Iraq

This article examines a cinematic artefact from 1957 titled The Housing Program of Iraq, which contains rare footage of sarifa (reed and mud) settlements inhabited by rural migrants in mid-century Baghdad. The film, which was never finished, was produced as a collaboration between the Greek architect Constantinos A. Doxiadis and the director Demetrios Gaziades, who shot and edited the footage between Baghdad and Athens. Through this film Doxiadis intended to complement the Doxiadis Associates’ (DA) entry for the Iraq National Housing Exhibition and also to promote the modern housing projects designed by DA. In this period, various statist actors used the representational medium of documentary film in an attempt to redefine the boundaries of Iraqi citizenship. This film, thus, offered a cinematic portal into an other Baghdad, which was staged as the problem of development. Subsequent scenes narrated the solution to these neighbourhoods and positioned a family in a modern low-income house to animate the film’s developmental fantasy. The film projected universal Iraqi home ownership as a form of citizenship where the house was an instrument to facilitate financial, legal, and social agreements between rural migrants and the Iraqi state. By interrogating the methodological question of how to assemble an archive of ephemeral and subaltern places, this essay suggests expanding our notion of historiographic evidence to understand the intertwined relationships between the politics of development and architecture, and their representation in media.

Brennan’ın kitabını önemli kılan birincil etken, yolculuğunu Irak savaşı başlamadan kısa süre önce, 2000 – 2001 yıllarında gerçekleştirmiş oluşudur. Ksenophon’un yolculuğuna tanıklık etmiş anıtların, kentlerin ve yeryüzü şekillerinin birçoğu, savaş süresince yok edilecektir. Oturduğumuz yerden bizi yolculuğa çıkaran bu kitap, gezi edebiyatının benzersiz bir örneğini oluşturmaktadır. Son yıllarda patlamaya hazır bir coğrafyaya dönüşen bölgede, okuyucuları Ksenophon’un izinden güvenle gezdirir. Geçmişin ve günümüzün anlatıldığı öyküler birbiriyle öyle dengeli harmanlanmıştır ki, okuyucu hem eğlenir hem de tarihe yönelik akademik bilgiler edinir. Brennan, dürüst ve açık anlatımıyla, yolculuğun getirdiği mutlulukları ve zorlukları tüm yalınlığıyla betimlemesiyle ve hem coğrafyaya hem kültürlere hem de kimisi dost canlısı, kimisi düşmanca davranan yerli halka dair gözlemleriyle, okuyucuyu kitabın içine çekip, yolculuğa çıkan okuyucunun kendisiymiş gibi hissettiriyor.
Prof. Jonathan Burgess (Toronto Üniversitesi)

Siyaseten Tanzimat Fermanı ile başlayan ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nin kurulması ile sonuçlanan dönem tarihsel gelişmelerin oldukça hızlı yaşandığı ve Türk tarihinin yönünü değiştiren şahısların yetiştiği verimli bir dönem olmuştur. Tez konusu olan Nazım Paşa 1853 ile 1913 yılları arasında yaşamıştır. Nazım Paşa, 60 yıllık ömründe Deli Fuat Paşa Vakası, 31 Mart Vakası, Halaskar Zabitan olayı, 1912’de Meclis-i Mebusan’ın kapatılması, I. Balkan Savaşı ve Bab-ı Ali Baskını gibi olayların baş aktörlerinden olmuştur. Kendisi aynı zamanda Ayastefanos Antlaşması, Berlin Antlaşması görüşmelerine iştirak etmiş, I. Balkan Savaşı sırasında Bulgaristan ile yapılan mütarekede heyet reisliği yapmış askeri bir diplomattır. Brüksel’deki askeri ataşe olarak başladığı askerlik hayatı 23 Ocak 1913’te Harbiye Nazırı iken başına isabet eden bir kurşunla son bulmuştur. Bu çalışma, tez konusu olan Nazım Paşa’nın hayatını kronolojik bir bütünlükle ele almayı ve yaşadıklarının dönemin tarihsel gelişimine olan etkisini izlemek amacıyla yazılmıştır. Çalışma esnasında Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi evrakı, döneme tanıklık eden şahısların hatırat türünden eserleri, basın, Genel Kurmay Askeri Tarih ve Stratejik Etüt (ATASE) Daire Başkanlığı Arşivi evrakı ile araştırma türünden eserlerden yararlanılmıştır. Çalışma bir hatıratı ya da miras bıraktığı evrakı olmayan Nazım Paşa hakkında yapılmış ilk ve tek müstakil çalışmayı teşkil etmektedir.

