ORIENT III 2016: 5 years into the Arab Uprisings – Reforms and Transformations

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Warfare in Iraq since the 2003 invasion: The diffusion of the projection of political violence

Ibrahim Al-Marashi

While the US sought to create an Iraqi army to serve as the institution that holds the monopoly on the use of legitimate force in Iraq, such a Weberian rubric has proved elusive. Rather, an oligopoly on violence, characterised by hybridity and plurality, represents a decentralisation of warmaking and warfare in Iraq’s security sector since 2003. This article primarily focuses on the organisations and institutions responsible for warmaking in Iraq in light of the American decision to disband the Iraqi armed forces and concludes with what this transformation means for methods of projecting war, by both Iraqi actors and the US.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi is Associate Professor of Middle East history at California State University San Marcos and an advisory board member of the International Security and Conflict Resolution programme at San Diego State University. He obtained his doctorate in Modern History at University of Oxford, completing a thesis on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, part of which was plagiarised by the British government prior to the 2003 Iraq War, otherwise known as the “Dodgy Dossier.” He is co-author of Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (Routledge, 2008), The Modern History of Iraq (Routledge 2017), and A Concise History of the Middle East (Routledge, 2018).

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Post-invasion Iraq: An impossible task, poorly executed

Marina Ottaway

The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein’s authoritarian regime and to replace it with one based on democracy. The regime was defeated quickly, but twenty years later it is clear that the United States has failed to re-engineer Iraq into a democratic country. This is not surprising because the occupation was poorly planned and executed. More fundamentally, however, it failed because nation-building, that is the deliberate re-engineering of a society, is an impossible task even authoritarian regimes have failed to accomplish.

Marina Ottaway is a Middle East Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a long-time analyst of political transformations in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East. She is working on a project at the Wilson Center about the countries of the Arab Spring and Iraq, having joined after 14 years at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she played a central role in launching the Middle East Program. Prior to that, she carried out research in Africa and in the Middle East for many years and taught at Georgetown University, the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, the American University in Cairo, the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, the University of Zambia and Addis Ababa University. Her extensive research experience is reflected in her publications, which include nine authored books and six edited ones. Her most recent include Getting to Pluralism, co-authored with Amr Hamzawy, and Yemen on the Brink, co-edited with Christopher Boucek. While at Carnegie, she supervised its Guide to Egypt’s Transition, a website that provides background and analysis on issues that will shape Egypt’s political future, and Iraqi Elections 2010, an online guide to Iraqi politics. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University.

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Political economy of modernisation in Iraq: Challenges and consequences

Ebrahim Abbassi, Adel Nemati and Mohsen Shokri

Post-Saddam American modernisation in Iraq, which was supposed to implement an example of a new Middle East based on the liberal democracy model in this country, effectively led to the establishment of a weak elected government against anti-modernisation forces after 2003. The formation of this government and the cessation of modernisation led to the tendency of socially disillusioned Iraqi forces to experience the defeat of Iraqi democracy facing with discourse of ISIS or the victory of pro-traditional forces (Al-Ketletol Sadriyah) in 2021 elections. The answer to the main question of this article, which is the reason for the failure of American nation-building in Iraq, should be found in three factors: "the nature of the fundamental history of Iraq in the modern order," "the historical nature of American nation-building policy after World War II," and "the hybrid nature of the Islamic religious state or traditional classes discourse, which was able to establish itself as a liberating force among the disenfranchised social forces in post-2003 Iraq." The result of this process was the cessation of modernisation and modern nation-building in Iraq. This article examines the reasons for the failure of these projects in Iraq by examining three models of modernisation: "modernisation from above or British colonial modernisation" in monarchial regimes; "army-centred" modernisation, which resulted from a military coup and the Ba'ath party; and "American liberal democracy modernisation".

Ebrahim Abbassi is Associate Professor in political sciences at Shiraz University. He holds a BA (1998), an MA (2001) and a PhD (2009) in Political Science from University of Tehran. He has been Director of the Persian Gulf Center for Strategic Studies (2013-2016) and Dean of the School of law and Political Sciences at Shiraz University (2018-2022). His current research interests include political and social developments in Iran, Persian Gulf studies and terrorist groups in the Middle East.

Adel Nemati is a PhD student. in Political Sciences at Shiraz University. His research focuses on the history of Iran and the Middle East.

Mohsen Shokri is a PhD student in Political Sciences at Shiraz University. His research focuses on the political economy of the Middle East.

