Violence has been a consistent feature of the historical narrative of Iraq. In fact, even the long-drawn political process towards independence itself was arguably a violent struggle (Simon, 2004; Yaphe, 2004). In 1914, before the Iraqi nation-state came into existence, Britain declared war against the Ottoman Empire to secure its national interests in the Persian Gulf and invaded Basra – a province that constitutes modern Iraq (Simon, 2004; Yaphe, 2004; Dodge, 2010). From May to October 1920, mass demonstrations against the British occupation of Iraq occurred throughout the British colony (Yaphe, 2004). Despite the demonstrations being sporadic in nature, they quickly gained momentum, caused instability and were often violent. The series of revolts in 1920 became known as the Great Iraqi Revolution. Whilst the Revolution ultimately failed in its objective of obtaining independence from British rule, Iraq became a League of Nations mandate under British control and a monarchy was established in 1921 (Simon, 2004; Yaphe, 2004; Dodge, 2010). As such, the Great Iraqi Revolution “played an important role in the creation of an Iraqi national mythology” (Yaphe, 2004, p. 31), and set the precedent for independence in 1932. Even after independence, Iraq continued to be plagued by violence, especially through coups – such as the 14 July Revolution in 1958, the 17 July Revolution in 1968 and the 1979 Ba’ath Party Purge – which incited much instability and vulnerability in the country (Tripp, 2007; Dawisha, 2013). Hence, as violence is a constant characteristic of the Iraqi narrative, there is the need to take a long-view to deeply understand this perennial trend in Iraq. As such, this essay will broadly explore historical narrative of Iraqi from the 20th century to evaluate whether we should be more surprised by the intensity of the violence that did occur or by the long periods where violence was absent.
Thesis
By understanding the historical, socio-political and economic developments of the Iraqi nation-state from the early 20th century, this essay argues that we should be more surprised by the long periods when violence was absent than the intensity of the violence that did occur. Indeed, I argue that the intensity of the violence that occurred in Iraq – specifically, the extraordinary, unprecedented levels of violence witnessed in the post-2003 Iraqi order – was by no means a surprise. In fact, early developments of the Iraqi nation-state will reveal that the intense violence that occurred in the post-2003 Iraqi order had already been anticipated. Due to the sectarian nature of Iraq, I argue that the intense violence was the product of the manifestation of entrenched sectarianism within the nation-state.
What would perhaps be surprising would be the long periods when violence was absent. Focusing mainly on the Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s regime, I assert that this was due to the totalitarian nature of the state that prevented extreme violence from materialising. Here, I will illuminate the paradox that the outbreak of violence in the state was ironically being averted through the control of the instruments of violence and the use of violence itself by the state.
However, this phenomenon fuelled sectarian sentiments and further divided Iraq along sectarian lines, which I argue only served to worsen the intensity of the violence that would later occur. Therefore, whilst we should be more surprised by the latter than the former, the reality is that the long periods when violence was absent was the precondition that shaped the intensity of the violence that did occur in Iraq.