The Syrian war will allow Russia to recover its naval presence in the Mediterranean. The Russian Navy will have more facilities at the same time that the Chinese Navy will appear in this scenario. This new situation will give us a new world order; this period we call "Tens Calm". Something similar happened after Bismarck Era, the period called "Armed Peace" (1890-1914), when the global balance was broken. This pre-war environment in the media could have been avoided. Russia today tries to recover its old deployment in the Mediterranean to become a global power.

Baghdad, a city with more than 1250 years of history. Its historical core and heritage facing a great danger today.
This book provides a guideline for an ambitious project to Revive Baghdad Historical Center based on planning study that sets principles and strategies to achieve its goals.

Iraq has distanced itself from its traditional radicalism and adopted a more pragmatic and moderate posture. Still, close ties between Iran and Iraqi Shi'a groups in particular threaten the chances for normalization between Jerusalem and Baghdad, while the U.S. ability or willingness to challenge Iran on this matter is limited. Also discussed is the positive Kurdish-Israeli relationship and areas of potential cooperation. At the same time, however, there exist Kurdish fears of negative reactions from non-Kurdish Iraqis and the Arab world and Israeli fears of antagonizing Turkey and jeopardizing its strategic partnership with it.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is reported to be caused by traumatic events that are outside the range of usual human experiences including (but not limited to) military combat, violent personal assault, being kidnapped or taken hostage and terrorist attacks. Initial data suggests that 1 out of 6 returning Iraq War military personnel are exhibiting symptoms of depression, anxiety and PTSD. Virtual Reality (VR) exposure therapy has been used in previous treatments of PTSD patients with reports of positive outcomes. The aim of the current paper is to specify the rationale, design and development of an Iraq War PTSD VR application that is being created from the virtual assets that were initially developed for theX-Box game entitled Full Spectrum Warrior which was inspired by a combat tactical training simulation, Full Spectrum Command.

Diviso tra Turchia, Siria, Iraq e Iran, il Kurdistan rappresenta probabilmente uno degli scenari geopolitici più caldi del Medio Oriente. È il territorio di un popolo, i curdi, che vanta più di trenta milioni di persone la più grande "nazione" senza Stato - e che si sta rivelando un attore cruciale della regione. Nelle recenti crisi mediorientali, infatti, il "fattore curdo" si è rivelato una costante fondamentale: dalle guerre in Iraq sotto Saddam Hussein alla lotta contro il cosiddetto Stato Islamico, dal ruolo nei delicati equilibri politici turchi al conflitto siriano. Senza dimenticare che il Kurdistan è una delle regioni più ricche di petrolio. Conoscere i curdi, distinguere le loro istanze autonomiste o indipendentiste, le priorità che ne guidano l'operato nei diversi contesti statali in cui si trovano a vivere, è quindi fondamentale per comprendere cosa stia avvenendo oggi. In questo volume si offre un primo approccio globale alla "questione curda" grazie all'apporto di studiosi internazionali e alla curatela dell'lSPl, uno dei più importanti istituti di ricerca europei.

Affective disorders, particularly depression, are the commonest and probably the most important psychopathological complication of end stage renal disease (ESRD). Depression has the potential to alter adversely the medical outcome of ESRD patients and the psychological stress can affect patient's adherence to medication regimen. In Iraq as well as many other Arab countries, the true prevalence of depression among ESRD patients is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of depression among a cohort of Iraqi hemodialysis (HD) patients and relate it to their socio-demographic characteristics. We recruited patients from two HD centers in Baghdad, excluding patients with history of depression or other psychiatric disorders prior to the initiation of HD. The Arabic version of diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders fourth edition (DSM-IV) was used to diagnose depression. Beck's Depression Inventory was used to grade its severity. Clinical...

