Meryem Hatip
Wuthrich
Research Paper Final draft
Iraq War As A Reason of Anti-Americanism
Iraq war was an important issue of the last decade, which has been prepossessing the public opinion. This war not only attracted the public interest but also caused very controversial debates about its rightness and legitimacy. Although many scholars argue the various assessments about Iraq War, only the people who lived can make the most realistic insight in the actual situation during the Iraq War. A citizen of Iraq living in Baghdad who witnessed the “shock and awe” tells his observation about the Americans, comparing the attitude of people before and a while after the invasion. Although at the beginning of the invasion people accepted Americans as saviors from Saddam Hussein, after the war people believed that Americans just brought trouble to Iraq. In his interview the Iraqi citizen explained that before the American forces deployed for Iraqi operation, Saddam regime distributed guns to the people to make a civil resistance against Americans. During the invasion, none of the guns were used and people surrendered them to the security forces, because Iraqi people believed that the Americans brought “democracy and freedom” to Iraq. After the occupation they had got rid of Saddam, but meanwhile they lost their one basic need: safety. He expressed that the chaotic situation in Iraq increased more because of the tactical and strategical mistakes of the American local administration and soldiers in the sense of discrimination among the social groups like Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish, unrespectful behavior against the sacred worship places, unfair pressure on the civilians, arrests, killings, especially the tortures done like in Abu Gharib prison, and ongoing disorder. This situation changed the mind of people against Americans. Finally he concluded his observation that, the Americans, which had been accepted as “saviors” in the beginning of operation, are perceived as “trouble makers” after one year. The Iraq War not only failed to bring democracy, freedom and safety to Iraqi people, but also caused very severe violence of human rights. As supported by this interview, the reliability of Americans after the war in Iraq decreased and Anti-Americanism replaced the pro-American approaches. Therefore, it could be argued that the most important reason of anti-Americanism in Iraq is the occupation, because of the lack of legitimacy and reliability towards to USA’s official reasons and unjustified moral aspects of the Iraq war.
In order to support this thesis, focus on definition of anti-Americanism will be the starting point, then the two major point of Iraq must be examined, first, the conflict and mistakes in Iraq War causes the anti-Americanism increase. Also the immoral aspects of Iraq war makes this war the biggest reason of increasing anti-Americanism. After going through these two major points, there will be a conclusion by discussing what extend Iraq war affected the increase anti-Americanism in Iraq and some other Muslim countries.
Before starting to criticize Iraq war as a biggest reason of the Anti-Americanism, the concept of Anti- Americanism should be clarified. The simplest meaning of the Anti- Americanism is having high amount antipathy towards Both Americans and U.S.A. In the “Are We all Americans Now?” chapter of book The Rise of Anti-Americanism author Robert Sgihn makes reasonable criticism of anti-Americanism. When he criticizes the reasons of rising anti-Americanism he mentions detailed explanations. According to author “…regarding content, anti-Americanism can encompass opposition to: the public policies – foreign or domestic – of the current administration; the administration’s strategies and tactics…” (Sgihn 28). According to text, in this line of the quotation, author restricted to Anti- Americanism is just antipathy of people towards U.S. foreign diplomacy. Anti-Americanism is based on not only being against to current president and his ‘military, diplomatic, economic, and/or cultural’ administration system, but also its ‘cheerleading of the American values’ (Sgihn 28). In the line of this definition if the anti-Americanism of the Iraq people is examined it will be obvious that the reason of this anti-ism was because of the attitude of the USA, mainly based on the spread of American values in Iraq. Trying to bring democracy in Iraq is the most know example for the current administration’s cheerleading tactic or strategy in Iraq, which caused anti- Americanism.
After explaining anti- Americanism in the aspect of the Iraq war, as stated previously, lack of legitimacy and reliability towards to USA’s official reasons of declaration war to Iraq, the most significant cause of anti Americanism. The conflict between reasons and results of war increased the antipathy among public opinion. In the text ‘Justifications of the Iraq War Examined Ethics & International Affairs’ author Richard Miller, examines the main possibilities for why the Iraq war could be justifiable: preemptive or preventive self-defense, law enforcement, and defense of human rights. Also he mentions the official reasons of war as supporting terrorism in Iraq by Saddam regimes and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). When he examines the official reasons, he points out “The Bush administration insisted that Baghdad could use such weapons against its neighbors or against the United States, or could ally itself with terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaeda, which could use WMD to pursue terrorist attacks against the United States and its interest.”(Miller 45). Parallel with this quotation the USA announces the presence of WMD, which poses by some terrorist groups as the main reason of the war. According to Miller, Iraq war was preemptive; in the other words it was a response to an imminent danger because of Saddam’s possessions of WMD, which would change the balanced distribution of power between west and east. In this situation, it seems to be reasonable to think that Baghdad posses real and imminent danger against United States. To sum up, at first because of USA’s official reasons, the rightness of war, mostly was not questioned.
