Modern Iraq Research Articles

Post-ISIS Era and the State Dissolution in the Middle East: Iraq as a Case

Since its establishment, the modern Iraqi state has witnessed instabilities, insurgencies, continuous cyclic violent conflicts among its heterogenic components. The emergence of IS group in Iraq was the latest and at the same time one of the darkest episodes in the series of modern Iraq's turbulent history. This bloody and horrible violent wave that embodied in the form of such terrorist organization, which committed all kinds of brutality against humanity, forced ordinary Iraqi people from all its heterogenic populations, together with experts to question the possibility of peaceful coexistence, stability, and continuance in living together within the border of an integrated Iraq. Unlike most experts that tend to deal with each of Iraq's violent waves separately and prescribe particular prescriptions for each of them, this paper argues that those continuous, persistent, and intractable conflicts were just symptoms, and the cause of modern Iraq's problems had proceeded from misperception and miscalculations of both exogenous state builders (Great Britain and the USA) during their efforts for state-building in Iraq in the 1920s and 2003 respectively. According to this paper, in the case of Iraq's state-building, non-ethnic solutions (assimilation, and integration), and even ideal ethnic solutions like federation have been experienced without any tangible progress regarding durable and long-standing stability in Iraq. By keeping the fact that primordial ethno-sectarian affiliations are beyond transformation in mind, the study endorses the 'soft partition plan' presented as the latest proposal for a new state-building process in Iraq which supported by some scholars, academics, and essential international political figures that have their fingerprint on the global level.

Cultural trauma and its impact on the Iraqi Assyrian experience of identity

ABSTRACT This article explores the impact of a century of cultural trauma and marginalisation on the shaping of modern Iraqi Assyrians’ identity and their present-day experiences, including their decisions and sense of belonging to their homeland. Using questionnaire and interview data, we explore how Assyrians who participated in this study respond to a century of persecution during and since WWI, and discuss their current situation in relation to their ethnic and cultural rights in Iraq. Based on data collected from Iraqi Assyrians who reside in various geographical places, we argue that these Assyrians still see themselves on the receiving end of ongoing marginalisation which has long precedents and has not only become part of their identity, but continues to shape their present-day experiences and decisions about where to settle. Nevertheless, we found that historical events have reinforced Assyrians’ ethnic identity and their affiliation with their heritage and religion. The findings are discussed in relation to how cultural trauma shapes a group’s collective identity and experiences.

From British mandate to post Anglo‐American invasion: Reproduction of ethno‐sectarian divides and the breakdown of social cohesion in Mosul

AbstractThe invasion of Iraq in 2003 ushered in an era of great uncertainty and turbulence that left the country in an economically crippled, politically unstable, and socially desperate situation. While the built‐in ethno‐sectarian divides have been widely used as analytical categories to address the enduring violence in both Mosul and the rest of Iraq, little attention has been paid to the connection between the long‐term Anglo‐American invasion of Iraq and the ethno‐sectarian violence that currently characterizes Mosul. This study argues that while ethnic and sectarian loyalties have historically persisted in their social forms since the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the highly politicized and violent forms of ethno‐sectarian conflict are modern phenomena, produced and reproduced under the conditions of the decades‐long British and American interventions. The study retrospectively evaluates the current dynamics of ethno‐sectarian confrontations in Mosul through two stages in the long historiography of modern Iraq. The first section reveals how Britain’s mismanagement of colonial Iraq set the initial conditions for communal cleavages and instability in today’s Mosul. Later, the second section turns its attention toward the contemporary manifestation of ethno‐sectarian violence, particularly under the U.S.‐led occupation.

The efforts of Modern Iraqi scholars in Preserving Rare Manuscripts

The efforts of Modern Iraqi scholars in Preserving Rare Manuscripts

Formation of a Political Elite for Modern Iraq: American and Iranian Factors

Formation of a Political Elite for Modern Iraq: American and Iranian Factors

ADMINISTRATIVE CORRUPTION IN MODERN IRAQ

The problem of administrative corruption, as an integral part of corruption in general, has become especially urgent in modern Iraq. In recent decades, the level of corruption in all spheres of Iraqi society has increased significantly. The authors of the articles consider certain aspects and overall situation with administrative corruption in Iraq, investigate the causes of its occurrence and propose measures to combat this phenomenon.