On 1 October 2019, a wide-ranging anti-government protest took to the streets in Baghdad. Grievances included unemployment, a lack of basic services, the absence of social justice, and endemic corruption in political and economic institutions. Despite swift and severe state repression, the protest snowballed into a countrywide mobilisation encompassing the central-southern governorates to become the largest protest movement to challenge Iraq's post-2003 political order. By granting analytical weight to the role of early riser activists, this paper focuses on the factors that shaped activists' decisions and lead to different forms of spontaneous participation involving both sympathisers and bystanders. In so doing, it draws attention to the non-hierarchical structure of the movement and its "diffused communication" strategy, the repression as a "moral shock" and the rhetoric of protest slogans. At the crossroads between social movement studies and Iraqi studies, this article contributes to both bodies of scholarship with empirical research. On one hand, it enriches social movement literature by shedding light on strategies and actions adopted by activists operating in non-liberal contexts. On the other hand, it enriches Iraqi political studies by demonstrating that the country hosts a vibrant sphere of contentious politics, a sphere that deserves ample scrutiny.

The United States wants to end “forever wars” in the Middle East, among them the war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Much to Turkey’s dismay, Kurdish forces were crucial on-the-ground allies in that pursuit. While the military battle is subsiding, the question has arisen of how the new US administration will politically approach its Kurdish allies and deal with Turkey’s expansionism in the future.

Turkish expansionism worries the European Union and United States, despite it having been facilitated by them in the past: Both entities allowed Turkish president Erdoğan to expand militarily into Kurdish areas in Syria and Iraq without any pol­itical repercussions from his Western allies. Therefore, a currently untamed and unilaterally acting Turkey will be one of Biden’s greatest challenges in the region.

Biden will campaign for an end to endless wars, as Trump did, but he also knows that an abrupt withdrawal of US forces is not a solution. Rather, a comprehensive post-war structure for Syria must be drafted, in which the Syrian Democratic Forces should play a crucial role. The main obstacle to such an encompassing agreement will be Turkey.

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq represents a historical precedent that should not be copied. Since 2016, Turkey has increasingly and repeatedly targeted civilians there, even though the region’s Kurdish administration formally cooperates with Turkey. The short-sighted approach that the United States took vis-à-vis the Iraqi Kurds – only granting them autonomy if they agree to act as a proxy force for Turkey – has enabled this.

Joe Biden as well as his secretaries of state and of defense, respectively Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, have much experience on the Kurdish question and, to some extent, strong pro-Kurdish records. They will likely push for a compromise between Kurdish actors and Turkey in the time to come.

Policy Implications
To achieve long-lasting stability concerning the Kurdish question, Biden’s administration should design policies that aim to prevent Turkish unilateralism and facilitate peace talks between Ankara and especially the PKK leadership, in cooper­ation with partners in the European Union. Furthermore, the political recognition of the Kurds in Syria is central to defending the gains made against ISIS.

Because the war was relatively brief, casualties relatively light, and the Nation sanctioned the war socially, veterans of Desert Shield/Storm and their families were not anticipated to suffer symptoms of trauma or re-entry stress beyond that expected in routine peacetime military deployments. However, the authors argue that the stress imposed on families by Desert Shield/Storm was not analogous to that of routine deployments. The call to duty was unexpected, disruptive, and “hazardous” (i.e., highly dangerous) which places it in the category of a “catastrophic” stressor as defined by McCubbin and Figley (1983). The deployment was a call to war, which creates unique stress beyond those experienced during peacetime deployments. The deployment also carried with it prolonged “anticipation of trauma.” For these reasons, the authors argue, the deployment to Desert Shield/Storm created a situation of “family trauma” for veterans and their families. Suggestions are offered for education, prevention and treatment for families undergoing unexpected wartime military deployments.

On March 2014, in an Islamic-State-sponsored prisoner swap, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, the al-Qaeda operative jailed in Syria in 2001, was freed in exchange for Syrian army officers held by the IS.

News articles that covered the prisoner exchange did not bother to explain why the IS would go to such trouble to gain his release. However, analysts familiar with the history of Islamist movements knew why...