Essay Structure
This essay begins by illuminating the historical narrative of Iraq from the early 20th century. By understanding the country’s early developments, it will become apparent that sectarianism is an entrenched phenomenon in Iraq. Therefore, I will show that the intensity of the violence was not a surprise at all because it was simply the outward manifestation of the inward divide along sectarian lines created and bred since the nascent stage of the nation-state. Here, it is noteworthy that the resulting violence from the ethno-sectarian politics in Iraq being highlighted throughout this essay will be concentrated on the conflict between the Sunnis and Shi’as. Admittedly, the Kurds and other ethnic groups have had a role for the instability and fragility of Iraq throughout the political conflict in Iraq (Tripp, 2007; Al-Qarawee, 2014). However, many scholarly narratives have argued that what mainly accounted for the violence (and its intensity) in Iraq was the competing sectarian identities between the Sunnis and the Shi’as (Tripp, 2007; Haddad, 2011; Dawisha, 2013; Al-Qarawee, 2014; Dodge, 2014). As Tripp (2007) argues, “It was clear… that [the secular identity in Iraq] was primarily an Arab identity which excluded the Kurdish, let alone the Turkmen, population from consideration” (p. 64). Focusing primarily on the divergent Sunni-Shi’a sectarian identities will thus be more useful in deeply understanding the violence that occurred in Iraq throughout the political conflict. Next, I will account for the absence of violence in Iraq, specifically during the Saddam regime. Despite earlier instances of authoritarianism in Iraqi history, “Saddam’s Iraq was a country that was held hostage to the will and whim of one omnipresent tyrant” (Dawisha, 2009, p. 241). The Saddam regime was “a new, Kafkaesque world… one ruled and held together by fear” (Makiya, 1998, p. xi). Fundamentally, the fear and tyranny under Saddam Hussein was “not incidental or episodic… [but] had become constitutive of the Iraqi body politic” (Makiya, 1998, p. xi). As such, the era of Iraq under Saddam Hussein provides a relevant and useful insight to the understanding of the question. Hence, this essay will focus mainly on the Saddam regime to account for the lack of violence and its importance as an incubator for the violence to come. Whilst it may be a surprise that there could been long spells without (much) violence despite the existence of ingrained sectarianism in Iraq, I subsequently explain that this was the result of the totalitarian rule under the Saddam regime which had the necessary institutional capacity and state apparatus required to avert the development of intense violence. The aversion of intense violence was achieved, paradoxically, through the state’s control of the means of violence and the use of violence itself. Then, I show that Saddam’s totalitarian rule actually further inflamed sectarian sentiments and worsened the already existing sectarian divisions, which inevitably intensified the sectarian violence that occurred. Finally, I unravel the cause-and-effect relationship between the two phenomena in the question by highlighting that the spells when violence was absent was the avenue that worsened the sectarian divide and resulted in the intensity of the violence that was witnessed.
The Early Years of Modern Iraq
Whilst the reasons that account for violence in Iraq are multifaceted and multitudinous, it is valuable to trace back to the early years of the conception of Iraq to better understand the trend of violence in the country. The historical narrative from the nascent stages of the Iraqi nation-stage will be useful in formulating a broad trend to account for the violence that continues to occur even today. Following the Great Iraqi Revolution where Iraq was established as a League of Nations mandate under Britain, the Sunni and Shi’a Arabs became the main stakeholders in Iraq (Haddad, 2011). Despite cooperation during the Revolution, the resolution to the Revolution meant that the Sunni and Shi’a Arabs no longer had converging interests to unite together, and engaged in a zero-sum game in the pursuit of its own self-interests in the new Iraq. Consequently, the policies that emerged seemed to privilege one ethnic group against the other (usually privileging the Sunnis), which inevitably created the sense of othering in modern Iraq. As Haddad (2011) argues, “the distribution of patronage and resources could and did impact on people’s views of themselves and the other” with political consciousness further fuelling the sense of entitlement that “served to complicate sectarian relations in the absence of an equitable distribution of state resources” (p. 14). For example, the 1935 People’s Pact that demanded for better Shi’a representation in the Sunni-dominated government highlights the existing divisions between Sunni and Shi’a Arabs from the early years (Cockburn, 2008 as cited in Haddad, 2011). Fundamentally aimed at rectifying the perceived disparities in Shi’a representation in governance, the People’s Pact explicitly criticised the Sunni-dominated government for adopting “a policy of sectarian division as a basis for governance… that does not accord with the people’s interests… with prejudice clearly visible and explicit [against the Shi’as]” (as cited in Haddad, 2011, p. 15). This highlights the sense of the other in Sunni-Shi’a relations that has long pre-existed, which entrenched an us-versus-them mentality between the Sunnis and the Shi’as. From these early developments, it is clear that sectarianism has been a deeply-rooted phenomenon in Iraq. Here, it is noteworthy that the Sunni-Shi’a divide has pre-existed even before the early 20th century. Indeed, the Sunni-Shi’a chasm highlights the ancient divide in Islam, rooted in a dispute “not over religious dogma or ideology but rather over the succession of Prophet Muhammad” (Osman, 2015, p. 60). This ancient division then became so deeply established in Sunni-Shi’a relations, whereby sectarianism has continued to divide the Sunnis and Shi’as even from the early 20th century. Indeed, Iraq has been, and continues to be, very much sectarian in nature. Having brought to the fore the phenomenon that accounts for the perennial trend of violence in Iraq, this essay will now further elucidate the concept of sectarianism to argue that the intensity of the violence was not a surprise at all.
