U.S.-Middle East Encounters
Please note: We will meet at The Tamiment Library, located on the 10th floor of Bobst Library, to have a conversation about archival research methods and explore materials on American encounters and interactions with the Middle East, from the 1940s-present day.
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Steve A. Yetiv, “The Iraq War of 2003: Why Did the United States Decide to Invade?” in D. Lesch (ed.) The United States and the Middle East, Fourth Ed. (Westview Press, 2007), 394-411.
Samer Shehata, “Losing Hearts and Minds: Understanding America’s Failure in Iraq” in Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (Winter/Spring 2005), 71-78.
Lila Abu-Lughod, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others,” American Anthropologist 104, 3 (September 2002), 783-790
Sinan Antoon and Zaid Al-Ali, “Who is to blame for Iraq’s problems?” in The Washington Post (July 21, 2014).
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Prompts for Reading Responses:
What motivated the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to Steve Yetiv? What evidence does Samer Shehata point to in his argument that “the war for hearts and minds” in Iraq had been lost? In your writing, try to illuminate the gap between official U.S. government motivations for military intervention and how normal Iraqis were negatively impacted by such intervention.
Or...
Lila Abu-Lughod critiques Laura Bush’s self-congratulatory speech about the rejoicing of Afghan women liberated by American troops, just as Samer Shehata problematizes Fouad Ajami’s testimony that Iraqis will greet U.S. troops in Iraq with “kites and boom boxes.” What arguments do these authors use to critique the notion of “saving” local populations through U.S. military intervention?
[for example, think about to what effect Abu-Lughod places the history of “saving brown women from brown men” into a longer colonial history]
Between 1991 and 2002, Saddam Hussein skillfully defied over sixteen United Nations resolutions(Yetiv, 342). Resolution 687, mandated the full disclosure of “all of Iraq’s ballistic missile stocks and production facilities, all nuclear facilities, chemical and biological weapons and facilities, and cooperation in their destruction”(Yetiv, 342). In 2002, President Bush demanded that Bagdad comply with the UN, and warned that the United States would act unilaterally, and was unwilling to “stand by and do nothing”(Yetiv, 343). In a post-9/11 world, containment was no longer a viable policy option. The Bush administration believed that Iraq had used the period between 1998 and 2001 to rebuild prohibited WMD programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions (Yetiv, 345). However, even if Saddam Hussein did not
ReplyDeleteyet have nuclear capabilities, Washington maintained that he had the intellectual infrastructure and intent to successfully produce them.
Steve Yetiv argues that President Bush invaded Iraq because he feared Saddam Hussein was developing WMD and that he had connections to transnational terrorist organizations (Yetiv, 346). Moreover, senior administration officials believed that the toppled autocratic regime could be replaced by a friendly representative democracy in Bagdad. American Neocons maintained that a democratization drive in the Middle East would result in regional stability, and as a result, sought to rebuild Iraq in the “western image”(Yetiv, 344). If terrorism emanated from repressive societies and failed states, spreading democracy in the Middle East was therefore a vital component to Bush’s War on Terror. Condoleezza Rice articulated the new strategy when she noted that “for sixty years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.”
Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched on March 19, 2003. Although Saddam Hussein was soundly defeated militarily, President Bush almost immediately lost the war for Iraqi hearts and minds. Samer Shehata believes this occurred because the United States and its Coalition Allies were unable to provide adequate security for ordinary Iraqis. The failure of the U.S. to prevent “car-jackings, kidnappings, armed robbery, rape, and other kinds of banditry"(Shehata, 73), exacerbated anti-American and Anti-Coalition sentiment. The unwillingness of Coalition Forces to stop widespread looting created a lawless environment that destabilized the country. Moreover, the anti-insurgency campaign produced an increase in civilian causalities which further antagonizing the ambivalent population. Although Iraqis welcomed the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime, “they simultaneously disdained the idea of foreign troops in their country”(Shehata, 72). The impact of raids, coupled with wrongful detention, and the disproportionate use of force, turned the liberators into occupiers.
