This book addresses Iraqi-American relations since the end of the Cold War, focusing on Iraq as a central topic rather than the policies of successive American administrations. It deeply and meticulously explores the consequences of U.S. foreign policy on Iraqis and others in the Middle East. The book presents a calm discussion, yet it burns with anger over the price Iraqis have had to pay over the years to align with American views on what the Middle East should look like. By concentrating on these two aspects of the unequal relationship between the U.S. and Iraq, the authors accurately depict the impact of American policies on Iraq and its people.
The book offers a scathing critique of U.S. foreign and military policy in the Middle East since the Gulf War (1990-1991), exposing the falseness of American narratives regarding support for democracy and the promotion of human rights, highlighting the regional instability left in Washington’s wake. Additionally, it documents testimonies from international organizations regarding the impact of U.S. foreign policy on Iraq, revealing part of the mosaic of misery and destruction inflicted on Iraq by American policies and wars, though it sometimes lacks the context needed to understand why this occurred. Most of the political comments are characterized by a lack of an organizing context and ignore the recurring pattern of Iraqi grievances, regardless of the political party controlling the White House. This book adopts a broader perspective to uncover the persistent pattern linking specific events.
Authors of the Book Three researchers specializing in U.S. political affairs in the Middle East co-authored this book. The first author, Jacqueline Ismael (1942-2023), who passed away before its publication, was a professor of social work at the University of Calgary in Canada and editor-in-chief of the “International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies.” She published extensively in social policy and international social welfare and co-authored several works with her husband, Tareq Ismael, who is of Iraqi origin. Among their works are “The Iraqi Predicament” (2004), “Government and Politics in the Contemporary Middle East” (2016, 2023), and “Iraq in the Twenty-First Century” (2017). She also co-edited “Barriers to Reconciliation: Case Studies on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” (2006) with William Haddad.
The second author, Tareq Ismael, is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary and editor-in-chief of the journal “Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World.” He has authored and co-authored many works on Iraq and the Middle East, including “Iraq: The Human Cost of History” (2003), “Cultural Cleansing: Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned, and Academics Murdered” (2010), and “Contemporary Middle East Relations” (2014).
The third author, Leslie MacDonald, worked as an expert at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, advising on research design and editing numerous books by Tareq and Jacqueline Ismael. He is also a co-editor of the journal “Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World.” The book features a preface by Professor Richard Falk, a professor of international law and international relations at Princeton and the University of California, and a former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Palestine.
Chapters of the Book The first chapter, “Pax Americana and the Fragmentation of Arab States,” presents various issues, including: the ills of American peace, the Gulf War (1991) as the beginning of a new era, the shift in American policy from “dual containment” to “regime change,” the occupation of Iraq and the new system, and Pax Americana in the Middle East since 1990.
The second chapter, “Iraq is Burning,” covers numerous topics such as: the end of “state sponsors of terrorism,” “New Iraq” from the perspective of neoconservative ideology, forms of state termination in Iraq from theory to application, death squads as a tool of foreign policy, the centrality of oil in American politics, state destruction and chaos in Palestine through the Israeli model, cultural cleansing through engineered chaos, planned chaos in Iraq and Syria, and the social consequences of state termination in Iraq.
The third chapter, “Kurdistan and the Iraqi State,” discusses the failure to secure a democratic state post-Baath, corruption and human rights violations, the promotion of sectarian Islamic factions, exile opposition, lost opportunities to build a federal Iraq, and the historical failure of the Kurds to establish their state.
The fourth chapter, “Two Faces of Pax Americana,” starts by reviewing the factors leading to the rise of American peace, then discusses what it calls the “Empire of Lies and Chaos,” concluding with the decline of Pax Americana.
The fifth and final chapter begins by observing the manifestations of sectarianism and political stagnation in Iraq, then touches on Pax Americana through NATO’s expansion wars, the fog surrounding the future of the American empire, and the challenge presented by the “BRICS” group and the “Axis of Resistance” to American policy.
Most discussions surrounding the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq revolved around the ideas of crimes and mistakes and the characterization of specific events. Although there is no shortage of crimes and errors, and the latter characterization has been used as a pretext to avoid condemnation, the wars in Iraq that began in 1990 can be better understood as part of an imperial project of “Pax Americana” aimed at securing the Middle East against any potential regional challenge to American power. Establishing “Pax Americana” involved violence and deception, both overt and covert methods, direct and indirect force, sometimes willingly and at other times through manipulation. The complexity of this web of causes and effects inevitably leads to self-deception over time, imposing high costs on the imperial project and threatening its survival and continuity.