Background Mortality estimates can measure and monitor the impacts of conflict on a population, guide humanitarian efforts, and help to better understand the public health impacts of conflict. Vital statistics registration and surveillance systems are rarely functional in conflict settings, posing a challenge of estimating mortality using retrospective population-based surveys. Results We present a two-stage cluster sampling method for application in population-based mortality surveys. The sampling method utilizes gridded population data and a geographic information system (GIS) to select clusters in the first sampling stage and Google Earth TM imagery and sampling grids to select households in the second sampling stage. The sampling method is implemented in a household mortality study in Iraq in 2011. Factors affecting feasibility and methodological quality are described. Conclusion Sampling is a challenge in retrospective population-based mortality studies and alternatives that im...

The Islamic Dawa Party was the first modern Islamist group to be formed in Iraq. It went through a long struggle with the Iraqi government that resulted in its banning by the Baathists, open warfare with Saddam Hussein’s regime, which forced it to go underground, and led many of its members to go into exile. Below is an interview with Dr. Rodger Shanahan, a former officer in the Australian army and senior adviser in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs. He is currently a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy who specializes in the Middle East. Dr. Shanahan goes through the history of the Dawa Party, and how that has shaped the worldview of Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

In 2009, eleven million top-secret documents from the former Iraqi Ba'th Party were opened to researchers, revealing new insights into how Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq. From these files, scholars came to understand that Saddam did not govern through terror alone, but also through rewards and enticements. Furthermore, the archives confirm that Iraqis were not entirely silenced by fear, but actively engaged with the regime and spoke up about their problems and needs. This chapter draws on a collection of 100 letters and petitions written by ordinary Iraqi citizens to Saddam that were found in the Iraqi Ba'th Party archives. I focus on petitions written from 1990-2003, a period of economic decline due to international sanctions. During these years, the political economy of resource distribution within Iraq came into stark relief, plainly revealing which groups were in the regime's good graces and which were left without sufficient resources. Analyzing these 100 letters and petitions helps answer the question of how ordinary Iraqis communicated with the regime: the rhetoric they used, the limits of their speech, and the effectiveness of their petitions. In times of need, how did Iraqis try to convince the regime to provide them with assistance? Next, analyzing the regime's responses to these petitions reveals how the regime leveraged these petitions to consolidate support within certain demographics. Which Iraqis were most likely to have their requests granted, and why? Finally, these patterns of regime favoritism revealed in these petitions contribute to ongoing debates about the role of sectarianism under Saddam's rule. Is it true that Saddam favored Sunnis, or were there more complex considerations at play? This chapter concludes with new arguments about how ordinary Iraqis and the regime alike tried to weather the challenges of the sanctions period and what the consequences of these survival strategies were for the post-Saddam era.

The Iraq War’s enduring conflict has proven resilient in its on-and-off relationship with the US and international forces occupying.  Streamlining a more sustainable counterinsurgency plan remains a critical link to securing stability designed to promote Iraqi nation-rebuilding efforts.  While the smart power approach to foreign policy has yet to realize its potential full effect, recruitment of younger generations into recurrent violence via Islamist co-optation persists with threat to bleed across the region.  Military, diplomatic and politically weighed strategies struggle to contain the violence by advancing innovative methods to counter and disengage while supporting Iraqi democracy, not altogether unlike US operations in Afghanistan.  COIN directive requires in-depth analysis of the socialization of teenage youth as they undertake transnational violence into adulthood.  Nation building through better concerted and inclusive effort of relief, intelligence, military and policymaking drive is the key to tapping the potential of next generation Iraqis as immediate and future leaders.  Youth at risk raised with a history of violence will otherwise require constant intervention.  Policy transition moving towards internal stability and an exit strategy has the resources to launch effective social programming for political infrastructure and business strategy to guide better negotiation in resource and conflict management.  Media’s role in promoting proactive social networks promises to be a game-changer for ground game where youth are enabled to access it.  International support and inter-alia networking then remain to be fully realized if Iraq and the US are to emerge from the war in two pieces.