President Bush brought democracy to the Iraqi people, but was unable to provide them with basic public services. For Iraqis, electricity is the metric for measuring America’s success. In Tikrit, Fullujah, and Baghdad, “cities favored under the previous regime, residents have less electricity and clean water than they did before the war”(Shehata, 71). How, Iraqis ask, can the U.S. put a man on the moon, and be unable to “turn the lights back on in Baghdad?”(Shehata, 71). The production of electricity is vital for water treatment and the sewage system maintenance program. Despite the work that has been done by USAID and its contractors, “Iraq’s water and sewage systems remain woefully inadequate”(Shehata, 75). While the U.S. were able to successfully topple a brutal dictator, there was no coherent post-war reconstruction strategy. The Iraqis perceived this to be a deliberate policy, and that the U.S. purposely intended to destroy the region. The world’s most powerful country was not serious about freedom, because if it was, it could have easily created a different environment in which
ReplyDeleteDemocracy would have thrived.
Alec Haley P1
ReplyDeleteMost of what we read in Lila Abu-Lughod’s piece, while pertaining to women, is extremely applicable across the board. She opens by noting that merely using the term “save” is inappropriate for situations such as those involving Afghani women. It implies a level of inferiority and helplessness and typically not recognizing historical context, an unfortunately, it seems to be most commonly used when referring to women in many war-torn Middle Eastern women. She brings across the powerful point that it is not only media that brings this perception into millions of American homes, but those as important as the President and First Lady, George and Laura Bush, making the same mistake. The US population, which is vastly uneducated about the historical and current situation in the Middle East is unable to correctly understand what is coming out of their televisions and newspapers. Therefore they equate the burqa with suppression and the Taliban with terrorism, whereas in reality, they are not as directly linked as one may think.
Hearing Laura Bush speak about these injustices, and “woman of cover” (Abu Lughod 783) almost as an excuse to carry out attacks, making the sweeping assumption that they’ll “rejoice” (785) as Americans liberate them. This also assumes that Afghan women want to be immodest and strip themselves of the veil the second they get the chance. As she says on 785, the burqa was not invented by the Taliban and was in fact around far before them.
Abu-Lughod asks that Americans give up on the burqa being the focus of their liberation wants and start to realize the real issues women can face under these rulers, including serious assault and rape. Although liberation is good, there needs to be respect for different paths towards social change that could improve the lives of Afghan women and the general population alike, not just those that Western powers would deem appropriate. The mission should be to contribute to making the country a better place, not bombing a path towards an unclear definition of victory. As one of her main points of thought, that leads us right into Samer Shehata’s piece, is that if we view that we are “saving” a population from something, we are also saving them “to” (833) something, and therefore it is not just how you end one way of life, but what the next step is as well.
Alec Haley P2
ReplyDeleteShehata takes a look at what has happened, as what some would describe as, “post saving.” In Iraq, after the US dismantled the Saddam Hussein regime, things were different, but not necessarily better. This new attempt at freedom and democracy also meant residents having “less electricity and clean water than they did before” (Shehata 71). There many have been good intentions and even “democracy programs” (71), but that is not enough to support a country’s overall success. Coalition troops do not understand local communities, neighborhoods, the Arabic language, or even Iraqi culture, so being the only real security force, and not having this understanding, there was a large uptick in looting, violence, and general chaos, that on its own was able to create more real damage than the war itself. It is because of the lack of understanding here that Iraqi’s went from having a very evenly split opinion of American troops in Iraq, to just one year later having 71% of the population see troops as “occupiers” rather than “liberators” (72). Merely because they did not want Saddam Hussein, did not mean they wanted this track that Western powers had put them on. This brings us back to Abu-Lughod’s point that without recognizing historical context and not respecting different path’s of social change, the previously mentioned looting takes place, as well as record unemployment rates up into the 60-80% range, although ironically only recognized as 30% by the White House (75). To sum up, I believe Shehata writing the “inability to provide security, basic services, and employment are the main reasons behind America’s failure in the war of diplomacy” (77) makes a clear and concise point as to what happens when you try to “save” a population from something, without understanding where you are saving it “to.”