Sectarian identity and national identity in the Middle East

AbstractThis article looks at modern sectarian (here referring to Sunni/Shi'a) identities and their interaction with nationalism in the Middle East. In doing so I make three interrelated claims: 1) the term ‘sectarianism’ is distortive and analytically counterproductive. A better understanding of modern sectarian identity requires us to jettison the term. 2) Once discarded, our focus can then shift to sectarian identity: how it is constructed, perceived, utilized and so forth. A holistic understanding of sectarian identity must recognize the multiple fields upon which it is constructed and contested. The model adopted here frames sectarian identity as simultaneously operating on four fields: doctrinal, subnational, transnational and, crucially for our purposes, the national dimension. 3) Thirdly, this article challenges the assumptions regarding national and sectarian identities in the modern Middle East. Contrary to conventional wisdom, modern sectarian identities are deeply embedded in the prism of the nation‐state and are inextricably linked to nationalism and national identity. The article will rely primarily on the example of modern Iraq but, as will be seen, the Iraqi example is significantly echoed in the cases of Bahrain, Syria and Lebanon.

In Search of the Iraqi Other: Iraqi Fiction in Diaspora and the Discursive Reenactment of Ethno-Religious Identities

In Iraqi fiction, the prerogative to narrate the experience of marginal identities, particularly ethno-religious ones, appeared only in the post-occupation era. Traditionally, secular Iraqi discourse struggled to openly address “sectarianism” due to the prevalent notion that sectarian identities are mutually exclusive and oppositional to national identity. It is distinctly in post-2003 Iraq—more precisely, since the sectarian violence of 2006–2007 began to cut across class, civil society, and urban identities—that works which consciously refuse to depict normative Iraqi identities with their mainstream formulations became noticeable. We witness this development first in the Western diaspora, where Iraqi novels exhibit a fascination with the ethno-religious culture of the Iraqi margins or subalterns and impart a message of pluralistic secularism. This paper investigates the origins of the taboo that proscribed articulations of ethno-religious subjectivities in 20th-century Iraqi fiction, and then culls examples of recent diasporic Iraqi novels in which these subjectivities are encoded and amplified in distinct ways. In the diasporic novel, I argue, modern Iraqi intellectuals attain the conceptual and political distance necessary for contending retrospectively with their formative socialization experiences in Iraq. Through a new medium of marginalization—the diasporic experience of the authors themselves—they are equipped with a newfound desire to unmask subcultures in Iraq and to write more effectively about marginal aspects of Iraqi identity inside and outside the country. These new diasporic writings showcase processes of ethnic and religious socialization in the Iraqi public sphere. The result is the deconstruction of mainstream Iraqi identity narratives and the instrumentalization of marginal identities in a nonviolent struggle against sectarian violence.

Novel subpopulations in date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) identified by population-wide organellar genome sequencing

BackgroundThe date palm is one of the oldest cultivated fruit trees. The tree can withstand high temperatures and low water and the fruit can be stored dry offering nutrition across the year. The first region of cultivation is believed to be near modern day Iraq, however, where and if the date palm was domesticated is still a topic of debate. Recent studies of chloroplast and genomic DNA revealed two major subpopulations of cultivars centered in both the Eastern range of date palm cultivation including Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and parts of South Asia, and the Western range, including North Africa.ResultsTo better understand the origins of date palm cultivation we sequenced and analyzed over 200 mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes from a geographically diverse set of date palms. Here we show that, based on mitochondrial and chloroplast genome-wide genotyping data, the most common cultivated date palms contain 4 haplotypes that appear associated with geographical region of cultivar origin.ConclusionsThese data suggest at least 3 and possibly 4 original maternal contributions to the current date palm population and doubles the original number. One new haplotype was found mainly in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt and the second in Iraq, Iran and Oman. We propose that earliest date palm cultivation occurred independently in at least 3 distinct locations. This discovery will further inform understanding of the history and origins of cultivated date palm.