Sectarianism and its Discontents
Analysing the etymological definition and usage of the term in Arabic, sectarianism can be traditionally understood as a “notion of clustering or coming together into groups within the overarching unity of a religious community” (Osman, 2015, p. 40). Additionally, Osman (2015) highlights that sectarianism has a “tension-ridden connotation” used to “explicitly convey the meaning of factionalism, internal conflict, and intra-communal disputation and disagreement” (p. 40). This connotation posits that “sects emerge as exclusive communities that derive their identity from distinctive dogmatic teachings and ritual practices that set them apart from other sects or denominations in their larger respective religious communities” (Osman, 2015, p. 41). Despite the phenomenon of sectarianism being shaped by negative connotations of religious tensions, suspicions and recriminations, it is of paramount importance to understand that its relevance and salience vary according to the context. As highlighted by Haddad (2011), “sectarian identity will differ from person to person and that sectarian sentiments are not static; rather they ebb and flow according to the salience of sectarian identity at any given time as dictated by wider circumstances” (p. 62). Indeed, nothing can be said about every Sunni or every Shi’a, since Sunnis and Shi’as do exist and even co-exist elsewhere (Haddad, 2011). Fundamentally, identity is an ambiguous concept and means differently for different people at different contexts (Haddad, 2011). Neither the meaning, the relevance, nor the content of sectarian identity is fixed. Notably, sectarian identity is inextricably interlinked to national identity in Iraq. However, it is “the multiplicity of Iraqi nationalisms rather than the absence of any that has made Iraqi national identity problematic” due to “the failure of the state to absorb and transcend these divisions that has complicated what should be secondary identities” (Haddad, 2011, p. 32). As Osman (2015) argues, the “policies designed to strengthen the state, as a homogenising commonwealth, versus a society that is deeply divided along sectarian and ethnic lines hardened particularistic sectarian and ethnic identities and, in turn, undermined the crystallisation of a solid national identity coterminous with the modern nation-state” (p. 24). In Iraq, sectarian sentiments were inflamed when state nationalism overlapped more with Sunni symbolism and identity. Because such inclusivity towards the Sunnis was at the expense of the Shi’as, points of contention between the Sunnis and Shi’as were (re)awakened, allowing sectarian identity to gain salience and take precedence in the understand of self and the other. Only when sectarian identity becomes the primary marker of self-identification (among all other markers) juxtaposed against the other then does sectarianism acquires the relevance and salience necessary for the manifestation of conflict and more severely, violence. By understanding the clear schism that divides the Sunnis and Shi’as based on differing sectarian identities, it then becomes apparent that the intensity of violence that occurred was no surprise at all. In the case of Iraq, sectarian identity became the main self-identifying marker that resulted in the manifestation of sectarianism in the form of the violence.
The example of the 2006 civil war that occurred in the post-2003 Iraqi order epitomises the argument that the intensity of violence that occurred was evidence of the deeply-entrenched sectarianism being manifested. From 2006 to 2008, Iraq experienced unprecedented levels of violence when sectarian identities were galvanised and manifested through the devastating civil war. In February 2006, following the bombing of the Shi’a’s al-Askari shrine, Shi’a militias attacked Sunni holy sites in revenge and sectarian violence ensued, which resulted in 3159 civilian deaths by July 2006 (Haddad, 2011; Al-Qarawee, 2014). From 2006 to 2008, tens of thousands of Iraqis were estimated to be killed and more than 4 million were displaced as a result of this catastrophic civil war (Dodge, 2010; Haddad, 2011; Al-Qarawee, 2014; Dodge, 2014). As summarised by Haddad (2011), “Whilst sectarian attacks were taking place from as early as 2003, the 22 February bombing of the Askari shrine in 2006 signalled the beginning of a new phase of intense sectarian violence that furthered the breakdown of sectarian relations” (p. 181).