Lynn Part#1
ReplyDeleteThe motivations of the U.S. invasion can be distinguished between the primary official reasons, and the conceptual drive of preemption (Yetiv, 2007). Firstly, a key aim provided by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq is the concern about Iraqi WMD programs. They had not only believed that Iraq was capable of buying and producing highly enriched uranium, but also that the possibility of a nuclear weapon was real and imminent (Yetiv, 2007, p.345). Even if the information were not entirely validated, Saddam’s behavior or U.S.’s perception of it gave rise to a strong sense of suspicion and fear that bolstered the credibility of incomplete or incorrect intelligence reports. Secondly, Iraq’s purported ties to terrorism were cited as an official rationale for war. A fixation on the threat of al-Qa’ida led the Bush administration to believe that eradicating Saddam was essential in countering terrorism, even if links between al-Qa’ida and Iraq were questionable (Yetiv, 2007, p.246-347). Thirdly, U.S. had the intention of toppling the autocratic regime and the broader aim of spreading democracy in the region, as evidenced from Bush’s framing of this war as a fight “to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world” (Yetiv, 2007, p.348).
Despite these official accounts, there remain an important unanswered question of U.S.’s decision for war: why was the threat from Iraq so severe that it required invasion specifically? This can be explained by the conceptual motivation of preemption instead of containment. In the aftermath of 911, the threshold for terrorism and threats was lowered, and as a result, the political climate moved away from containment towards prevention. In other words, U.S. foreign policy entered a period of aggressive precautionary measures characterized by force and active intervention (Yetiv, 2007, 348-349).
Lynn Part#2
ReplyDeleteThe result of this invasion on the lives of ordinary Iraqis however, greatly differed from the ideal aims of the official rhetoric. Firstly, the dismantling of the autocratic regime was supposedly to bring about an improvement in the quality of life of Iraqis. Instead, the massive upheaval and physical damage that accompanied war was not addressed, resulting in a quality of life worse than prior to the war (Shehata, 2005). Poor public services and a lack of security plagued the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Crimes including kidnapping, armed robbery, rape and looting were rampant, and U.S. troops did little to alleviate this situation. Local forces such the army and police who could have been of crucial help in this aspect were disbanded by the U.S., worsening the situation (Shehata, 2005, p.73). Additionally, the shortage of electricity meant that facilities rarely operated at full capacity. Access to clean water was also reduced as compared to prewar levels. (Shehata, 2005, p.74-75).
Secondly, U.S.’s continued and extended presence in Iraq proved counter-productive in anti-terrorism efforts. The massive unemployment that followed resulted in frustration and resentment, often directed at U.S. presence. These groups of jobless men went on to form an important source of potential recruits for insurgency (Shehata, 2005, p.73). In particular, ex-military and police men, trained in military and security operations, formed a significant portion of the unemployed, contributing to anti-U.S. responses and at times, militarized groups (Shehata, 2005, p. 75). Moreover, the nature of U.S. presence in Iraq led to a rise of anti-U.S. sentiments, which would later prove to be a recurring brand of future terrorist and extremist groups. House raids, because of its preemptive and military nature, have often been conducted on even law-abiding families, proving to be a blow to the dignity of women, children and men. Additionally, disproportionate militarized and violent encounters, including in civilian neighbourhoods, have led to an overall negative impression of U.S. presence (Shehata, 2005, p.76). Hence, an initially liberating force, the U.S. is now viewed as a foreign occupant to be rejected and resisted. This arguably sowed the seeds of many anti-American terrorist groups, the very trend that the U.S. had set out to eradicate.
In all, given the situation of poor public services and economic hardship coupled with unjust use of force, the U.S.’s rhetoric of intervention to liberate, save and improve has become thoroughly unconvincing, or in other words, “the war for hearts and minds” has been lost.
Response to prompt #2, part 1
ReplyDeleteThe arguments of Shehata and Abu-Lughod center around the assertion that a damaging concoction of arrogance and ignorance within both U.S. policy makers and the population at large is at the root of U.S. mistakes made during and pertaining to U.S. military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan that resulted in great alienation of local populations and breeding of much potentially problematic anti-U.S. sentiment in the region.