The new Basrah Museum: dedicated to the archaeological and historical inheritance of Basrah and Iraq

Located in the Fertile Crescent and at the head of the Persian/Arabian Gulf, the city of Basra is steeped in history. Close to the heart of ancient Mesopotamia, the territory of modern Iraq was occupied variously by Achaemenids and Seleucids, Parthians, Romans and Sassanids, before the arrival of Islam in the early middle ages. In more recent history, the city's strategic position near the Gulf coast has made Basra a site of contestation and conflict. This exposure to so many different cultures and civilisations has contributed to the rich identity of Basra, a wealth of history that demands a cultural museum able to present all of the historical periods together in one place. The original Basra Museum was looted and destroyed in 1991, during the first Gulf War. The destruction and loss of so much of Iraq's history and material culture prompted official collaboration to build a new museum that would represent the city of Basrah and showcase its significance in the history of Iraq. The culmination of an eight-year collaborative project between the Iraq Ministry of Culture, the State Board of Antiquities and the Friends of Basrah Museum, the new museum was opened initially in September 2016. Already established as a cultural landmark in the city, with up to 200 visitors a day and rising, the museum was officially opened on 20 March 2019. The author was fortunate to be present for this event and able to explore the new galleries (Figure 1).

"Iraqi diplomacy towards the Arab world before 2018" "Analytical study"

Talk about the Iraqi diplomacy towards the Arab world after 2003, I mean talk about the pivotal and important stage in the history of modern Iraq, as this stage, represented an important turning point in Iraq's history of diplomacy towards the Arab yolk, this stage has been associated with an important event \ in the history of the Arab nation, namely the occupation of Iraq and change its political system.
 And characterized the Iraqi diplomacy during the period that followed in 2003, a large led to a lot of the obvious failures in completing the required level of the new Iraqi diplomatic tasks, because of problems that were dictated quotas base broad form, especially in the political sphere, one of the conditions weakened external political action, as well as about conflict in the constitutional powers between the central government and local governments, and the Iraqi diplomatic suffered during the last term of conflicting political visions that represent different views of the Iraqi political forces to participate in power over many of the key variables that Iraqi foreign political control and determine the quality of international relations.
 However, the Iraqi diplomacy was not without achievements during the last term and they seem to be enhanced during the next phase, especially in light of the emergence of new political forces that new political movement based on the conviction is pushing for change, and therefore it is expected that the Iraqi diplomatic based in the coming period on a set of the basic principles that will support its foreign policy, and perhaps the most prominent of those principles

Yusuf Al-Ani’s dramatic journeys and his theatrical cane

Providing an account of al-Ani’s artistic development as both actor and playwright through his contemporaneous experience in the Iraqi theatre, Mehdi explores the role of folklore and theatrical realism in the manner developed by Bertolt Brecht, alongside progressive social and political concepts that all influenced al-Ani’s works. The harmonization of experimentation between the native expression evident in al-Ani’s writing and his directing, that is, the combination of originality and the folkloric aspect that captures the essence of the experience of the Iraqi individual provided the potential for Iraqi theatrical expression moving forward. The connection to al-Ani’s commitment to see such conceptual commitments be expressed through an Iraqi idiom provided the theatre with intellectual respect amongst Iraqi intellectuals, while his efforts to professionalize and develop Iraqi theatre troupes and production capacities led to a growing regional and global reputation. This development provided great opportunity not only for al-Ani but also for the Iraqi arts broadly and the theatre in particular. By developing deep roots within Iraq’s emerging public culture al-Ani supported Iraqi theatre-makers who followed to be afforded considerable opportunity. The debt that modern Iraqi theatre owes to al-Ani through his enormous talent and prodigious efforts to elevate the art form to the highest levels connects the artist to his society.

