Review: Iraq

IRAQ Preventing a New Generation of Conflict Markus E. Bouillon, David M. Malone, and Ben Rows well Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007. 349PP, US$24.50 paper (ISBN 9781588265043)It is often said that journalists write first draft of history. But in case, journalism - and its off- s hoot, Hogging - have provided first, second, and third drafts of history. If Vietnam was first TV war and Kosovo first virtual war, then Iraq is first blogger's war. Hundreds of blogs provide minute-by-minute coverage while a new generation of soldiers - band of bloggers, perhaps - are both fighting and writing about their experiences.Plenty of books have, of course, been written about post-2003 ^racl· They are as abundant today as they were scarce before war. In summer of 2000, 1 was rummaging through London's normally well-stocked bookstores for books on Iraq. But I kept coming across same three tomes. Today it is hard to get past books on Iraq and Middle East.However, while there are many books on Iraq, most of what is filling bookshelves is of questionable quality and falls into three broad categories: tell-all, I -was- there memoir complete with a photo of author looking contemplatively out of a helicopter's door; partisan diatribe, which is rarely if ever based on any first-hand research; and finally, earnest attempts to understand complex post-2003 trajectory and provide solutions. Iraq: Preventing a New Generation of Conflict wants to be in last category.The collection of articles grew out of a conference organized by Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Peace Academy in early 2006. The editors - all diplomats-turned-analysts - have gathered an impressive group of contributors, including Toby Dodge, one of Britain's three pre-2003 Iraq experts, and his US counterpart, Phoebe Marr. The volume also features Joost H il ter man, International Crisis Group's Middle East guru; Jon Alterman, one of Washington's go-to guys; and James Dobbins, one best US diplomats and now with RAND, also home of fellow contributor Nora Bensahel. The roster is a who's who of North America's Middle East experts.Does collection succeed in its task? Partially. The articles burrow beneath newspaper headlines, provide rich empirical information, and challenge commonly held views that continue to be pervasive despite slim evidence on which they stand.The book is divided in two parts. Part one deals with Iraq, nature of Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish movements, country's political elites, and role of religion, sectarianism, and nationalism in Iraqi society. Part two centres on more general themes, such as federalism, US diplomacy, and how to protect civilians in war. Itis not always clear why an article ended up in one part of book rather than another. For example, chapter Iraq's Arab neighbours would probably sit more comfortably in first section. One or two chapters could have been written for any number of volumes about postconflict reconstruction.In first article, Dodge does his best to locate conflict in breakdown of state. Criminality and violence - symptoms of state weakness^ - have driven rise in sectarian politics in post-2003 polity, not other way around. Faced with state collapse and profound insecurity, he writes, the population...in Iraq has been placed at mercy of those groups that could quickly build coercive power (31).Marr picks up on increasing salience of sectarianism and, on back of hundreds of interviews with Iraqi leaders, adds another dynamic between insiders, those who stayed under Saddam Hussein's reign, and outsiders, who now are in control. Abdel Salam Sidahmed, however, suggests that sectarianism must also be seen as a natural extension of Hussein's al-hamla al imamyyah, or faith drive, as well as sectarian criteria that US used to choose interim leaders. …

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