Indeed, the intensity of the violence was no surprise at all and, in fact, was perhaps even anticipated. With the collapse of the state following the 2003 Iraq War, a power vacuum was created in the post-2003 Iraqi order which allowed multiple stakeholders to seek to establish their own form of identity and ownership of the now-defunct state (Haddad, 2011; Al-Qarawee, 2014). Amidst the uncertainty and instability, sectarian identities were continuously galvanised and ascribed political salience. This renegotiation of sectarian identity in unfamiliar political territory furthered the politicisation and radicalisation of sectarian identities, resulting in the noticeable shift towards aggressive sectarianism in the post-2003 Iraqi order. Therefore, relevance and salience was ascribed to sectarian identities, and evolved from a secondary to a primary marker of self-identification. This served to further aggravate sectarianism in the post-2003 Iraqi order, and intensified the violence that followed. The post-2003 Iraqi order saw the complete reversal of state-promotion of Sunni symbolism and state-suppression of Shi’ite Islam (Dodge, 2010; Haddad, 2011). Inevitably, divisions along sectarian lines festered due to fears of exclusion and loss of cultural possession of the Sunnis against the more developed and institutionalised Shi’a-inclined state nationalism in the post-2003 Iraqi order (Haddad, 2011). These sectarian divisions then manifested through the severe violence that was witnessed when the civil war broke out. Thus, having highlighted the extent of entrenchment of sectarianism in Iraq from even the early developments of Iraq, it is clear that the unprecedented levels of violence that did occur in the post-2003 Iraqi order was unsurprising. The intensity of the violence was simply evidence of the sectarian nature of Iraq that had long pre-existed (even from the early 20th century).
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq
Despite being constantly bedevilled with violence from the early 20th century, modern Iraq had also undergone long periods where violence was absent. Bearing in mind its sectarian nature, it would be surprising for such long periods without violence to even exist in Iraq in the first place. This means that one should be more surprised by the long periods when violence was absent than the intensity of the violence that did occur. As earlier mentioned, this essay will account for the absence of violence specifically under the Saddam regime.
Consider this anecdote highlighted by Makiya (1998): Before Iraq’s second invasion of Kuwait in 1994, Saddam enacted into the Iraqi Constitution the Law 109 which decreed that “the foreheads of those individuals who repeat the crime for which their hand was cut off will be branded with a mark in the shape of an X”, where these crimes were arguably minor crimes such as theft (as cited in p. ix). Under Saddam, such methods of punishments were gradually introduced in Iraq. Under the Saddam regime, international human rights organisations such as the Human Rights Watch have documented and investigated the abuses in Iraq extensively. This resulted in conclusions that the abuses witnessed under Saddam Hussein was “of an exceptionally grave character – so grave that it has few parallels in the years that have passed since the Second World War” (as cited in Makiya, 1998, p. xiii). Under the Saddam regime, such abuses became the norm due to Saddam Hussein’s rule through fear and terror (Makiya, 1998). These abuses illuminate the justification for the long periods where violence was absent – that is, the totalitarian nature of Saddam’s rule.