Shehata is clear from the beginning that the Bush administration lacked an appreciation for the importance of the well-being of ordinary Iraqis when he discusses how it fed to the American public an unrealistic image of Iraqi desires to garner support for the invasion, effectively painting them as helpless victims that needed saving and in the process betraying arrogance and lack of genuine interest in their well-being that foreshadowed much post-invasion neglact. According to Shehata, the provision of security—from car-jackings, rape, armed robbery etc.— in addition to employment opportunities to maintain the economy and public services like electricity and functioning sewage systems were among the U.S. responsibilities sorely neglected post-invasion. Beyond this negligence, which disrupted Iraqi lives and caused daily pains beyond obvious extreme inconvenience, the U.S. military presence, widely perceived as tyrannical, conveyed an attitude of extreme superiority and discrimination towards the population on behalf of the U.S. Aside from embittering traumas such as “Long, seemingly arbitrary detentions, with little or no justification” (Shehata, 2005, p. 76) and humiliating and frightening nighttime house raids whose effects rippled out beyond their immediate victims throughout entire towns, counterinsurgency operations, which come with any military presence lead to many civilian deaths. Indeed the retaliation following the horrific murder of four American security workers in Fallujah lead to an American retaliation widely seen as vastly excessive and oppressive for leaving over 700 Iraqis dead and 1200 wounded. Arguing that this resentment could translate into new recruits by terrorists targeting the U.S., Shehata calls for more money to provide necessary public services as well as an increase in the number of troops and international peacekeepers with lightened counterinsurgency operations.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteAbu-Lughod argues perpetuations of misconceptions borne out of arrogance and ignorance about the situation of Afghan women under the Taliban to bolster support for the U.S. invasion instead foster sentiments of cultural opposition and need to be replaced with nonjudgmental respect for differences of other cultures. Fostered religio-cultural explanations for the situation of Afghan women under Taliban rule, overall a demeaning and misconstrued portrayal of Afghan women as helpless victims needing saving by heroic Americans, were not only neglectful of causational political and historical factors including Western Imperialism that fostered many Islamic movements, but perpetuated false and derogatory notions that “worked to artificially divide the world into separate spheres” (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 784), truncating public pursuit of a more comprehensive explanation for the suffering women faced. She observes that one such notion, the depiction of the veil worn by Afghan women as but a sign of oppression is an oversimplified assumption because despite Taliban imposition of the burqa on women, they have long chosen to veil themselves, seeing it instead as a sign of dignity and morality. The relative absence of interest within the U.S. in the plight of women in other parts of the world facing issues that cannot be so easily spun as “Muslim men oppressing Muslim women” (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 787) as compared to this “Western obsession” (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 786) with veiled Afghan women in the American media betrays an administration that is exploitative of a selfish desire among Americans to feel superior to others. She argues the Bush administration was in reality uncommitted to supporting women, noting it has played down atrocities against women by U.S. allies such as the Northern alliance in Afghanistan, the superficiality of support for Afghan women among U.S. feminists, and how Western attitudes of superiority have historically fueled Islamic movements. Overall, she likens these attitudes to those of European imperialist feminists to demonstrate that these attitudes on the part of the West towards the Middle East are not new, but rather have played a significant role in causing the present situation, writing “’their’ cultures are just as much part of history and an interconnected world as ours are” (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 787).
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ReplyDeleteIn response to U.S. actions during the 2004 siege of Fallujah, “Iraq’s human rights minister and its interior minister resigned in protest of U.S. military conduct, calling it a clear violation of human rights” (Shehata 74). The siege of Fallujah was in response to the murder and mutilations of four security contract workers. It was a week long siege that killed 700 and wounded 1200, most being civilians. Atrocities such as this damaged communities and, as Shehata states, lost “the war for hearts and minds” of the Iraqi people (Shehata 77). This was the result and/or conclusion of the mindset the American people and military held going into the Iraq War that they would ultimately save the populace. While the Military forces succeeded in uprooting a truly authoritarian regime, they also disrupted all basic infrastructure in the country. Under the auspice of introducing a secular democracy to Iraq, Iraqi citizens suddenly found themselves without electricity for long stretches of time, as well as their sewage capabilities dropping from sufficient to “woefully inadequate”. As well, since the U.S. military was heavily involved in the region, they dissolved the Iraqi military and police force, removing any armed forces who had a basic understanding of the populace and land.
