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UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies

The United States and Iraq: Reflections and Projections

25th November 2006

Report

At this pivotal period for both Iraq and the United States the Clinton Institute for American Studies hosted a wide ranging conference to reflect on the past bi-lateral relationship, to analyse and debate the contemporary dilemmas and to forecast projections for the future of Iraq, US foreign policy and the Middle East more generally.

Broadly speaking the conference split into two dominant strands which addressed the historical and political dimensions of the relationship and the cultural impact that the wars in Iraq have had on American culture and society. Beyond the invited keynote speakers we were delighted with the broad response to the call for papers and the attendance of a number of academics from the States, Ireland and Europe, testimony to the strength of the research programme at the Clinton Institute for American Studies and the poignancy of the issues under consideration. The conference was honoured by the attendance of such leaders in the field of diplomatic history as Professors Marilyn Young, Douglas Little, Robert McMahon and Arnold Offner. Lara Marlowe of the Irish Times added perspective and direct experience of Iraq to the proceedings. Dr. Toby Dodge’s unique combination of academic expertise and extensive research and travel throughout Iraq and the region demonstrated the strengths of analysis produced through the combination of direct experience with academic and political engagement.

Professor Douglas Little of Clark University, Massachusetts delivered the keynote address echoing the theme of his highly influential book American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 as applied to current policy. Through the wide-ranging lecture Professor Little delineated certain attitudes and ideologies of policy makers and located them within the cultural formation of a mindset that precluded particular understandings and engagements with Iraq and the region.

The tone of the conference was of a pervasive pessimism on the design and implementation of US policy and presence in Iraq and on the future prospects for a viable solution to the situation. A principal point traversing through the discussions was that there would be and could be no good solutions under present circumstances. Dodge envisaged an ongoing fractured condition for the country with continued violence characterising the potential fragmentation into pockets of localised ‘warlordism’ accompanied by extreme violence. Dodge has written two books on Iraq, has testified to the US Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs and to the British House of Commons Committee on Foreign Affairs. He will shortly write the New York based Council of Foreign Relations response to the Baker Commission report on Iraq. For Dodge the solution required a multilateral and international force with the full co-operation of Iraq’s neighbours. He argued, against the current drift of Iraqification, stating that the solution isn’t Iraqi and could not be Iraqi. It had to be external. Lara Marlowe proposed a concerted European response with the caveat pessimism associated with such a unified proposition. Her harrowing account of conditions within the country was coupled with a question of accountability. Professor Marilyn Young, the author of several books on US foreign policy and diplomatic history, engaged the issue of counter-insurgency. The paucity of imagination exhibited on the part of policy makers was ultimately buttressed by an indifference to the fate of Iraqis and the viability of the political system. Conference delegates were divided on the effects of a US withdrawal from the country.

David Ryan
University College Cork

Toby Dodge & Marilyn Young

Kenneth Osgood & Klaus Larres

Douglas Little

Douglas Little, Marilyn Young, Toby Dodge, David Ryan and Lara Marlowe

Colin Coulter & Benita Heiskanen

Arnold Offner & Robert McMahon

Programme

9.30 - 10.15 Welcome and Opening Plenary

Toby Dodge (Queen Mary College, London)
'The Causes and Consequences of US Failure in Iraq?'

Chair: David Ryan

10.20 - 11.40 Panels 1 & 2

Panel 1

Chair: Robert McMahon

Kenneth Osgood (UCD & Florida Atlantic University)
'Regime Change Denied: The United States, Britain and the Iraqi Revolution of 1958'

Trevor McCrisken (University of Warwick, UK)
'Iraq and Vietnam: The Analogy Conundrum'

Jeffrey H. Bloodworth (Newman University, Kansas, USA)
'The Demise of Ronald Reagan's Conservative Coalition'

Panel 2

Chair: John Morrisey

Cathal M. Brugha (UCD)
'The United States' Dilemma: Political Isolation and Consequent Failure unless they Cooperate Internationally'

Philip H. Melling (Swansea University, UK)
'King Philip's Shadow: Vietnam, Iraq and the Indian Wars'

Jon Roper (Swansea University ,UK)
'The Imperial Presidency Redux: Presidential Power and the War in Iraq'

12.00 - 1.15 Plenary

Douglas Little (Clark University, MA)
'Orientalism, American-Style: The United States and Iraq'?

Chair: Klaus Larres

2.15 - 3.40 Panels 3 & 4

Panel 3

Chair: Klaus Larres

Robert McMahon (Ohio State University, USA)
'Phantom Threats? The Roots of U.S. Military Interventionism, from the Vietnam War to the Iraq War'

Arnold Offner (Lafayette College, USA)
'Presidents Harry S. Truman and George W. Bush and the Perils of Regime Change'

Panel 4

Chair: Phil Melling

Benita Heiskanen (UCD Clinton Institute)
'Sporting Diplomacy and Military Muscle: Operation Iraqi Freedom'

Alexandra Murphy (Trinity College Dublin)
'Cultural Reception and Representation in Images of US Forces at Abu Ghraib'

Mark Straw (University of Birmingham, UK)
'Coding and Containing Masculinity: Memory, the Media, Hollywood and the Iraq War'

4.00- 5.15 Panels 5 & 6

Panel 5

Chair: Trevor McCrisken

Dominika Svarc (London School of Economics, UK)
'The Legality of the Bush Doctrine: Preventive Strikes under International Law'

Colin Coulter (NUI Maynooth)
'From Boston to Baghdad? Discourses of US Interest and Irish Exceptionality in Irish Press Coverage of the Iraq War'

Kasra Kofarah (NCCI)
'US-led Coalition's Intervention in Iraq: A History of Failures, Humanitarian Consequences and Perspectives'

Panel 6

Chair: Ken Osgood

James Denselow (Kings College, London, UK)
'Securing the State: The US and Post-War Iraqi Border Security Dynamics'

John Morrisey (NUI Galway)
'The Iraq Mission Civilisatrice: Grand Strategy and the Exceptional Spaces of the Global War on Terror'

Richard Waghorne (UCD)
'Sovereignty and America's Crisis of Legitimacy'

5.30 - 7.00 Roundtable

Chair: David Ryan

Marilyn Young (New York University)

is the author of several books including The Vietnam Wars and co-editor of The New American Empire. She has written extensively on issues of rhetoric and empire, revolutionary struggle and has contributed to a wide range of journals and media outlets.

Lara Marlowe (The Irish Times)

is the correspondent for The Irish Times based in Paris. She has covered the Middle East and Iraq for a number of years and has travelled and reported extensively from the region.

Toby Dodge (Queen Mary College, London)

is a Reader in International Politics in the Politics Department, Queen Mary, University of London. He is also Senior Consulting Fellow for the Middle East at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London. He has published Inventing Iraq: the failure of nation building and a history denied; Iraq's future: the aftermath of regime change published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Iraq at the Crossroads: State and Society in the Shadow of Regime Change, amongst other publications. He has been called as an expert witness by US Congressional Committee on Foreign Relations and by the British House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Douglas Little (Clark University, MA)

is the author of the acclaimed American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 and Malevolent Neutrality on the United States, Britain and the Spanish Civil War. He is Professor, Associate Provost, Dean of the College of Clark University MA. He has written a number of important articles on US relations in the Middle East since 1945.