Termed by Makiya (1998) as the ‘absolutism of the Republic of Fear’ (p. xv), the totalitarian nature of governance of Iraq under the Saddam regime prevented the materialisation of violence and accounted for long periods without violence. Borrowing Foucault’s (1975) concept of panopticism, Saddam successfully created a self-regulating society under a state of constant surveillance. As summarised by Makiya (1998), Iraq under the Saddam regime lived “in a torturing state [under] the omniscience and omnipotence of the state’s repressive capability [which] lay in the fact that all opposition to it had been crushed” (p. xiv). To continue the use of the earlier mentioned anecdote, the result of the implementation of the law (along with many other of such similar laws) was a significant drop of violence in Iraq throughout Saddam’s rule (Makiya, 1998; Sassoon, 2011). Under Saddam’s totalitarian rule, Iraqis – especially the Shi’as – were thoroughly suppressed and became completely subservient to the regime. Here, it is noteworthy that the Shi’as perceived themselves as the oppressed majority during the Saddam regime (Haddad, 2011). The Shi’as considered themselves victims of what was seen as the result of sectarian discrimination, which allowed sectarian sentiments to further develop under Saddam’s rule. This is an important argument that will later be revisited in the essay to highlight the cyclical relationship of the absence of violence under Saddam and the intensity of violence that later occurred. Nevertheless, under Saddam’s totalitarianism, the Shi’as lacked the capacity and capability to adequately rebel against the Sunni-dominated government which epitomised Sunni symbols and interests (Haddad, 2011). Even in the instances when Iraqis – mostly the Shi’as – attempted to rebel, these rebellions were quickly crushed by the regime (Tripp, 2007; Haddad, 2011). This can be clearly highlighted in the swiftness of the regime in quelling the uprisings of 1991. Fuelled by the perception of the regime’s vulnerability and Saddam’s responsibility for the widespread, systemic socio-political and economic repression of the Iraqis, “largely spontaneous revolts against a hated regime [broke out in 1991] when it seemed that the power of that regime was broken” (Tripp, 2007, p. 246). However, Saddam‘s Republican Guard divisions “kept in reserve for just such a purpose… [swiftly] recaptured all the towns held by the rebels, inflicting massive loss of life and destruction in the Shi’ite cities of the south” (Tripp, 2007, p. 247). Notably, the example of the 1991 uprisings was merely one of the few rebellions that occurred under the Saddam regime. For the most part, the Shi’as – or any of the Iraqis, for the matter – were unwilling and unable to rebel against Saddam’s despotic, totalitarian rule because of fear (Tripp, 2007). As encapsulated by Makiya (1998), “The tone of political culture has become Kafkaeqsue: saturated with a sense of the impersonality of sinister and impenetrable forces, operating on helpless individuals, who nonetheless intuit that they are being buffeted about by a bizarre, almost transcendental kind of rationality” (p. 45). Hence, it is clear that the totalitarianism under Saddam accounted for the lack of violence in Iraq during the Saddam regime. It was due to the totalitarian nature of the state that accounted for the long periods when violence was absent.
The Paradox of Violence in Iraq
However, what accounted for the effectiveness of such totalitarian-style of rule under the Saddam regime? In other words, why was Iraq able to be “ruled and held together by fear” which “had become constitutive of the Iraqi body politic” (Makiya, 1998, p. xi)?
Herein lies the paradox: The prevention of the outbreak of violence, which accounted for the long periods where violence was absence under the Saddam regime, was ironically through the control and use of violence itself. In order to avert the eruption of violence that would threaten the stability and legitimacy of the regime, Saddam firmly controlled the instruments of violence and used violence against the dissidents (Makiya, 1998). The Saddam regime reigned insofar as it maintained monopoly over the means of violence. Ironically, through violence itself, Saddam created the Republic of Fear which effectively prevented the outbreak of violence in the regime (Makiya, 1998). For example, even the earlier mentioned anecdote highlights the point of the use of violence to suppress violence. Saddam made use of terror tactics and severe punishments to strike fear into the Iraqis. Fundamentally, there was a lack of violence during Saddam’s rule simply because of the fear of the consequences of any form of violence (Makiya, 1998). Hence, the long periods where violence was absent during the Saddam regime was simply because (non-state) violence was prevented through (state) violence. This highlights the strength of the institutions of violence that acted as a bulwark against any outbreak of violence during the Saddam regime. Violence was largely constricted as an instrument of the state, with Saddam as the central authority over the means of violence. As Makiya (1998) highlights, “one-fifth of the economically active Iraqi labour force were institutionally charged during peacetime with one form or another of violence” during the apex of Saddam’s rule in 1980 (p. 38). This means that Iraq was saddled under the tyranny of “the despot and his means of violence” (Makiya, 1998, p. 42) where “no one dares [to challenge] authority any longer [through means of violence] because everyone is afraid” (Makiya, 1998, p. 45). The consequences of any challenge to Saddam’s rule through violence is epitomised through the terrifying use of violence to crush the 1991 uprisings. Saddam and his Republican Guard divisions “had enjoyed an almost completely free hand to suppress the rebellions as they chose” and “exacted a terrible price on those whom they suspected of having joined the rebellion, leaving tens of thousands dead in their wake and seizing thousands more, many of whom were to perish in Iraqi prisons during the coming years” (Tripp, 2007, pp. 247-248). Under the totalitarian rule of Saddam, Iraq became “a wonderland of terror” and the “uprisings were drowned in blood” (Al-Jabbar, 1992, p. 13). Clearly, this illuminates the paradox of the use of violence by the state to prevent the outbreak of violence in the state. The nature of Saddam’s authoritarian, tyrannical rule accounted for the long periods where violence was absent. Ironically, violence was averted through controlling the instruments of violence and using violence itself by the state.