ReplyDeleteThe side effects of a failing infrastructure combined with the dissolution of the police and army produced crippling unemployment, particularly of young men with military training. This was a recipe for disaster, and as the U.S. forces tried to prevent rampant looting, robbery, rape, and other crimes typical of an occupied state, any semblance of the U.S.’s image as “liberators” evaporated. This was particularly potent when “every house raid on law-abiding families turns an entire street against Coalition forces; every wrongful detention creates a neighborhood opposed to the American presence; and every civilian casualty produces an extended family embittered against the United States.” Many of the actions of the U.S. and Coalition forces in Iraq were justified by the fallacy that the people, particularly the women, needed to be saved. Barbara Bush said in 2002 that, “Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes… The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women” (Abu-Lughod). In the minds of American occupiers, the cultural values of occupied peoples (e.g. Iraqis, Afghanis) were irrevocably shoved aside and replaced with American values, thus providing moral justification for the invasions.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIn response to prompt #1:
ReplyDeleteThe primary motivations for the 2003 American invasion of Iraq were the overhyped fear of Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction and his 'connections' with terrorists in the post-9/11 world. America generally viewed Saddam's regime with contempt for several human rights abuses, particularly after the events of the Gulf War. George W. Bush, in particular, loathed Hussein and had a 'vision' that Iraq, as well as the rest of the world, was better off without the Baathist regime (Yetiv, 348). But throughout the 90s, America still tried to negotiate regime change diplomatically. It all changed with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 (Yetic, 349). Shortly afterwards, the Bush administration immediately suspected Saddam of funding terrorist organizations (Yetiv, 350). But the ultimate factor to war came over accusations of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, as Saddam refused to let UN inspectors check for any WMDs (Yetiv, 342). Bush and Blair rallied behind this point and sought to remove Saddam Hussein from power so that Iraq can no longer pose a threat to 'stability' in the Middle East. But Bush also thought that bringing democracy to Iraq by force would bring much more benefits than consequences, but he couldn't be more wrong. 'The war for hearts and minds' was in vain because Iraqis did not want the war. While a fair percentage of Iraqis wanted Saddam overthrown, there was much less favor with having foreign troops occupy their territory (Shehata, 73). The Bush administration genuinely believed that removing Saddam from power would bring more prosperity to Iraq, but it just made life even worse to the citizens of Iraq (Shehata, 74). As a matter of fact, a CPA polling revealed that approximately 80% of Iraqis surveyed disapproved of American forces occupying Iraq, and a major factor of why was because American troops were often more concerned about their needs rather than the Iraqi people (Shehata, 76). After the fall of the Baathist regime, little was done to benefit the lives of the Iraqi people other than introduce elections, and that ultimately led to deep hostilities between Sunnis and Shiites, which were formerly suppressed by the Baathist regime. Worse still, without Saddam's repression against opposition, instability rapidly grew in Iraq with the rise of radical movements, particularly ISIL. And the implications of the American invasion are still felt in the Middle East, such as the bloody civil war launched against Syria's Bashar al-Assad and the lynching of Muammar Gaddafi, and the subsequent civil war in Libya.
Sarah Fung - Prompt 1 / Part 1
ReplyDeleteYetiv proposes the catalysts behind the 2003 Bush administration US invasion as fears regarding Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), alleged connections with terrorism as well as potential ideological, domestic and personal motivations. With suspicion regarding Iraq’s WMD possession and capability, and a series of confrontations through the UN Security Council, Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched against Iraq in 2003 after President Saddam Hussein refused the US led ultimatum to leave the country (Yetiv, 2007, pg. 344).
US concerns of Iraq’s possession and development of WDM as well as suspicion of Iraq and Hussein’s support of terrorist organisations, namely al-Qa’ida, arose in the tense aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In such a climate justification based on intelligence reports that were subsequently found faulty (Yetiv, 2007, pg. 350) had lowered the ‘American threshold for terrorism’ enough to trigger the US invasion in order to preempt rather than purely contain Iraq Ithrough economic, military and political pressures, which had previously been its policy (Yetiv, 2007, pg. 349).
Other catalysts include viewing the overthrow of Hussein’s regime as a potential starting point for further democratisation within the Middle East as well as the indirect undermining of what the US considered the source and drivers of transnational terrorism throughout the region (Yetiv, 2007, pg. 348). Yetiv also considers the motivations of oil security, religious sentiment, profiteering within the military - industrial complex and Bush’s personal agenda to demonstrate strong leadership in light of his father’s presidency as possible (Yetiv, 2007, pg. 353 - 355). However, he does not deem them as the primary motivation as they did not previously trigger such a response by the US (Yetiv, 2007, pg. 356).
