Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline Ismael. The Iraqi Predicament: People in the Quagmire of Power Politics.

Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline Ismael. The Iraqi Predicament: People in the Quagmire of Power Politics. London, UK: Pluto Press, 2004. 271 pages + index. Paper $23.95.

Tareq Y. Ismael and William W. Haddad (Eds). Iraq: The Human Cost of History. London, UK: Pluto Press, 2004. 269 pages + index + tables. Hardcover $45.00.

IRAQ, ENGULFED IN UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS of sectarian and political violence, finds itself central to questions of peace and justice in global politics. Within the vast number of monographs published on the country following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, its history as an "artificial" state and its conflict with the United States have often taken precedence over the impact of both foreign and domestic politics on the lives of Iraqis themselves. The Iraqi Predicament: people in the quagmire of power politics by Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline Ismael and Iraq: The Human Cost of History edited by Tareq Y. Ismael and William Haddad strive to center the discussion back on Iraq and the Iraqi people.

Both volumes remind us that U.S. policy did not merely begin affecting Iraqi civilians following either September 11 or the March 2003 invasion, but long before either of those momentous events. The various authors locate the people of Iraq within an often violent global system of economic and political relations, while attempting to give voice to their suffering, and emphasizing their continued opposition to authoritarian rule and foreign control.

Presented in six chapters, The Iraqi Predicament begins its investigation by situating the "Iraq question" in world politics. This is accomplished by measuring the role played by the Iraqi regime within regional and global politics before and after it was targeted as a global pariah by US policy. Following a positive relationship with Washington, the Ba'thist regime was recast after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and again when it was drafted into the Bush administration's "War on Terror" after the attacks of September 11. Ismael and Ismael detail the U.S. government's efforts to support the Iraqi state against domestic challengers--from Kurdish separatists to communists, nationalists and Islamists--and in so doing provide a backdrop to the sophisticated relationships and global structures that allowed Saddam Hussein to become such a dominant player in the regional political milieu.

The price to be paid for the power politics of the regime's expansionary wars was meted out on the Iraqi people, resulting in the dismantling of Iraq's social development, as Iraqis were caught in a vice between the regime and its international opponents. The Iraqi Predicament lays forth the systematic destruction of Iraqi society over three decades. Against a backdrop of wars--first against Iran, and then Kuwait--as well as 12 years and 10 months (August 1990-May 2003) of U.N. economic sanctions, the social, cultural, and infrastructural fabric of Iraqi society was unraveled. This then left the people of Iraq predictably vulnerable to the crises and deprivations brought on by the U.S. invasion and occupation beginning March 2003. The story the authors tell is not all one of devastation however, as, for example, they describe the heroic efforts on the part of Iraqi social services and healthcare workers to provide services to their fellow citizens in the face of violence and overwhelming scarcity.

Iraq: The Human Cost of History contains seven contributions from a distinguished group of scholars who have all maintained steadfast opposition to both the Ba'athist Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and the imposition and maintenance of draconian economic sanctions against the Iraqi people. Contributions include critiques of those seemingly most responsible for the imposition and maintenance of the sanctions regime--namely the governments of the United States (Stephen Zunes) the United Kingdom (Milan Rai). Zunes and Rai clearly outline the Anglo-American polices within those countries' domestic frames of reference, highlighting both continuities and inconsistencies, as well as leaders' repeated mendacity in portraying the impacts of sanctions to their own constituents.

Richard Falk outlines the international legal ramifications of the U.N. sanctions regime. Falk decries sanctions as "deliberate and indiscriminate policy designed to inflict harm on the civilian population of Iraq." Moreover, in light of this devastation he deems sanctions were "a continuation of war, without even the loose constraints of international humanitarian law." In a chapter that ethically engages the international community and the U.N. for their roles in Iraq, Falk ultimately finds the sanctions regime served as a "stage for the initiation of an aggressive war."

Likewise, Eric Herring questions why sanctions were maintained in spite of the voluminous evidence "of their human cost in terms of the blighted lives ... and premature deaths." Herring finds that the cost was simply deemed acceptable by many of the policy makers and bureaucrats tasked with their maintenance, especially given that as they developed elaborate media campaigns to deny the impacts to Western populations. Simply, both evidence-based and ethical opposition to sanctions paled in the face of the prevailing mindset of technocrats and bureaucrats who, tragically, refused to extend a sense of common humanity to Iraqis. Nowhere is such brazen disregard on better display that in the contribution by Thomas J. Nagy, which examines pre-war U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessments of bombardment campaigns against Iraqi infrastructure. Prior to the campaign, DIA assessments accurately predicted the devastation of the Iraqi population. Nagy concludes that armed with such knowledge, U.S. officials clearly recognized and understood the implications of such an attack and that by going ahead they "enabled genocide through untreated, contaminated water."

Another angle is examined by economist Abbas Alnasrawi, who details the Iraqi petroleum industry in relation to the sanctions regime and both Gulf wars. He concludes that the reparations payments assigned to Iraq constitute "an astronomical figure of financial requirements which is simply beyond the capacity of the Iraqi oil sector to generate." Alnasrawi calls for greater transparency and democratic oversight in an effort to produce social and economic justice for a growing population.

The final contribution is an examination of the Iraqi state over the long term by Isam al-Khafaji. Khafaji focuses on the development of the state post-Independence, attempting to debunk myths prevalent in Iraqi historiography, such as comparisons with Prussia and the prevalence of Iraqi exceptionalism. He details a robust development during the mid-twentieth century and examines the impact this golden legacy may have on a revanchist generation that came of age during sanctions.

Both volumes provide an excellent overview of the impact of U.N. sanctions on Iraqi society, in writing accessible to both undergraduate and other interested readers. Though the absence of concluding chapters undermines the overall impact of both collections, they nonetheless prove excellent for classroom use, providing perspectives sure to promote discussion.

John Measor is a Lecturer of History at the University of Victoria, Canada.