Abstract
This chapter examines the factors that molded and mutated the social and political expectations and attitude of the war generation in Iraq during the period 1980–91. While international and regional factors as well as a multitude of domestic social, economic, and cultural factors have been constantly at work, these will be conceived in the framework of nation building. The major, but not exclusive theme in this examination is the role played by nationalism seen here as both an official creed and popular sentiment. The very logic of war requires the full-scale vitalization of nationalism as a space unifying divergent social groups and interests in one monolithic national community. This is all the more important since we are examining a multiethnic, multireligious, and multicultural society, in which Iraq has been a state in search of nationhood, rather than a nation in search of statehood. The Iran-Iraq War was initiated in September 1980 as a part of nation-building endeavors inasmuch as it aimed at enhancing regime security. War was sought as a means to further construct and enhance etatist nationalism, and this attempt, although challenged, was relatively successful during much of the Iran-Iraq War.
As we strive to achieve our main slogan, “Win the youth over, win the future,” we should also do our best to cut off these sources of strength and growth from our rivals.
—Saddam Hussein, February 15, 1976
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Notes
Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, “The Historiography of Modern Iraq,” in The American Historical Review, vol. 96, no. 5 (December 1991), pp. 1408–21.
The available literature on the Iran-Iraq War suggests various reasons for its causes. The official literature focuses on the Iranian threat to national security, whereas critical literature takes account of internal and regional dynamics. See for example: Hanns Maull and Otto Pick, eds., The Gulf War: Regional and International Dimensions (London: Pinter, 1989);
Edgar O’Balance, The Gulf War (London: Brassey’s, 1988);
Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 2, The Iran-Iraq War (London: Mansell, 1990);
Tareq Aziz, Iran-Iraq Conflict: Questions and Discussions, trans. Naji Al-Hadithi (London: Third World Centre, 1981);
Baath Party, The Central Report for the Ninth Regional Party Congress June 1982 (Baghdad: A1-Dar al-Arabiya, January 1983);
Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq (CARDRI), Saddam’s Iraq: Revolution or Reaction? (London: Zed, 1989).
Perhaps the best analysis of the problems of nation-building and regime security involved in the war effort can be found in Mohammad-Mahmoud Mohamedou, Iraq and the Second Gulf War: State Building and Regime Security (San Fransisco: Austin and Winfield, 1998).
On the size and steady growth of salaried and propertied middle classes in Iraq, see Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 1126. Batatu’s figures cover the period 1950–68. Further calculations of these classes in the eighties and nineties are provided in chapter 5 of my study of socioeconomic formations in
Iraq, State and Civil Society in Iraq 1980–1992 (Al-Dawla wa’l mujtama’ al-madani wa’l tatawur al-demograti fi-1 ‘Iraq) (Cairo: Ibn Khaldoun Centre, 1995), table 12, p. 233 and table 14, p. 234.
On the Iraqi—Syrian Baath conflict see Eberhard Kienle, Ba‘th Versus Ba‘th: The Conflict Between Syria and Iraq, 1968–1989 (London: Kegan Paul International, 1987; republished by I.B. Taurus, 1990), p. 135, and passim;
Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship (London: I.B.Tauris, 1990), pp. 200–05.
Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 64.
Faleh A. Jabar, The Shiite Movement in Iraq (London: Saqi Books, 2003).
On the nature of nationalism, there are two major contrary theoretical approaches: Benedict Anderson stresses the cultural homogeneity of nationalism, whereas Eric Hobsbawm stresses its political and cultural complexities. In both approaches, nationalism figures as a complex space in itself, where history, religion, language, and race overlap. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983)
E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Abbas Alnasrawi, The Economy of Iraq: Oil, Wars, Destruction of Development and Prospects, 1950–2010 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994), p. 92, and passim. On war economic losses, see also a paper by Alnasrawi, “Economic Sanctions: Theory, Effectiveness and Application to Iraq” (Vermont, USA, n.d.).
Ali Babakhan, “The Deportation of Shi‘is During the Iran-Iraq War: Causes and Consequences,” in Ayatollahs, Sufis and Ideologues: State, Religion and Social Movements in Iraq, ed. Faleh Abdul-Jabar (London: Saqi Books, 2002), pp. 183–210.
On the Anfal campaign see Kanan Makiya, Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), pp. 24, 152, and 177–99.
Majid Khadduri, Socialist Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics since 1968 (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Institute, 1978);
May Chartouni-Dubarry, “The Development of Internal Politics in Iraq from 1958 to the Present Day,” in Iraq: Power and Society, ed. Derek Hopwood et al. (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press for St Anthony’s College, Oxford, 1993), pp. 30–33.
Again estimates vary. Oxford Analytica, for example, gave similar figures, whereas Middle East Watch had different estimates. See e.g., Eric Goldstein and Andrew Whitley, Endless Torment: The 1991 Uprising in Iraq And Its Aftermath (New York: Middle East Watch, 1992).
See also Faleh Abdal-Jabbar, “Why the Uprisings Failed,” in Middle East Report (MERIP), no. 176 (May–June 1992), pp. 2–14.
There is general agreement that the uprising was triggered by the retreating soldiers in Basra, the most devastated city in the Gulf wars. Prominent high-ranking officers confirmed this was the case. This had already been supported by the world media coverage in March 1991. See for example, General Najib al-Salihi, Al-Zilzal: madha hadatha fi-1 ‘Iraq bad al-insihab min al-Kuwayt? Khafaya al-ayya, al-damiyah!! (The Earthquake: What Happened in the Aftermath of Withdrawal from Kuwait) (London: Al-Rafid, 1998).
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© 2004 Lawrence G. Potter and Gary G. Sick
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Jabar, F.A. (2004). The War Generation in Iraq: A Case of Failed Etatist Nationalism. In: Potter, L.G., Sick, G.G. (eds) Iran, Iraq, and the Legacies of War. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980427_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980427_6
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