Sarah Fung - Prompt 1 / Part 2
ReplyDeleteIn his piece, when Shehata refers to ‘the war for hearts and minds’, he refers to the battle for the approval and support of Iraqi civilians toward US troops that arrived following the 2003 invasion. He argues that this war has been lost, citing reasons for the loss and surveys from the area. The US’ inability to meet Iraqis’ expectations having overthrown the Hussein regime, particularly regarding basic needs including domestic security (i.e. a reliable police force), adequate access to electricity, clean water and sewage systems, and employment, laid the foundation for a poor impression of the foreign troops that occupied Iraq (Shehata, 2005, pg. 73 - 75). This poor perception was exacerbated by Iraqis’ experience of US’ presence: predominantly, their excessive use of force on local communities, the impact and anecdotes of which spread throughout the wider Iraqi community (Shehata, 2005, pg. 76). Shehata confirms this overall sentiment through data compiled from 2004 from Iraq with statistics such as the increase in number of those viewing the US as occupiers rather than liberators (up 43% in 2003 to 71% in 2004) (Shehata, 2005, pg. 72), 100% surveyed without electricity (Shehata, 2005, pg. 74) and 80% having an unfavourable opinion of American troops (Shehata, 2005, pg. 75). Iraqis’ response to the attack on Fallujah, both civilians and politicians included, also reinstates Shehata’s premise (Shehata, 2005, pg. 76 - 77).
It is clear how the motivations behind the US invasion, according to Yetiv, led to the actions of US troops after the overthrow of Hussein’s regime and subsequent Iraqi treatment and discontent. As the invasion was born of US - centric motivations, in an attempt to primarily decimate a perceived terrorist threat as well as democratise the Middle East in their image, the livelihoods and indeed impact of the invasion on Iraqi civilians was secondary to the US’ greater political and domestic goals. As Shehata states, ‘the logic of defeating an insurgency militarily runs counter to the logic of winning the war for the hearts and minds of the general population’ the former of which necessarily results in fighting, bloodshed and soldiers ‘understandably more interested in staying alive than in winning public favor’ (Shehata, 2005, pg. 76). The US’ primary motivations for invading Iraq, with the livelihoods of Iraqi civilians secondary, thus illuminate why ordinary Iraqis were negatively impacted by such intervention.
Criticisms of U.S. Military Intervention in the Middle East
ReplyDeleteA common justification for U.S. military intervention abroad is that local populations not only need the assistance but are appreciative. Especially in regard to the Middle East, we’ve learned in this course that the West often believes they are superior when it comes to existing as a state in the modern world. To this end, the West – and especially the United States – often feels the need to intervene and maintain an active on-the-ground presence during times of conflict in the Middle East. In this response, I will outline two arguments made by scholars to refute the notion of “saving” local populations in the Middle East through U.S. military intervention.
One argument is that while local populations would like the problems they face to go away – in many cases, an oppressive regime or dictator – they do not want a foreign military presence to take its place. In his piece about America’s failure in Iraq, Samer Shehata writes that American leaders “failed to recognize the possibility that Iraqis, while welcoming the end of Saddam's regime, simultaneously disdained the idea of foreign troops in their country” (Shehata 72). Shehata suggests that while Iraqi locals are likely somewhat thankful to the U.S. for ridding them of Saddam’s regime, the U.S. will “rapidly be relegated to the status of invaders should an unwelcome occupation continue for a prolonged time” (Shehata 72). Shehata concludes that it doesn’t matter if immediate political goals will be achieved by military intervention if the locals are not happy, because “in the long run, this campaign for the hearts and minds will affect how Iraqis, Arabs, and other Muslims perceive and act towards the United States” (Shehata 78).
Another argument is that oftentimes the local populations that the U.S. military intervention is attempting to “save” doesn’t want the saving – or at least that particular kind of saving – in the first place. In her article about women in Afghanistan during the War on Terrorism, Lila Abu-Lughod criticizes the U.S. rhetoric that Afghani women were oppressed and were “rejoicing at their liberation by the Americans” (Abu-Lughod 785). She writes that Americans thought the Afghani women needed to be free of their conservative clothing, which are in fact deeply rooted in their culture. She writes, “Could we not leave veils and vocations of saving others behind and instead train our sights on ways to make the world a more just place” (Abu-Lughod 789)? Her conclusion is that the U.S. must find a “liberation that is Islamic” (Abu-Lughod 788) instead of liberating other cultures according to its definition of liberation.