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Re-imagining Babylon: Epistemic violence and Iraqi discourse

Ruba Ali Al-Hassani

For two decades, White people have been dominating English-language literature and discourse on Iraq, Orientalising, dehistoricising and sectarianising it. White men in government, non-government think-tanks and academia expect to lead the conversation instead of humbling themselves to pluralistic Iraqi voices. Despite effort by some Iraqis in the diaspora to guide the conversation, it is geared back to a dominating West-centric perspective. Iraqis are marginalised and Iraqi women are tokenised. Iraqi women academics are especially excluded from the conversation. So much so that a nascent Iraqi Women Academics Network now draws attention to the pluralistic voices and experiences of Iraqi women scholars. When Iraq’s October Spring emerged in 2019, I was part of a small network of Iraqi bloggers who shared instant, verified news of the protests to foreign journalists to ensure Iraqis’ voices and stories reached a global audience. Western media covered the protest movement and focused on Iraqi voices. Within a year, those journalists became Iraq experts, invited to speak on think tank panels discussing Iraq. The only Iraqi women invited to speak were presumed to represent a monolithic idea of what Iraqi women think. Iraqi women experts of minoritised ethnoconfessional backgrounds continue to be overlooked. While European and Western subjectivities are often interpreted as global objectivity, this has become more obvious in the Iraqi context. Two decades after the invasion, Western journalists and analysts continue to discuss Iraqis’ stories on their behalf, and their experiences are deemed objective reflections on Iraqis’ lived experiences. In my paper, I discuss my experience and analyse what went wrong by discussing how White Ignorance has been useful in upholding the epistemic violence that sits at the core of media coverage and policy analysis of Iraq. I also borrow from the counterfactual method to expose "blind spots" and contingencies in Iraq epistemology that extend the Iraq invasion’s violence. This paper invites the reader to imagine how different things could have been and how much richer Iraq discourse would have been had it included Iraqi women academics’ pluralistic voices and scholarly contributions.

Ruba Ali Al-Hassani is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at lancaster University’s Department of Politics, Philosophy & Religion, and a Research Consultant with King's College london. An interdisciplinary sociologist, she focuses on state-society relations & social movements in Iraq, law & social control, and transitional justice & collective trauma. She co-founded the Canadian Association for Muslim Women in law and the Iraqi Women Academics Network, and has taught at York University and Trent University, Canada. Ruba holds a B.Sc. in Psychology & Sociology, a M.A. in Criminology, an ll.M. in transitional justice, and a forthcoming PhD in law.

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China and the GCC: A developing strategic partnership

Heinrich Kreft

In December 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to Riyadh for the first summit between China and GCC leaders, officially sealing what has become a strategic partnership in just a few years. Oil and gas exports to China remain the backbone of economic relations between the GCC and China, but these have deepened and diversified over time. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are China's most important partners in the GCC and have received the bulk of Chinese investment and awarded large construction contracts – mainly for industrial parks and port facilities – to Chinese companies. The GCC countries' "visions" of transforming their economies away from fossil fuels and China's "Belt and Road Initiative" a strategy to achieve economic opportunities and political influence abroad have led to a classic "win-win" situation between the two sides. So far, China has shied away from challenging the US as the main security provider in the region but has started supplying arms to its main partners Saudi Arabia and the UAe, which want to hedge against a possible US withdrawal from the region. China is trying to reconcile its relations with the GCC countries with its relations with Iran, the arch-enemy of the Arab states. It is doubtful whether this can work in the long run and whether China can avoid becoming embroiled in the various conflicts in the region. The US-Chinese rivalry could endanger the fragile stability in the region.

Heinrich Kreft is a German career diplomat and academic. Since September 2020 he is the Director of the Center for Diplomacy at Andrássy University in Budapest, Hungary, where he also holds the Chair for Diplomacy and is directing the International Relations and european Studies program. He has published extensively on major power political and economic relations; on international security; the Arab world; european, American and Asian political and economic affairs. Most recent publications on US-China relations; transatlantic relations; Islam in Germany; geopolitics and culture and on German and european foreign policy after Russia´s attack on Ukraine.

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Money trees in the Gulf: The power of sovereign wealth funds in shifting GCC international politics

Alexis Montambault-Trudelle

Gulf sovereign wealth funds (SwFs), large state-owned investment funds, have historically been known as quiet global investors deploying capital through a long-term approach, mainly in western financial markets. More recently, however, Gulf ruling elites have been leveraging them to proactively drive nation-building projects, deepen strategic international partnerships and claim a more prominent role on the world stage. why is that the case? The article argues that Gulf SwFs are now pivotal agents in the region’s shifting international politics. A new generation of leaders is using them to pursue elite-based interests and economic development goals that induce deeper economic and political influence in a regional sphere of influence. They also drive Gulf governments' attempts to boost alternative revenue streams through significant investments in disruptive technologies and low-carbon projects, simultaneously expanding the rentier monarchies' international reach beyond their role as fossil fuel producers. The article delineates the rise of SwFs as alternative mechanisms of regime maintenance; they enable incumbent elites to advance foreign policy ambitions and maintain shared expectations about the appropriate organisation of a political economy by harnessing the impending energy transition and the impact of the climate crisis.