Totalitarianism and Sectarianism
For the purposes of the essay, one should be surprised by the long periods when violence was absent, which had already been accounted for in the earlier paragraphs. However, there is a dimension that perhaps should not be surprising at all – that is, totalitarianism during the Saddam regime intensified sectarian sentiments and, in turn, further divided Iraq along sectarian lines. Consequently, this only served to intensify the intensity of the violence that later occurred. Admittedly, the state’s use of violence during the Saddam regime was not only towards the Shi’as. In some cases, Sunnis suspected of dissent or disobedience to the state were harshly dealt with by the regime through violence and punishment (Makiya, 1998).
Still, the Shi’as perceived the totalitarianism under the Saddam regime through the lens of sectarianism. As Haddad (2011) argues, “the Shi’a perception that the state repressed them and the expression of their sectarian identity, led many Shi’as to view the state as representing the Sunnis even if it was not a ‘Sunni state’” (p. 47). Indeed, “the Shi’a perception that [the state] was anti-Shi’a was the result of decades of restrictions on the expression or assertion of Shi’a identity” (Haddad, 2011, p. 47). For example, suppression of Shi’a symbols, myths, and more broadly, identity can be clearly observed through the widespread restrictions to Shi’a religious practices (Haddad, 2011). By the 1990s, this resulted in a schism between the Shi’as and the state “so wide as to be unbridgeable… [and] created an unshakeable belief amongst the Shi’a that the state was against them… [because of the] cumulative result of a number of issues beginning with the banning of [Shi’a] rituals in the 1970s” (al-Rahmany, 2008, as cited in Haddad, 2011, pp. 47-48). This illuminates the fact that the Shi’a sectarian identity was discriminated against by the state whilst the Sunni sectarian identity formalised and integrated into the political narrative of the state (Haddad, 2011). Consequently, the discrimination and suppression faced by the Shi’as during Saddam’s rule – compounded with the integrated relationship of the Sunnis and the state – brought to the fore sectarian sentiments. The inflammation of sectarianism would then intensify the violence when later erupted.
Another example that would arguably epitomise the argument that Saddam’s totalitarianism only served to further sectarianism and, in turn, the intensity of the violence that occurred was the memory of 1991. Despite widespread evidence of the involvement of even the Sunnis in the spontaneous rebellion against the regime, the uprisings of 1991 was classified by the state as a Shi’a rebellion rather than an Iraqi rebellion (Haddad, 2011). As a result, what followed was “a wave of unprecedented state violence against the Shi’as” where “the Shi’as themselves were now explicitly the target of the state’s actions” (Haddad, 2011, p. 73). The Shi’a-targeted violence inevitably created “a clear delineation and galvanisation of Shi’a identity within Iraq distinct from Iraq’s other constituent parts and most certainly from the state” which served to “heighten Shi’a victimhood and alienation from the state particularly in light of the state’s indiscriminate punitive campaign, the nature and sheer scale of the violence and the violation of Shi’a symbols” (Haddad, 2011, p. 73). Being labelled as Shi’a-initiated and therefore, being characterised along sectarian lines, the memory of 1991 had already worsened the sectarian divide. However, it was also the Shi’a perception of Sunni unwillingness to endorse and support the uprisings, along with the Sunni-state recognition and identification in the memory of 1991, that further inflamed sectarian sentiments (Haddad, 2011). The memory of 1991 became both a chosen glory and chosen trauma for the Shi’as: the glory of sacrifice against the state and the trauma of violence by the state (Haddad, 2011). For the Sunnis, however, the events are viewed with scepticism and contempt, especially because of the perceived Iran-linkages in the rebellion and assertions of the Shi’as as traitorous (Haddad, 2011). With such polarisation of the memory of 1991 along sectarian lines, sectarianism became cemented and further embedded in Iraq and “made the gap between Shi’a and Sunni imaginings of Iraq and Iraqi history almost unbridgeable” (Cockburn, 2008, as cited in Haddad, 2011, p. 86). Hence, under Saddam’s despotic, tyrannical rule, the sectarian crisis between the Sunnis and the Shi’as was further inflamed and intensified. Inevitably, this only worsened the violence that was later witnessed, especially in the post-2003 Iraqi order.