In conclusion, U.S. military intervention in the Middle East is not completely welcome by locals – the population the aid is supposed to “save”. This response does not address the extent to which U.S. motivation for military intervention in the Middle East is altruistic versus politically motivated. The reality is that it is likely a little bit of both. In my opinion, the U.S. should be more aware of military-local relations and also the attitude of locals before deploying military intervention in the future. If this is not done, it is likely that the U.S. will not be able to achieve either its humanitarian or political goals in the region.
Michelle Cao- In Response to Prompt One/ Part One
ReplyDeleteOperation Iraqi freedom, kickstarting the Iraq war in 2003, resulted in over 35,000 US lives lost or wounded and billions in funding (Yetiv 342). With this in mind, the motivations of the United States invading Iraq are controversial and multidimensional. Steve Yetiv outlines various reasons for the United States policies toward Iraq, but he focuses on the three key motivations that the United States offers during the war. First, he states, the United States was wary of the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In which threatened the national security and moved President Bush to sign off on the policy of “the US government to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime in order to eliminate its WMD, to end its threat to the region, to create democracy in Iraq, and to contain the threat of a WMD attack on the United States or its allies” (Yetiv 345). In 2002 intelligence stated that Iraq had gone against the UN resolution asserting the annihilation of Iraq’s nuclear program and imposed the idea that Iraq sought to rebuild, in secret, its nuclear program. Then, an attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11 catalyzed the popular support for policy changes in the middle east; from containment to preemption. In which leads to Yetiv’s second point, “after September 11, the Bush administration appeared to be concerned about, even obsessed with, the connection between WMD and terrorist organizations” (Yetiv 346). Iraq’s apparent ties with al-Qa’ida sparked widespread fear of state-sponsored terrorism. In which the terror attack in the US provided a basis for public support and a change in policy. Although this was the popular belief behind the explanation of war, there was no real evidence to support the accusations of the apparent ties. But nevertheless, the attack led to a change in policy that did affect the motivations of war. The last point the United states provides is the intention to take down Hussein’s autocratic regime to make room for democracy (Yetiv 347). Steve Yetiv cites many other possibilities behind the decision to go into war, many that are personal inflictions of the Bush Administration and economic motives. These arguments which eventually led to war are all similar in that it did not concern the lives of the lives of Iraqi citizens.
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ReplyDeleteMichelle Cao- In Response to Prompt One/ Part Two
ReplyDeleteSamer Shehata, a teacher of Middle East and Arab politics, argues that the United States reason to go into war for the benefit of the Iraqi citizens is invalid for majority have negative responses to US involvement. In which he lists a number of failures the United States has in the war of diplomacy. The main concern Shehata cites is the security of ordinary citizens. In which not only is the lives of the citizens is put at risk due to widespread attacks and banditry, but the failure of the United States to provide maintenance after the war which Shehata quotes Natsios, “the war damaged very little. The larger damage was from the looting, which is a serious problem, but the bigger problem was the lack of maintenance over the last 20 years” (Shehata 73). And increasingly urban fighting and resistance deepen Iraqi embitterment. The next point Shehata states is the quoted from an Army War College report, “Long-term gratitude is unlikely and suspicion of U.S. motives will increase as the occupation continues” (Shehata 72). He emphasizes this point by providing various polling numbers in which the support for the troops stationed in Iraq by Iraqi citizens drop dramatically over the decade. Military presences in Iraq led to many unjust house raids and humiliations which dramatically affected public opinion. Prolonged occupation also led to the failure to provide basic needs for the citizens. Such as electricity, which is the next concern from the citizens. In which post-war conditions of Iraq included the failure to generate enough power to light many parts of the country. Alongside this, sewage and clean water also raise issues in the lives of citizens. Shehata also provides the Iraqi reaction to Fallujah which further decreased sentiments toward American occupation; which the Iraqi government denounced as genocide. Overall, the US policies in the Iraq war inadvertently negatively affected the Iraqi citizens because of the antipathy and general disregard for Iraqis in American motives. Which both authors highlight in their argument of United States invasion of Iraq.