Shock and Awe In his introduction to the book, Professor Richard Falk reminds readers of the U.S. government’s failure to use diplomacy to end the Ukraine war, continuing its project to achieve a geopolitical victory over Russia at the expense of both the Ukrainian and Russian peoples. He also recalls the ongoing active collusion of the U.S. with the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.
This book serves as a grim reminder of the precedent set by America’s war on Iraq, as the U.S. adopted a criminal path in its lengthy invasion and occupation of Iraq, beginning with the unjustified aggressive “Shock and Awe” war, leading to the “nation-building” project that ultimately produced ISIS in the region. It is a monumental geopolitical failure spanning more than a decade of occupation, depicted beautifully with significant insight and knowledge. While the book succeeds in presenting the intricate story of America’s role in Iraq, one simple cognitive question keeps arising: why does America refuse to learn from its tragic past failures?
An Imperial Vision It is noted that references to America’s war on Iraq (2003) in the West often come from leftist or anti-war political entities. These parties are keen to remind that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was predictable based on the precedent of the American-British invasion of Iraq and the subsequent controversial occupation. Meanwhile, mainstream Western narratives seek to erase this American experience from collective memory. Those who cite Iraq as a relevant precedent for Ukraine offer a justified critique of the imperial nature of American foreign policy, which disregards international law and UN charters, tailoring them only to rally international opposition against Russia while mustering global support for sanctions, arms shipments, massive donations, and economic aid for Kyiv.
Adopting such an abstract, Eurocentric, and historian-free imperial vision—regardless of its utility—comes at a steep price: Iraq loses its essential reality as a state inhabited by people who have borne the burdens of tyranny, war, foreign intervention, and prolonged occupation. The United States’ refusal to practice what it preaches when dealing with the Global South, particularly in Middle Eastern countries, which was clearly validated by its complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, remains an important precedent in the political discourse regarding Ukraine; yet it is far removed from the full narrative of Iraq’s plight and its sorrowful modern history spanning eight decades. From this perspective, the book critiques the destructive American role in Iraq over 20 years of poorly planned aggression, but it does much more than that: it provides a comprehensive and detailed dissection of the grievances endured by the Iraqi people since the invasion of their country in 2003.
Putting the war in its historical context and refusing to erase its horrific impact on the realities of the population and their political consciousness and on civil life in Iraq is what makes this work a powerful indictment of American foreign policy. The understanding offered through this analysis is deeper than superficial evaluations based on a simple model of “invasion and occupation.” This work valuable combines political and economic concerns with serious attention to the social, moral, religious, and even artistic and philosophical dimensions of Iraq’s exceptional cultural heritage. This heritage was shattered because of the American invasion in the context of fragmenting the political and cultural unity of the Iraqi people.
Fragmentation of Arab States and Its Human Consequences In the context of addressing Pax Americana and the fragmentation of Arab states and their humanitarian consequences, the book assesses three decades of American domination over Arab states in the Gulf and Middle East regions. Since its direct military intervention in the Kuwait War in 1990, the United States has increasingly engaged in engineering the region towards adopting a neoliberal economic and financial model while supporting authoritarian regimes in practice while raising the banners of freedom, democracy, and human rights in propaganda.
Although the public diplomatic justification for the U.S. intervention in Iraq in 1990 and 1991 was primarily based on the notion of a defensive war to protect the territorial integrity of Kuwait and establish national sovereignty standards, the years that followed that intervention saw an expansion of American military activity in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, alongside a proliferation of military bases throughout the Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman).
By engaging in regional policies during the Cold War, the U.S. strengthened its presence between 1990 and 2019 to become a leader in regional policy through a network of relations with regional countries. However, the humanitarian impacts of this policy on the peoples of the region during the aforementioned period have been largely negative; these peoples have faced a noticeable decline across most indicators, such as economic well-being, security, safety, and health. The state apparatuses established after the withdrawal of European imperialism are in a state of ruin, whether in Iraq, Libya, Syria, or Yemen. With these countries failing to protect their citizens, the peoples of the region face a perilous future, especially with the growing roles and influences of various non-state actors.
The Real Beginning The authors draw on their accumulated experiences and extensive knowledge of Iraqi affairs to provide a critical view of American policy in the Middle East. This profound book sheds light on the disasters that have befallen Iraq due to bewildering behavior and the maladaptive use of American hard and soft power over decades. The book contextualizes American geopolitical tactics and strategies to explain a range of contemporary issues of concern worldwide.
