Iraq and the domestic political effects of economic sanctions

Middle East Journal

Volumn 64, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 253-268

  Mazaheri, Nimah ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

FOREIGN POLICY; INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT; NATIONAL POLITICS; SANCTION; TRADE BLOC;

IRAQ;

EID: 77953209862     PISSN: 00263141     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3751/64.2.15     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. See Mohammed El Baradei, "Interview with Lally Weymouth," Newsweek International, February 9, 2004. The success of sanctions in Iraq - in terms of decreasing Husayn's military potential - had been claimed from numerous sources throughout the duration of the program. For example, see Eric Melby, "Iraq," in Richard N. Haass, ed., Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy (New York: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), p. 120. Secretary of State Colin Powell also said in 2001 that sanctions were working in their ability to prevent Husayn from obtaining WMDs. See Colin Powell, "Press Remarks with Foreign Minister of Egypt Amre Moussa," February 24, 2001, http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2001/933.htm.
2. Jon Hovi, Robert Huseby, and Detlef Sprinz question George Lopez and David Cortright's central argument and examine what defines "successful sanctions." See Jon Hovi, Robert Huseby, and Detlef Sprinz, "When Do (Imposed) Economic Sanctions Work?" World Politics, Vol. 57 (July 2005), pp. 479-99. More generally, Robert Pape challenges the ability of economic sanctions to have their desired political effects on the target state. See Robert Pape, "Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work," International Security, Vol. 22 (Autumn 1997), pp. 90-136 along with Kimberly Ann Elliott's response (International Security [Summer 1998], pp. 50-65) and Pape's rejoinder (International Security [Summer 1998], pp. 66-77). For similarly negative assessments of sanctions see Richard Porter, "International Trade and Investment Sanctions: Potential Impact on the South African Economy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 23 (December 1979), pp. 579-612 and Richard N. Haass, "Sanctioning Madness," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76 (November/December 1997). For slightly more optimistic assessments of sanctions (or the threat of sanctions) see Gary Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1990); David Cortright and George Lopez, The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s (Boulder, CO: Lynn Rienner, 2000); Daniel Drezner, "The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion," International Organization, Vol. 57 (Summer 2003), pp. 643-59, and Daniel Nikolay Marinov, "Do Economic Sanctions Destabilize Country Leaders?" American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 49 (July 2005), pp. 564-76.
3. Countless scholars, policymakers, and activists argued for the dismantling of the Iraq sanctions because of their humanitarian impact as well as unattainable political goals. See Anthony Cordesman and Ahmed Hashim, Iraq: Sanctions and Beyond (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), and Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999).
4. It should be noted that a wide array of individuals and groups - from Noam Chomsky to the Heritage Foundation - remarked on how sanctions appeared to be strengthening Husayn's rule instead of weakening it. See "Iraq: The Real Agenda - An Interview with Noam Chomsky," Human Nature Review, Vol. 3 (April 2003), pp. 233-38; and James Phillips, "Salvage UN Sanctions on Iraq's Military," Executive Memorandum No. 725, Heritage Foundation (March 2001). Denis Halliday stated in an interview that Iraqi technocrats and government ministries felt that UN sanctions policies "were diminishing the Iraqi people while strengthening the regime of Saddam Husayn." See the interview with Denis Halliday, David Barsmamian, "Iraq: The Impact of Sanctions and US Policy," The Transnational Institute, July 1, 1999, http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?page=interviews_david.
5. For details of the sanctions regime, see the text of UN Resolution 661, available at: http://www. un.org/Docs/scres/1990/scres90.htm.
6. Introduced on April 3, 1991, the fourth preambulary clause of Resolution 687 - often called the "Saddam Husayn clause" - refers to "the need to be assured of Iraq's peaceful intentions." This clause has often been pointed to as justification for applying sanctions for as long as Husayn remained in power.
7. George H. W. Bush, "News Conference with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl," May 20, 1991, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=19601.
8. Madeleine Albright, "Speech at Georgetown University," March 21, 1997, http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1997/03/bmd970327b.htm.
9. Colin Powell, "Interview," The Financial Times, February 12, 2002.
10. For more details on Husayn's government see Kanan Makiya, The Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); Musallam Ali Musallam, The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait: Saddam Husayn, His State and International Power Politics (London: British Academic Press, 1996), and Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
