Abstract
Many scholars (and other critics) suggest that the ethnic and sectarian strife in Iraq is a direct result of the U.S. invasion.1 At the same time, there are some who blame the British for failing in the process of state building and nation building in Iraq in the early 1920s.2 Others claim it was the Ba’th regime (1968–2003) that shattered Iraq’s national identity.3 Some even go further to argue that “Iraq has long been a secular country, where a majority of citizens identify with their national identity, rather than their ethnic or religious identity.”4 They state that “Iraq does not naturally, historically, ethnically, religiously divide into three separate parts… Iraq has a national identity that cannot be dismissed.”5 Yet others believe that Iraq is not composed of just one people, instead asserting that it is a conceptual flaw to assume that Iraq’s three main communities, the Shi’is, the Sunnis, and the Kurds, share a common sense of being a nation.6
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
T. Dodge, Inventing Iraq; the Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied, Columbia University Press, New York, 2003.
J. Yaphe, “The Three-State Solution is a No-State Solution,” The New York Times, November 25, 2003; Id., “Iraqi Identity After the Fall of Saddam,” Middle East Institute, 2004, http://www.mideasti.org/publications/publications_ranscripts.php, viewed August 11, 2005.
Y. Nakash, The Shfis of Iraq, 2nd edn., Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2003, p. 60.
See articles 62, 63, and 64 of the Treaty of Sèvres; W. A. Terrill, Nationalism, Sectarianism, and the Future of the U.S. Presence in Post-Saddam Iraq, July 2003, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), Carlisle, 2003, p. 3.
R. S. Simon, “The Imposition of Nationalism on a Non-Nation State; The Case of Iraq During the Interwar Period, 1921–1941,” in I. Gershoni & J. Jankowski (eds), Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East, Columbia University Press, New York, 1997, pp. 87–104.
R. S. Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars: the Militarist Origins of Tyranny, updated edn., Columbia University Press, New York, 2004, pp. 104–105.
M. Walker, “The Making of Modern Iraq,” Wilson Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 2, Spring 2003, pp. 29–40.
A. Chalabi, “Iraq: The Past as Prologue?” Foreign Policy, no. 83, Summer 1991, pp. 20–30; Marr, op. cit., p. 58.
H. Batatu, al-’Iraq: al-Shu’iyyun wa l-Ba’thiyun wa-l-Dubat al-Ahrar (Iraq: the Communists, the Ba’thists and the Free Officers), 2nd edn, trans. A al-Razaz, Mu’asasat al-Abhath al-Arabiyya, Beirut, 1999, p. 57 & 133; Natali, op. cit., p. 85.
S. N. Jawad, al-’Iraq wa al-mas’ala al-Kurdiyya (Iraq and the Kurdish Question), Dar al-Lam, London, 1990, p. 82. The translation is by Natali, op. cit., p. 106.
Jawad, op. cit., p. 56; D. Natali, “Manufacturing Identity and Managing Kurds in Iraq,” in B. O.’Leary, I. S. Lustick & T. Callaghy (eds), Right-sizing the State; The Politics of Moving Borders, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 269.
A. Baram, “Saddam Husayn: Between his Power Base and the International Community,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, vol. 4, no. 4, December 2000, p. 10.
O. Bengio, “Nation Building in Multiethnic Societies: The Case of Iraq,” in O. Bengio & G. Ben-Dor (eds.), Minorities and the State in the Arab World, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, 1999, p. 151
A. Wimmer, “Democracy and Ethno-Religious Conflict in Iraq,” Survival, vol. 45, no. 4, Winter 2003–2004, p. 119
M. M. Gunter “The Kurds in Iraq; Why Kurdish Statehood is Unlikely,” Middle East Policy, vol. XI, no. 1, Spring 2004, p. 107. 66. Marr, op. cit., p. 144. 67. Ibid, p. 172–173
A. Baram, Building Towards Crisis: Saddam Husayn’s Strategy for Survival, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington D.C., 1998, pp. 37–52; Baram, Saddam Husayn: Between… pp. 9–21.
N. al-Salihi, al-Zilzal: Madha hadathafi al-’Iraq ba’da al-insihab min al-Kuwait (Earthquake: What Happened in Iraq after the Withdrawal from Kuwait), Khak Publishing, Suleimaniya, Kurdistan, 2000, p. 321; P Sullivan, “Who are the Shi’a?,” http://hnn.us/articles/l455.html, viewed on December 26, 2006.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2010 Amatzia Baram, Achim Rohde, and Ronen Zeidel
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kirmanj, S. (2010). The Clash of Identities in Iraq. In: Baram, A., Rohde, A., Zeidel, R. (eds) Iraq Between Occupations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230115491_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230115491_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29061-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11549-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)