The authors have succeeded in clarifying the connection between American aspirations for global and regional hegemony and the series of tragic events that led to the disintegration and destruction of Iraq, extending across its borders to cause similar forms of destruction elsewhere in the region. The narrative the book presents about this interconnection shows that the American agenda in Iraq surpasses simply being an aggression followed by an occupation for the purpose of “liberating it from despotism” and “building a democratic state” and unleashing a “developmental dynamic.”
The authors argue that studying the contemporary tragedy in Iraq should not begin as most assessments do with the wars of 1991 and 2003 and their resulting chaos and harsh sanctions but rather look at the spiral of events that began in 1963. The real starting point, often ignored or obscured, is the coup facilitated by the CIA in 1963, which overthrew the regime of Abd al-Karim Qasim and brought the Ba’ath Party to power, ultimately leading to Saddam Hussein’s presidency.
The CIA The personal history of one of the authors, Tareq Ismael, living in exile since that coup and the scars left by those events over six decades, culminating in the massacre of intellectuals and the arrest of at least 5,000 Iraqi political activists, lends particular importance to this narrative, bringing back into focus events that are scarcely remembered by specialists, let alone the public.
The Ba’ath coup in Iraq in 1963 reminds us of the 1953 coup in Iran that overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh’s government with help, encouragement, and covert maneuvering by the CIA. The Iranian coup preceded the Iraqi coup by about 10 years, restoring the Shah to the Peacock Throne and with it foreign ownership of Iranian oil industry, benefiting major American energy companies. The true nature of those events in both oil-producing countries was hidden behind a transparent fig leaf of justifications prevalent during the Cold War.
During that period, the United States claimed it sought to save the region’s countries from communist domination and weaken the influence of the Marxist Socialist Soviet Union, which aimed to undermine Western strategic interests in the Middle East and establish Stalinist-style states. Official propaganda broadcast by ideologically compliant Western media downplayed the strategic motive behind such policies, which revolved around maintaining the region’s energy reserves under secure Western control, tasking American oil industries with ensuring this. In the context of those policies, the rights of sovereign states to determine their destinies were ignored, and the peoples of the region experienced various forms of suffering, portrayed as results of nationalist revolts rather than as maneuvers of the CIA. In the years following these events, the CIA’s active role became widely confirmed.
Moreover, the book draws attention to the fundamental differences between American interventions aimed at regime change from 1959 to 1990 and those that occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The earlier interventions aimed to disrupt self-determination policies covertly, carried out secretly, and were entrusted to the CIA and cooperating local elites in the targeted countries.
The only explicit exception during the Cold War occurred in two wars in divided countries, Korea and Vietnam. The international fault lines were breached through a “corrective” behavior adopted by competing nationalistic forces seeking to reunite the two divided nations. In other locations, the United States attempted to disrupt opposition by acting from outside the stage, relying on obedient local cooperative elements to shape states according to the American vision.
Justifying U.S. Intervention After the Cold War, the dynamics of intervention in the Middle East became overtly military, linked to arms sales and predatory globalization. The United States sought to legitimize these overt interventions in the United Nations and attempted to justify them using international humanitarian law or the necessity of anti-insurgency and confronting alleged terrorist threats. Among the justifications raised in 2003 for violating Iraq’s borders and sovereignty were claims of possessing non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction and a secret program to develop nuclear weapons. The invasion of Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, was justified as Afghanistan had become a safe haven for international terrorism. In Libya, the intervention was undertaken under the urgent “humanitarian” pretext of rescuing civilians besieged by Qadhafi’s forces in Benghazi.
When the United States failed to secure international legitimacy for intervention, as in the case of the Iraq War (2003) and the Kosovo War (1999), it intervened publicly with its allies, feeling no need for the secrecy it had adopted during the Cold War. When the UN Security Council rejected Washington’s request for a mandate to use force in Iraq, George W. Bush declared that if the United Nations withheld approval for American war plans, it would find itself irrelevant. Unfortunately, Bush was somewhat right, as America’s wars and interventions found their way onto the international stage without real obstacles.
State Building! The book reviews the process of state rebuilding in Iraq by an occupying foreign power. The authors demonstrate through their detailed exposition of that process that the American policies implemented had the opposite effect of what they claimed was their goal, which was “building a state.” In reality, what transpired was that the American occupation destroyed Iraq, obliterating the prospects for establishing a united and stable state capable of ensuring security, protecting rights, and achieving development.