A Cause-and-Effect Relationship Revealed
The argument that Saddam’s totalitarianism further aggravated sectarianism and magnified the violence later to be witnessed in Iraq is of paramount importance in understanding the central argument of the essay. From this, a cause-and-effect relationship can be observed between the intensity of the violence that did occur and the long periods when violence was absent: The latter was the precondition of the former. Saddam’s totalitarian rule served to heighten the sectarian sentiments and further divided Iraq along sectarian lines. Without any institutional authority, state regulation and continued suppression following the collapse of the Saddam regime, violence began to re-emerge in the post-2003 Iraqi order – now with more intensity after the aggravation of sectarianism during Saddam’s rule. In 2006, the sectarian conflict reached its tipping point when the civil war erupted, which evidently was the external manifestation of internal sectarian frustrations and sentiments. Here, it is noteworthy to highlight Kalyvas’s (2006) central argument in The Logic of Violence in Civil War: the emergence of violence in a civil war is usually driven by animosities and emotions against the other. Kalyvas (2006) challenges the conventional viewpoint that violence in civil wars are irrational. Instead, Kalyvas (2006) argues that the emergence of violence in such conflicts are, in fact, rational, revenge-driven and the expression of pent-up rage. In the case of Iraq, the violence that erupted during the civil war was very much rational and evidently driven by sectarian frustrations. As Haddad (2016) asserts, “given the conditions that prevailed in Iraq in the early post-war period, it is unsurprising that violence and [sectarian] division were amplified in mutually reinforcing ways” (p. 188). Hence, one may conclude that the violence that emerged in the post-2003 Iraqi order was the result of the repressed sectarian frustrations that was continually fuelled and incubated throughout the Saddam regime. As such, the cause-and-effect relationship in the two phenomena discussed throughout the essay becomes highly apparent: the long periods when violence was absent in the pre-2003 Iraqi order was the avenue that aggravated sectarianism and consequently, further intensified the intensity of the violence that occurred in the post-2003 Iraqi order.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this essay explored the historical narrative of Iraq and argued that the long periods when violence was absent should be more surprising than the intensity of the violence that did occur. Having highlighted the deeply-entrenched sectarian nature of Iraq, it becomes apparent that the intensity of the violence witnessed, especially in the post-2003 Iraqi order, was the result of the expression of long-existing sectarianism. Even during the long periods when violence was absent, violence was in reality controlled by the state. The paradox illuminated in the essay was that the lack of violence in the state was because of the use of violence itself by the state. Under the Saddam regime, the state controlled the mechanisms of violence through Saddam’s tyrannical rule and therefore, averted any outbreak of violence against the state. Nonetheless, when one considers the totalitarian nature of the Saddam regime, state suppression and state violence predominantly against the Shi’as – along with the Sunni identification with the state – further exacerbated the sectarian divide. Consequently, this only worsened the intensity of the violence that would later occur. Hence, whilst the essay argues that the latter was more surprising than the former, it can be concluded that the long periods with the absence of violence was actually the prerequisite for the intensity of the violence that did occur. Indeed, violence has become so deeply-embedded in Iraq, and continues to be the product of the sectarian divide even in the post-2003 Iraqi order. Ultimately, until the fundamental problem of sectarianism is fully addressed, violence will remain a perpetual feature of Iraq and the intensity of the violence that may continue to occur will not be surprising at all.