About two million Iraqis have fled the country and more than two and a half turned into Internal Displaced Persons (IDPs) in what has been called “the world’s fastest growing displacement crisis”. Undoubtedly, it is the largest refugee movement since the Palestinian exodus in the Middle East. The magnitude was such that UNHCR declared the Iraqis originating from Central and Southern Iraq prima facie refugees .
The Iraqi refugee crisis is not a mere humanitarian issue, but also a political, security and strategic challenge. What was conceived of as a temporary displacement has become a permanent stay. Neither Iraq’s neighbours nor European countries can ignore the situation and implement a closed-door policy. Most of the Iraqi refugees are already in the host countries and a massive return to Iraq is neither feasible nor recommended by international organizations.
In this chapter, I will consider the three main and interrelated levels of impact: the regional impact – which took the brunt of the main and more disestablishing impact; the effect at European level – which disputes the ability of the EU to deal with the new crisis; and the national dimension – where reconstruction efforts are intimately linked with refugee repatriation and reintegration.

Recent outbursts of sectarian and ethnic violence in Iraq have made many observers question the viability of the state itself. It is said that due to the artificiality of the state and a lack of deep-seated political institutions, Iraqi politics is doomed to endlessly revert back to primordialism. Political parties are mere facades for the real intention of pursuing ethno-sectarian interests, the argument goes. But the present situation has largely been caused by Saddam Hussein’s infamous rule over the past three decades, combined with the plight of international sanctions. Before Saddam’s ascent to power in the late 1970s, however, the Iraqi political spectrum was full of political parties operating from ideological platforms. The largest, and arguably most important of these groups, was the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). The ICP stands out as the only true cross-sectarian party in Iraqi history, drawing support from all of Iraq’s diverse communities. From its inception in 1934, it continuously fought the various regimes in power and endeavoured to spread communist ideology throughout Iraq. At times the party achieved considerable success in this regard, although ultimately never able to seize power. Red Star over Iraq analyses the twists and turns of the ICP from its inception until its ultimate demise as a significant political force at the hands of Saddam in 1979.

Using information gathered from a century of excavation, combined with modern noninvasive techniques, a new picture emerges of how a settlement of a few reed huts evolved into the powerful city-state that helped set in motion the urban revolution.

Diyala can be said to be a microcosm of Iraq. It is the home to all three major ethnosectarian groups in the country. It has lush farmlands and mountain ranges. It also remains a battlefield between the security forces, militias and the insurgency today. In 2005 Richard Buchanan worked there as a defense contractor interrogating prisoners where he saw first hand the early stages of the civil war. Here is an interview with Buchanan about how the Iraqi insurgency was organized, what the militias did in response, and how the Americans were caught in the middle.

Cet article porte sur les anthropologues « embarqués » dans l’armée américaine en Afghanistan et en Irak, afin d’aider les militaires à mieux comprendre les cultures locales. Ces anthropologues embarqués ont engendré une vive polémique au sein de l’anthropologie américaine, polémique dont l’article analyse les termes et les enjeux en s’intéressant aussi bien aux arguments des partisans qu’à ceux des détracteurs. L’article replace en outre les débats autour de la mobilisation des anthropologues au service de l’armée et du renseignement dans l’histoire complexe des rapports de l’anthropologie avec les pouvoirs politiques.

This work is written by Matthew Gray.
Rentier state theory (RST), which seeks to explain the impacts of external payments—or rents—on state-society relations and governance, has been in wide usage for over two decades, and is still routinely cited by scholars writing on the Gulf or other parts of the world. Its tenets are widely—if by no means unanimously— accepted, and retain a strong validity at the broader level. However, RST has not adapted enough to explain the dramatic changes in the political economies of the Gulf in the past two decades or so, including the responses of Dubai, Bahrain, and more recently Qatar and Abu Dhabi, to globalization, new technologies, freer trade and investments, social changes, and development imperatives. It is argued here that a new phase of RST—“late rentierism”—should be applied to the wealthy Arab Gulf states. The case for late rentierism is made with an emphasis on the shortcomings or oversimplifications of other rentier approaches. This study also describes and explains late rentierism through a discussion and elucidation of its major features and characteristics, including how these vary, or not, from those of other rentier explanations.