Methodical policies and practices led to the destruction of the governmental stability pillars that existed in Iraq prior to 2003. The occupation “purged” the armed forces and state bureaucracy of its “Sunni” professionals from the previous Ba’ath regime and turned a blind eye to the looting of museums and artifacts, contributing to the erosion of cultural identity and national awareness foundations. This approach facilitated the proliferation of a wide range of grievances, sub-identities, and bitter rivalries among religious factions and ethnic minorities. The authors clarify that “state building” in Iraq amounted to “the end of the state” and that the role of occupation was significant in fueling sectarian conflict, escalating extremism, rising poverty and crime rates, and rampant corruption and chaos.
For these reasons, the authors posit that the process of “state rebuilding” in Iraq should be viewed as a process of “state termination” or “state disintegration.” Their argument is that this outcome is not a failure of occupation policy but rather a deliberate engineered success. This maneuver reflects the “deep state” perspective in America concerning the Middle East, aligning with Israeli beliefs that the cornerstone of regional security—both Israeli and American—lies not in accumulating weapons but in keeping the region’s states weak, divided, and preoccupied with their contradictions, crises, and internal conflicts.
Geopolitical Hypocrisy In a chapter on the aspirations of the Kurdish minority, the book adds further details to explain the methods through which the occupation distorted the Iraqi state. It demonstrated that the U.S. and Israel worked to enhance Kurdish aspirations for independence in ways that undermined their sense of belonging to Iraq, threatening the unified national identity of the Iraqi people. This sense of belonging is vital for any project aiming to build a successful state.
The book addresses the geopolitical hypocrisy surrounding the American role in Iraq from a partisan perspective, historical ties tracing back to President John F. Kennedy’s promotion of the Ba’ath coup against Abd al-Karim Qasim’s regime in 1963, extending to the efforts of both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush to wage war against Iraq, a country that had previously been their ally. We must remember that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was persuaded in 1980 to attack Iran in a devastating war lasting eight years, partly prolonged by American weapons sales to both sides and U.S. political support for Saddam’s regime to prevent its defeat.
Moreover, a decade later, Saddam Hussein received ambiguous signals from U.S. Ambassador in Baghdad, April Glaspie, regarding the U.S. stance on an attack on Kuwait, only for Iraq to face international condemnations from U.S. President George H. W. Bush, Saddam’s Arab neighbors, the United Nations, and the Security Council, paving the way for the legitimization of the “Desert Storm” attack in 1991. After 12 years of comprehensive sanctions that destroyed the population’s livelihoods and threatened their well-being, the United States invaded Iraq under the banner of “Shock and Awe,” establishing a direct occupation for several years.
The authors of “Pax Americana: Unending War on Iraq” provide a complex and meticulous narrative that most commentators and experts on Iraqi affairs have not achieved, presenting harrowing evidence that the well-being of the Iraqi people has consistently been sacrificed as a silent collateral effect of this American pursuit of political and economic dominance in the post-colonial Middle East. The story of Iraq exemplifies the American imperial adventures of the 21st century across the globe. It is evident that the region has continuously faced imperial scheming for several years, prominently including:
- The geopolitical significance of oil as the highest strategic priority.
- Israel’s dominant status regionally as an unconditional American priority.
- The threats posed by Islamic radicalism and the expansion of Islamic influence in the region post-September 11, 2001.
These factors have constituted American security interests, at least until the Ukraine War.
Conclusion Jacqueline Ismael, who passed away earlier this year, and Tareq Ismael, her co-author and Iraqi-born husband, dedicated their academic lives to dismantling the American narrative surrounding Iraq. Together, they established an ambitious academic infrastructure that has made significant contributions to Iraqi studies. These contributions included founding a scientific journal, organizing international conferences, and publishing numerous books. Perhaps most importantly, they formed an international community of scholars committed to exploring various, albeit less renowned, but integrated aspects of the Iraqi experience over the last century.
These high-quality researches should not be confused with the one-dimensional production from Washington, D.C. think tanks that generally provide the U.S. government with lists of policy options that satisfy the Department of Defense and prevailing foreign policy platforms.
In contrast, the authors’ approach is considered objective and encourages others to adopt multidisciplinary patterns of inquiry and assessment. Moreover, this work valuably integrates political and economic concerns with serious attention to the social, moral, religious, and even artistic and philosophical dimensions of Iraq’s exceptional cultural heritage. This heritage was shattered due to Iraq’s troubled historical encounters with America in the context of fragmenting the political and cultural unity of the Iraqi people.
Book Information
Title: Pax Americana: Unending War on Iraq
Authors: Jacqueline Ismael, Tareq Ismael, Leslie MacDonald
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Publication Date: 2024
Language: English
Edition: First
Number of Pages: 232