11. Geoff Simons, The Scourging of Iraq: Sanctions, law and Natural Justice (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), p. 136. See also Denis Halliday, "The Impact of the UN Sanctions on the People of Iraq," Journal of Palestinian Studies, Vol. 28 (Winter 1999), pp. 29-37.
12. Dilip Hiro, Neighbors, Not Friends: Iraq and Iran after the Gulf Wars (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 114. See also Simons, Scourging of Iraq, p. 144, and Amatzia Baram, "The Effect of Iraqi Sanctions: Statistical Pitfalls and Responsibility," The Middle East Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Spring 2000), pp. 194-223.
13. Nihad Awad, Deputy Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, noted in an interview that Husayn's control over food and money is what led sanctions to "backfire," strengthening the regime instead of weakening it. See "Iraq Groans Under 10 Years of Sanctions," Xinhua News Agency, August 6, 2000.
14. See Tim Niblock, "The Regional and Domestic Political Consequences of Sanctions Imposed on Iraq, Libya and Sudan," Arab Studies quarterly (Fall 2001), p. 64.
15. "Iraq Sanctions Create their Own Disaster," World Disasters Report 1998 (Geneva: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 1998).
16. John Field, "From Food Security to Food Insecurity: The Case of Iraq, 1990-91," GeoJournal, Vol. 30 (1993), p. 145.
17. See Rend Rahim Francke, "The Iraqi Opposition and the Sanctions Debate," Middle East Report (March 1995), pp. 7-17.
18. Abdullah Mutawi, Middle East International, October 29, 1999.
19. Simons, The Scourging of Iraq, p. 136. This idea was similarly expressed in a 2003 interview with Abbas Alnasrawi available at http://www.uvm.edu/theview/article.php?id=70. On the concept of the "food weapon" and how this can apply to sanctions see Robert Paarlberg, "Food as an Instrument of Foreign Policy," Proceedings to the Academy of Political Science, Vol. 34 (1982), pp. 25-39.
20. "Iraq Sanctions Create their Own Disaster."
21. Barsmamian, "Iraq: The Impact of Sanctions and US Policy," http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?page=interviews_david.
22. Here is an excerpt from a speech delivered in September 1996 after the US cruise missile attacks during the Kurdish civil war: "The free peoples of the world and the sons of our glorious Arab nation can rest assured that proud, glorious and defiant Iraq is safe. Iraq is as powerful as high mountains. It will not be shaken by the winds of evil; neither will it be frightened, God willing, by the hiss of vipers." The "winds of evil" and the "hiss of vipers," of course, refer to the attacks from the United States. "Transcript of Saddam Hussein's Speech to Iraqis," CNN, September 3, 1996, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9609/03/saddam.transcript/.
23. See International Committee of the Red Cross, Iraq: A Decade of Sanctions (Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross, 2000); James Fine, "The Iraq Sanctions Catastrophe," Middle East Report, Vol. 174 (January 1992), and Thomas Weiss, "Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool: Weighing Humanitarian Impulses," Journal of Peace Research (September 1999).
24. See Cordesman and Hashim, Iraq, p. 154.
25. Invoking public images and rhetoric of martyrdom as a means of rousing nationalism and bolstering government legitimacy is a strategy that is obviously not unique to the Middle East. It is often invoked in Muslim countries because the virtues of martyrdom and redemptive suffering are important religious and cultural elements.
26. A number of Husayn's speeches can be found at the website http://www.al-moharer.net.
27. Niblock, "The Regional and Domestic Political Consequences of Sanctions," p. 64.
28. Describing the Middle East as a place that is "awash in ideology" is a frequent theme in the literature. See Michael C. Hudson, Arab Politics: The Search for legitimacy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 20.
29. Husayn's "return to Islam," observed since 1990, was witnessed by his added inscription of Allahu Akbar ("God is great") on the Iraqi flag, news footage of him praying, and the placing of murals devoted to his image at holy sites such as the Mosque of 'Ali. By emphasizing Iraq's Muslim identity, Husayn not only drew a line of connection between himself and the increasing numbers of pious Muslims in Iraqi society, but also played to the familiar tune of a Muslim nation under attack from the West. Although some remarked that Husayn's return to Islam contradicted the largely secularist principles of the Ba'th Party, the leader was pursuing a common strategy for governments when their legitimacy begins to erode. See Richard Dekmejian, "The Anatomy of Islamic Revivalism: Legitimacy Crisis, Ethnic Conflict and the Search for Islamic Alternatives," The Middle East Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Winter 1980), pp. 1-12.
30. As an example of how Husayn utilized both Islam and Iraqi nationalism to rally the population behind his government see his speech on January 17, 2003, delivered two months prior to the second United States-led invasion, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,877046,00.html.