Yusuf Al-Ani: Working without rules

Yusuf al-Ani’s creative development is examined within the context of his collaborators and intellectual influences. Special emphasis is placed on al-Ani’s origins and motivations for the posture of his acting, writing and direction in the formative period of the Iraqi theatre. The article then turns to al-Ani’s influence on the modern Iraqi theatre. His collaboration with an array of other directors and performers is analysed for their impacts on such developments, especially in the absence of theatrical training amongst Iraqis now working in the professional domain. Al-Ani’s al-Masrah al-Hadith (The Modern Theatre) troupe is also analysed for these relationships in light of how many Iraqi directors and writers emerged from it over subsequent years. Al-Ani’s deployment of ‘The Little Man’ and Iraqi folk-tales are weighed for their innovative ability to allow his work to speak to all social classes. His considered iterative development of his style led to a sophisticated portrayal onstage and screen. This saw al-Ani’s works take that which was familiar in many Iraqis’ lives to the stage, encouraging new perspectives that audience members would necessarily then apply to their lived realities outside the performance venue.

Intertextuality in Arabic Criticism: Saadi Yousef’s Mobile Model as an Example

This article traces the development of the notion of intertextuality among modern Arab critics back to its roots in the Western critical theory. It also studies the hypothesis, which supports the presence of a special mythological intertextuality in the poetry of Saadi Yousef, the modern Iraqi poet. His mythological intertextuality is manifested in the composition, and content of his poetry. In the process of employing the device of intertextuality, Saadi invests ancient Iraqi myths. This article, in which we will discuss the famous Babylonian myth known as Gilgamesh Epic, will refer to Saadi’s use of this device as “the intertextuality of the mobile model.” Compared with conventional types of intertextuality, this type combines between the past text, that is the myth, and the present text, i. e. the poem through three axes. First, the investment of a past myth to serve present purposes; second, the employment of a past myth to read the present and the third axis entails the use of the present for the sake of influencing the present text. The purpose is to illustrate the benefits of the past myths and the mechanisms employed by Saadi Yousef and to examine the goals that have motivated the poet to choose one of the most ancient texts written at all.

Meaning Surplus in Contemporary Iraqi Sculpture

The present research is concerned with studying the appearance and essence of meaning in contemporary sculpture by addressing the problematic how to flow of meaning its multiplicity and the flow of its surplus, resulting from the transformations of the artistic form and the variety of its methods which results to a new and different strategies in circulation and aesthetic reception to achieve this task, we have relied on models of modern Iraq sculpture, which fit in its form and raw materials with the concept of phenomenon studied. Therefore, the research topic were divided into four axes:- the first axe included an introduction about the subject. The introduction included the problems of research and its importance, aim represented by highlighting on the subject of surplus meaning and mechanisms to achieve in contemporary Iraqi sculpture. The second axis only included the theoretical framework, which specialized to review the concept of meaning and methods of its formation and the most important intellectual references affecting the artistic process. The third axis included the applied procedures of how to determine the community and sample, methodology and tools used in the analysis of samples. the fourth and final axis to show the results reached by the study, which was the most important is the excess of meaning is related to the imaginary embodiment of the structure and of the form, this is what happens when the sculptural work leaves the realistic simulation to be based on new methods such as abstraction, reduction, partial and total in the appearance of the sculptural output

