, 7 June 2004.
41. For a selection of this coverage see http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?iraq_ipm_index.html.
42. See Roula Khalaf, Nicolas Pelham & James Drummond, 'UN envoy arrives in Baghdad as storm brews over government', Financial Times, 6 May 2004.
43. On Brahimi's threats of resignation, see Polly Toynbee, 'Blair's perversity does him harm and Iraq no good', Guardian, 12 May 2004.
44. For the unfolding of the process, see Jonathan Steele, 'How honest broker was defeated-and with him hopes of credibility', Guardian, 3 June 2004.
45. See Stephen Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999, p 12.