The Future of Iraq
Dictatorship, Democracy or Division?
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- 105,00 kr
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- 105,00 kr
Publisher Description
Reordering Iraq is the lynchpin of America's successful involvement in the Middle East. The challenge may be impossible. The Future of Iraq provides a primer on the history and political dynamics of this pivotal state divided by ethnic, religious, and political antagonisms, and provocatively argues that the least discussed future of Iraq might be the best: Managed partition.
Anderson and Stansfield incisively analyze the dilemmas of American policy. They suggest that even a significant American presence will not stabilize Iraq because it is an artificial state and its people have never shared a common identity. In addition the legacy of tyrannical rule and the primacy of political violence is eroded social bonds and entrenched tribal allegiances, fallow ground for democracy. They provide the basic information and the provocative analysis crucial to informed debate and decision.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Despite the word "future" in the title, seven of this work's eight brisk chapters are about the past. While most of the information can be found elsewhere, the book usefully consolidates it into a well-organized primer on Iraqi history. The authors, one an assistant professor of political science at Wright State University, the other a fellow at the U.K. based Royal Institute for International Affairs, do offer some refreshing takes on past events. They contend, for instance, that Saddam Hussein's regime, far from being an inexplicable evil, was a not-so-surprising result of Iraq's history. The British, they say, who gained control of the region after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, more or less made violent governance necessary through two key decisions: first, to attach the Kurdish province of Mosul to Arab Baghdad and Basra, giving the new nation a built-in secessionist movement, and second, to favor the Sunni Muslim minority at the expense of the more numerous Shi'a. The last chapter lays out the choices now confronting the United States and reads like a policy brief, listing the advantages and disadvantages of each of four options. Arguing that any short-term occupation will lead to Iraq's violent fragmentation, and that the toll of a long-term occupation is politically unpalatable to Americans, the authors offer their conclusion, which is that the partition of Iraq into either two or three states is "better than any other option currently under consideration." While this is the one alternative the Coalition Provisional Authority is least likely to consider, in part because it fears sparking regional volatility, this is still an excellent volume for Iraq-bound civilians and soldiers seeking to bone up, and for the general reader trying to get a mental toehold in the region.