أثر الإرهاب على الأمن الوطني العراقي

The Iraqi society is currently facing a series of challenges and rapid developments in all areas of life. This is what most Arab countries face just like other world countries. The phenomena of terrorism, extremism and intellectual deviation are among these challenges based on giving up the principles of tolerance and moderation in the Islamic community which are the most serious phenomena facing the international community. Since terrorism affects Iraqi national security, it is necessary to devote efforts to research and study in order to develop appropriate solutions to address such problem. Thus, the research is intended to highlight the phenomenon of terrorism and its effects on the Iraqi national security indicating the most important challenges facing Iraqi national security. It is based on how to employ the available resources of the state along with the regional and international efforts to eliminate terrorism and build a unified State capable of achieving security and stability in the country. The study dealt with the study of terrorism in terms of not only its meaning, but also its impact on the Arab region in general, and on Iraqi society, in particular where it is the world's most affected country, which caused instability in the post-US occupation of Iraq (2003). As it constituted a major turning point in the history of modern Iraq, due to the political, economic, social and cultural changes that led to the events of 2014. In addition to the battles between the brave Iraqi army and the terrorist organizations of ISIS in Mosul and Anbar, the largest cities of Iraq. The efforts of the heroic Iraqi army and the support of the popular mobilization, clans as well as the regional and international efforts have succeeded in defeating these terrorist organizations, achieving victories and liberating the lands from the grip of ISIS in (2017). Iraq also managed to protect its land and its people from division or fragmentation plans that targeted its components by maintaining national unity and achieving security and stability. The study also examined the most important post-urgent challenges facing the Iraqi national security in the present situation whether internally or externally. It is also addressing the ways of confronting them with the available resources of the state and in cooperation with the regional and international efforts in this regard in order to build a unified state capable of achieving security for its people.

Iraqi political movement in the League of Nations From the years (1921-1932)

The study is concerned with the study of an important period of time in the history of modern Iraq, the period of the establishment of modern Iraq and independence through the end of the British Mandate and acceptance of joining the League of Nations, an international organization, which includes the membership of independent free countries, which took on the establishment of security and world peace through the adoption of the principle Prohibition of the use of force and the adoption of the principle of resolving international disputes by peaceful means, the research aims to achieve a set of important goals, namely:
 1 - Highlight the efforts of the Iraqi government to join the League of Nations and clarify the reasons for this accession and the difficulties that accompanied the desire of the Hummah in this area.
 2- Clarification of the role of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the accession of Iraq to the League of Nations during the period of occupation and mandate on Iraq.
 3- Clarifying the position of the League of Nations and its member states on the issue of Iraq's membership and how to deal with its desire to enter it from the beginning of the negotiations until the decision to accept membership.
 4 - Highlight the efforts of the most important Iraqi and foreign political figures, who had a role in the establishment of modern Iraq and joining the League of Nations.
 Department of research into two basic topics, the first topic: the emergence of the modern Iraqi state. The second topic: Iraq, Britain and the League of Nations from the negotiations to join.

Lineages of the Islamic State: An International Historical Sociology of State (De‐)Formation in Iraq

AbstractExisting accounts of the Islamic State (IS) tend to rely on orientalist and technicist assumptions and hence insufficiently sensitive to the historical, sociological, and international conditions of the possibility of IS. The present article provides an alternative account through a conjunctural analysis that is anchored in an international historical sociology of modern Iraq informed by Leon Trotsky's idea of ‘uneven and combined development’. It foregrounds the concatenation of Iraq's contradictory (post‐)colonial nation‐state formation with the neoliberal conjuncture of 1990‐2014. It shows that the former process involved the tension‐prone fusion of governing institutions of the modern state and the intermittent but steady reproduction, valorization, and politicization of supra‐national (religious‐sectarian) and sub‐national (ethno‐tribal) collective identities, which subverted the emergence of an Iraqi nation. The international sanctions regime of the 1990s transformed sectarian and tribal difference into communitarian tension by fatally undermining the integrative efficacy of the Ba’ath party's authoritarian welfare‐state. Concurrently, the neo‐liberal demolition of the post‐colonial authoritarian welfare states in the region gave rise to the Arab Spring revolutions. The Arab Spring however elicited a successful authoritarian counter‐revolution that eliminated secular‐nationalist forms of oppositional politics. This illiberal neoliberalisation of the region's political economy valorised the religionisation of the domestic effects of the 2003 US‐led destruction of the Iraqi state and its reconstruction on a majoritarian basis favouring the Shi’as and hence transforming sectarian tension into sectarian conflict culminating in IS. Thus, IS is, the paper demonstrates, the result of neither an internal cultural pathology nor sheerly external forces. Rather, it is the novel product of an utterly historical congealment of the intrinsically interactive and multilinear dynamics of socio‐political change.

