Iraq In Fragments

When the United States led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, it expected to be able to establish a prosperous liberal democracy with an open economy that would serve as a key ally in the region. It sought to engage Iraqi society in ways that would defeat any challenge to that state building project and U.S. guidance of it. Eric Herring and Glen Rangwala argue that state building in Iraq has been crippled less by preexisting weaknesses in the Iraqi state, Iraqi sectarian divisions or U.S. policy mistakes than by the fact that the US has attempted-with only limited success-to control the parameters and outcome of that process. They explain that the very nature of U.S. state-building in Iraq has created incentives for unregulated local power struggles and patron-client relations. Corruption, smuggling, and violence have resulted. The main legacy of the US-led occupation, the authors contend, is that Iraq has become a fragmented state-that is, one in which actors dispute where overall political authority lies and in which there are no agreed procedures for resolving such disputes. As long as this is the case, the authority of the state will remain limited. Technocratic mechanisms such as training schemes for officials, political fixes such as elections, and the coercive tools of repression will not be able to overcome this situation. Placing the occupation within the context of regional, global, and U.S. politics, Herring and Rangwala demonstrate how the politics of co-option, coercion, and economic change have transformed the lives and allegiances of the Iraqi population. As uncertainty about the future of Iraq persists, this volume provides a much-needed analysis of the deeper forces that give meaning to the daily events in Iraq.

"After the war in Iraq ended in 2003, James Longley and a small team of film-makers spent two years filming in different parts of the country. In Iraq in Fragments we hear the voices of ordinary Iraqis: Sunnis, Shiaa and Kurds. We learn their opinions about the war, the occupation and their hopes for the future of their broken country. This is their story"--Back cover.

An up-to-date and indispensable guide for film history buffs of all kind, this book surveys more than 500 major films based on true stories and historical subject matter. When a film is described as "based on a true story" or "inspired by true events," exactly how "true" is it? Which "factual" elements of the story were distorted for dramatic purposes, and what was added or omitted? Inspired by True Events: An Illustrated Guide to More Than 500 History-Based Films, Second Edition concisely surveys a wide range of major films, docudramas, biopics, and documentaries based on real events, addressing subject areas including military history and war, political figures, sports, and art. This book provides an up-to-date and indispensable guide for all film history buffs, students and scholars of history, and fans of the cinema.

From February 2005 to March 2006, Navy trauma surgeon Zsolt Stockinger served on a forward operating base in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, where he treated more than a thousand casualties and performed hundreds of surgeries. Throughout his deployment, he recorded his thoughts and experiences in a journal that he occasionally sent to his wife as a way to stay connected. Stockinger's diary offers a unique account of daily military life in Iraq from a surgeon's perspective, from the intense action of rocket attacks and emergency procedures to the creative and often lighthearted ways of filling tedious stretches of down time. Illustrated with 47 photographs, this work provides a realistic portrait of life on base and a powerful perspective on the human carnage of war.

Viewing Iraq from the outside is made easier by compartmentalising its people (at least the Arabs among them) into Shi'as and Sunnis. But can such broad terms, inherently resistant to accurate quantification, description and definition, ever be a useful reflection of any society? If not, are we to discard the terms 'Shi'a' and 'Sunni' in seeking to understand Iraq? Or are we to deny their relevance and ignore them when considering Iraqi society? How are we to view the common Iraqi injunction that 'we are all brothers' or that 'we have no Shi'as and Sunnis' against the fact of sectarian civil war in 2006? Are they friends or enemies? Are they united or divided; indeed, are they Iraqis or are they Shi'as and Sunnis? Fanar Haddad provides the first comprehensive examination of sectarian relations and sectarian identities in Iraq. Rather than treating the subject by recourse to broad-based categorisation, his analysis recognises the inherent ambiguity of group identity. The salience of sectarian identity and views towards self and other are neither fixed nor constant; rather, they are part of a continuously fluctuating dynamic that sees the relevance of sectarian identity advancing and receding according to context and to wider socioeconomic and political conditions. What drives the salience of sectarian identity? How are sectarian identities negotiated in relation to Iraqi national identity and what role do sectarian identities play in the social and political lives of Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'as? These are some of the questions explored in this book with a particular focus on the two most significant turning points in modern Iraqi sectarian relations: the uprisings of March 1991 and the fall of the Ba'ath in 2003. Haddad explores how sectarian identities are negotiated and seeks finally to put to rest the alarmist and reductionist accounts that seek either to portray all things Iraqi in sectarian terms or to reduce sectarian identity to irrelevance.

Previously published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly, this volume seeks to analyze to what extent the controversial US policy of democratizing the Middle East with pre-emptive invasions was justified or effective. Post 9/11 the US developed a policy of War on Terror, taking the decision to democratize the Middle East with pre-emptive invasions in both Afghanistan and Iraq. As Barakat puts it "Iraq was deliberately de-constructed in order to be reconstructed in a new model." Looking not only at the evidence of democracy post-invasion, the author also considers the global, regional and internal politics leading up to the decision to invade. The effect is an insightful and vital volume that fulfils an urgent need and seeks to answer the questions most troubling the international community since the invasion of Iraq. Were the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan an exploitation of military supremacy to secure a favourable balance of power for the US? Is it possible to build a stable democracy after a pre-emptive invasion? What is the current outlook for a stable democracy in Iraq? Reconstructing Post-Saddam Iraq is vital reading for all those interested in international politics and the future in Iraq.