31. Husayn often used the suffering of the Iraqi population as a propaganda tool in order to rally the international community behind the removal of sanctions. See Daniel Byman, Kenneth Pollack, and Matthew Waxman, "Coercing Saddam Husayn: Lessons from the Past," Survival (Autumn 1998), p. 134
32. James A. Bill and Robert Springborg, Politics in the Middle East (New York: Addison-Wesley, 2000), p. 300.
33. Interviews with international activists in the anti-sanctions movement appear in Aida Dabas, "Protesting Sanctions in Iraq: A View from Jordan," Middle East Report, Vol. 208 (Autumn 1998), pp. 37-39 and Anthony Arnove et al, "Americans against the Sanctions," Middle East Report, Vol. 215 (Summer 2000), pp. 36-37.
34. During the sanctions program, Iraq increased its trade with Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE. In 2000, there were reported "signs of thaw or improvement in trade relations between Iraq and Jordan, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and other Arab and Muslim countries" (See "Iraq Woos Arab, European States to Walk Out of Isolation," Xinhua News Agency, July 18, 2000). Also see Raad Alkadiri, "The Iraqi Klondike: Oil and Regional Trade," Middle East Report, Vol. 220 (Fall 2001), pp. 30-35.
35. Removing the Iraqi military and government personnel from the Kurdish region in late 1991 further helped Husayn in this respect, given that he had violently clashed with the Kurds numerous times since coming to power.
36. See Niblock, "The Regional and Domestic Political Consequences of Sanctions," p. 64.
37. Byman, Pollack and Waxman, "Coercing Saddam Husayn," p. 135.
38. Hiro, Neighbors, Not Friends, p. 74.
39. Hiro, Neighbors, Not Friends, pp. 73-74.
40. Hiro, Neighbotors, Not Friends, p. 176.
41. See William Kaempfer and Anton Lowenberg. "The Theory of International Economic Sanctions: A Public Choice Approach," American Economic Review (September 1988), pp. 786-93.
42. Susan H. Allen, "The Domestic Political Costs of Economic Sanctions," Journal of Conflict Resolution (December 2008), p. 925.
43. On using "food as a weapon" during sanctions see Franklin Lavin, "Asphyxiation or Oxygen?: The Sanctions Dilemma," Foreign Policy (Fall 1996), pp. 139-53.
44. Abbas Alnasrawi, The Economy of Iraq: Oil, Wars, Destruction of Development and Prospects, 1950-2010 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), p. 158.
45. Between 1970 and 1990, economic sanctions in which the United States took part were successful in just 21% of the cases. In cases where the sanctions were imposed unilaterally by the United States, the success rate was even lower, 13% (see Kimberly Ann Elliott, "Evidence on the Costs and Benefits of Economic Sanctions," Speech given before the Subcommittee on Trade Committee on Ways and Means, United States House of Representatives, Washington, DC, October 23, 1997).
46. On the importance of defining realistic policy goals of sanctions see Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott, "Economic Sanctions and U.S. Foreign Policy," PS, Vol. 18 (Autumn 1985), pp. 727-35.
47. Lektzian and Sprecher provide quantitative evidence that the use of sanctions "significantly increases" the probability that a militarized dispute will follow between the sanctions sender and the targeted state. See David J. Lektzian and Christopher M. Sprecher, "Sanctions, Signals, and Militarized Conflict," American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 51, No. 2 (March 2007), pp. 415-431.
48. United States Congress Joint Economic Committee (Subcommittee on Education and Health), Economic Sanctions against Iraq (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1990), p. 18.
49. For example, from Global Policy Forum: "Many at the UN have spoken of 'moving the goalposts,' but the metaphor of precise goalposts is itself misleading, since criteria [for the lifting of the sanctions] have never been clear," http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/170/41947. html.
50. Barsmamian, "Iraq: The Impact of Sanctions and US Policy."
51. Byman, Pollack, and Waxman, "Coercing Saddam Husayn," p. 127 and pp. 129-40.
52. Melby, "Iraq," p. 123.
53. During the late 1990s, two consecutive directors of the UN Oil-for-Food Program, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, as well as the Director of the World Food Program in Iraq, Jutta Burghardt, resigned in protest to the humanitarian disaster that sanctions had created.
54. For instance, see Drezner, "The Hidden Hand" and Marinov, "Do Economic Sanctions Destabilize." Drezner finds that the threat of sanctions is more successful in altering the behavior of states than the actual implementation of sanctions. Marinov finds in a panel study of 136 countries over 37 years that the imposition of sanctions in a given year makes the leader of the targeted state "significantly more likely to lose power in the following year."
55. Marinov, "Do Economic Sanctions Destabilize," p. 575.
56. For a review of the literature on smart sanctions and critique of this particular policy alternative see Arne Tostensen and Beate Bull, "Are Smart Sanctions Feasible?" World Politics, Vol. 54 (April 2002), pp. 373-403. Also see Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade.
57. Allen, "The Domestic Political Costs of Economic Sanctions," p. 933.
58. See Jack Patterson, "The Sanctions Dilemma," Middle East Report (March 1994), p. 25.