Introduction to Contemporary Art and the Deconstruction of Heritage. Preservation By Other Means: Contemporary Art and Contested Heritage

Introduction to Contemporary Art and the Deconstruction of HeritagePreservation By Other Means: Contemporary Art and Contested Heritage Chad Elias (bio) and Mary K. Coffey (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. In this article from the Islamic State's digital newsletter Dabiq, the group explains their destruction of ancient artifacts in Nineveh Governate as a means of "erasing the legacy of a ruined nation." Their reference is both to ancient Assyria and modern Iraq. Dabiq, no. 8, March 30, 2015. In recent years, museums and heritage sites in the Middle East have been attacked by Islamist groups, both as symbols of failed nation-states and as expressions of an idolatrous present. There is evidence to suggest that the iconoclastic actions carried out by the Taliban and Da'esh, the so-called Islamic State (IS), are motivated less by a theological adherence to aniconic monotheism than by a desire to violate the fetish-value that artifacts and monuments acquire within the modern "cult" of heritage.1 As Dario Gamboni has noted, "The concept of world heritage suffers from the fact that it amplifies an idea originating in the West and tends to require an attitude toward material culture that is also distinctly Western in origin."2 Indeed, the selective classification of certain sites as worthy of special protection has had the paradoxical effect of turning them into targets.3 This approach to preservation, which is intertwined with global imbalances in power, offers at least one source of motivation for recent acts of "image purification" by the IS. The group's ability to skillfully exploit the possibilities offered by the viral proliferation of digital media certainly complicates the claim that it is operating within a cultural and epistemological frame of reference that is essentially premodern in its attitude to images. Attuned both to the attention economies of click bait and the aesthetics of the video blog, the highly stylized images of iconoclasm produced and circulated by the IS implicate global audiences and institutions in the spectacle of destruction even as they seek to inspire outrage. Viewers are thus caught between the impulse to view these scenes of obliteration (knowing that their political efficacy relies on their digital circulation) and the no-less satisfactory option of ignoring their existence.4 Organizations like UNESCO and the International Council of Museums have consistently framed the attacks on Near Eastern archaeological artifacts as "a blow against the universal heritage of humanity."5 The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) describes its ongoing efforts to reconstruct recently destroyed artifacts in no less expansive terms: "By using digital techniques to map and preserve monuments and other aspects of shared human history, we are able to ensure that nobody [End Page iii] can deny history or dictate that their narrative or ideology stands above the shared story of all humanity and our shared aspiration to live together in harmony."6 Yet the obligatory references to a common patrimony that transcends national boundaries and cultural differences fails to address the fraught historical interconnections between archaeology, museology, colonialism, and state formation, not just in the Arab world but also in any geopolitical context contending with the legacies of colonial and postcolonial dispossession.7 What in fact underlies the celebration of digital archaeology as salvific is the persistence of a largely unquestioned narrative: that preservation bureaucracies always act for the common good. Here again it is instructive to look at how the IDA frames its mission: Digital archaeology represents the natural evolution of classical archaeology, permitting researchers to look at ancient objects in entirely new ways—to uncover hidden inscriptions, invisible paint lines, the faintest palimpsests—and to share these discoveries with the world. Beyond that, digital technologies can put these crucially important repositories of our cultural identity and shared history forever beyond the reach of those who would destroy them.8 The fanfare that surrounds high-profile replicas such as the twenty-foot marble facsimile of Palmyra's Arch of Triumph, unveiled in London's Trafalgar Square in 2016, positions emergent forms of digital reproduction as an effective substitute for material destruction. Produced with the aid of laser scanners and state-of-the-art 3D printers, these marble...

The Formation of Modern Iraq: Society, Culture and Domestic and Foreign Influence

The Formation of Modern Iraq: Society, Culture and Domestic and Foreign Influence