Alexis Montambault-Trudelle is pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of edinburgh. His research focuses on Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund to explore the effects of internal political dynamics on sovereign wealth management. He investigates how intra-elite dynamics, regime structures and state-society relations in the post-2015 Saudi political landscape shape the sovereign wealth fund's institutional design and behaviour, whether in the kingdom or across the global financial market. He is particularly interested in the political economy of Gulf states and the multiple facets surrounding the relationship between states and the financial market.

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Climate-smart agriculture and food security in MENA

Martin Paul Jr. Tabe-Ojong

Food security has become one of the most critical challenges since the russian invasion of Ukraine due to the pivotal role of both countries in the global cereal trade. Import-dependent countries such as those in the Middle East and North Africa are especially highly exposed to food insecurity resulting from the dependence on Black Sea cereals. This article argues that food has become a geopolitical tool as a byproduct of the war in Eastern Europe. The G7 responded to the potentially dire consequences of food insecurity with an ambitious package of emergency aid and structural support for food system change in developing countries such as those in the MENA region. This could be a major opportunity for MENA countries since their food systems are increasingly unsustainable due to negative health impacts resulting from cheap, carbohydrate-rich diets.

Martin Paul Jr. Tabe-Ojong is a Development Economist and works as an Associate research Fellow at the Development, strategy, and Governance Division of the International Food Policy research Institute (IFPrI), and is based in Cairo, Egypt. Passionate about international development, poverty reduction, and shared prosperity, his research focuses on selected strands in development, agricultural and behavioural economics using econometric impact evaluation. Previously, he has worked on issues covering agricultural transformation and rural development as well as aspirations and rural poverty. His ongoing work includes climate change adaptation, food security, social protection and labour market outcomes, digitalisation in agriculture, and socioemotional skills. Martin holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Bonn, Germany. He also holds an Msc in Agricultural and Food Economics from the same university where he was awarded the Hans H ruthenberg award for an excellent thesis from the Foundation Fiat Panis in 2019. He has advised and consulted for the World Bank, World Fish, ICrIsAT, the German Development Institute, Global Crop Diversity Trust, and, the Alliance for Bioversity and CIAT. He is highly skilled at data collection through household surveys with fieldwork and research stays in Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, Egypt, and Cote d'Ivoire.

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Climate change impact and action: Qatar at the forefront

Farah Al Qawasmi

Climate change is an increasingly manifested topic on the table of international dialogue, and the state of Qatar has been no stranger to this. In 2008, the country developed a strategic plan called “Qatar National Vision 2030,” through which it emphasised the strategies of its environmental pillar alongside its evidently changing environmental policies. Although it is a small, developing country, Qatar is amongst the largest emitters of CO2 and greenhouse gases, and has the highest C02 emissions per capita worldwide. In 2005, Qatar decided to improve its negative environmental impact and signed the KYOTO protocol. subsequently, Qatar has had a longstanding commitment to rationing state and consumer behaviour. The impact of climate change is grave for the world, and for Qatar specifically as it lacks natural resources such as water and fertile land and is situated in a geologically challenging region. In light of this, combined with growing economic and state developmental projects, Qatar finds itself stuck between the crossfire of a weak environmental state but an ambitiously growing economy with projects that could pose harmful environmental consequences both locally and internationally. Therefore, this article will adopt Qatar as a case study and present the effects of climate change. It will investigate the strategies and policies that Qatar has formulated and is currently developing and applying in order to achieve its mission of reducing the effects of climate change locally and internationally.

Farah Al Qawasmi is a researcher at the Gulf studies Center. she received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown’s school of Foreign service in Doha with a degree in International Politics. she continued her studies at sOAs, the University of london, where she pursued a Master of science degree in Cooperate Globalization and Development. Her research interests include water and food security, politics, and socio-economic development in the Gulf and MENA region.

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ORIENT III 2016: 5 years into the Arab Uprisings – Reforms and Transformations

ORIENT III 2023: The invasion of Iraq: 20 years on

ORIENT III 2023: The invasion of Iraq: 20 years on

ORIENT II 2023: Changing international relations of the GCC states

ORIENT II 2023: Changing international relations of the GCC states

ORIENT I 2023: Climate change and climate action in MENA

ORIENT I 2023: Climate change and climate action in MENA