In contrast to the official reasons for declare war to Iraq, picture of post war was so different than the United States expected. Expectation of U.S is to enter Iraq and destroy the WMD, which was possessed by both Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups Iraq. David Mellow criticized the Iraq War in terms of moral justification both prospectively and retrospectively in his text named “Iraq: A Morally Justified Resort to War”. In this text he mentions, “Saddam Hussein’s regime neither possessed WMD, nor was actively engaged in developing or intending to develop such weapons.” (Mellow 293). In the light of this quotation actually WMD has never been existed in Iraq. After a few months after the War the UN inspectors would have gathered sufficient information to confirm the assumption that Saddam Hussein’s regime had not possessed WMD, which would be imminent danger to the United States. Refutation of important official reason of Iraq War gave big damage to USA’s rightness in the war.
Having shown that, no WDM have existed, it is neccesary to mention about post war democratic sitiuation in Iraq. Promoting democratic situation in Iraq was another significiant reason of US to declare war to Iraq. In the text named Promoting Democracy, authors Shadi Hamid, Steven Brooke criticize current in the Iraq. They are questioning that terrorism can be prevented by promoting democracy. When they make this criticism they argue that “...majority of Middle Easterners who are angry at us not for promoting democracy, but because we do not. When we say we want democracy but do very little about it, our credibility suffers and we are left open to charges of hypocrisy.” (Shadi 50). According to this quotation, after the war, Iraqi citizen, who had a expectation of democracy, changed their pro-American opinion, because US did not take effective steps for promoting democracy in Iraq. Acording to authors, Bush administration's project to promote democracy in Middle East has failed. It failed because it was never really tried. (Shadi 48). Obviusly it is a conflict that US declared to war Iraq for remove Saddam Hussein’s non-democratic government and promote democracy . However when the current situation of Iraq is observed, democracy is not successful as much as expected. These distinct conflicts between official reasons and real situation give big damage to the reliability of the USA and it caused high amount of opposition against the Americans.
In addition to conflict of official reasons, conflict between foreign diplomacy of the USA before war and during the period when it was being decided that war should be declared, increases of Anti-Americanism. In this period there was a new question appeared in public opinion; why U.S. declared war to Iraq even if they had supported Iraq against Iran ten years ago? In the text ‘The Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism Barry Rubin explains the actual reasons of Arab Anti-Americanism and when he explains the background of relationship between Arab country and USA he mentions that “The United States supported Arab Iraq against Persian Iran during the Iran-Iraq War and also refrained from overthrowing Saddam Hussein after pushing him out of Kuwait in 1991” (Rubin). Before the Iraq War US administration had supported Saddam Hussein against Iran. One decade later the same administration declared war against Saddam Hussein’s regime. It is a general opinion that Iraq was having probable critical point of balanced distribution of power between east and west, and the USA might use this critical point effectively for its own benefit. First it supported Iraq because, if Iran would win the war, it would gain huge power. After this support, the USA occupied the Iraq on its own and seized this power. Because of this changing strategy of USA based on their own benefit, reliability of the Americans in the public opinion is decreased. Moreover, this changing from one side to the other side mostly accepted as an example of hypocrisy in the USA’s foreign diplomacy. This common belief caused people not only be opponent to Iraq War but also hostile to America.
Having the show that legitimacy of Iraq war in terms of official reasons, Anti Americanism in Iraq is increased because moral justification of Iraq War was not possible. Iraq war was not only violated the individual human rights, in the war actually broke the whole Iraq nation’s self-determining right. In the Iraq: A Morally Justified Resort to War, author David Mellow states, “there is the value attached to a people being self-determining. This value lies both in the collective right that a people have to be politically and culturally self determining and in the basic good of a people engaging in a collective process of self-determination” (Mellow 294). In this quotation author demonstrated that, every nation should have a right to choose their collective process. Likely they have self determining, whole nations should prefer their politically and culturally progress. According to text every nation must have the right for the preference of their country’s future, no country can be forced for prefer democracy and no other country have a right to apply force for such a preference (Mellow 295). Every nation should have a right to choose their government, life style or regime. Since the Iraq war violated Iraq Nation right to self-protection and self-determination, it is accepted as immoral by author. In this line because of Iraq War’s immoral side which was the result of breaking a nation’s self determining right, this war become one of the important reason for increasing anti- Americanism.
In addition to the nation’s rights, US also violated human rights during the Iraq war and post war. As mention previously in the interview, unrespectful behavior against the sacred worship places, unfair pressure on the civilians, arrests, in Iraq are indications of the violence of human rights. In the same text of Richard Miller he not only examined the war in terms of whole nation right but also he argues that “moral considerations that underlie humanitarian sufficient just causes are systematic violations of individual human rights and the existence of widespread Individual human suffering”(Miller 295). According to this quotation individual human rights should be protected during the war for moral justification. When this requirement is considered together with the Iraq War, is obvious that US approach was a clear deficiency in preserving the human rights. As mentioned previously in the interview, after the war, Iraqi people are doomed to live in the lack of safety. Furthermore discrimination among the social groups, bad conditions of post war, unfair pressure on the civilians, arrests, killings, and the tortures were certain violations of human rights, which was accepted from public opinion and scholars. During the Iraq War, US violated individual human rights that leaded American hostile image become deeper in public opinion and this situation caused an increase in anti-Americanism.
In order to understand what extend Iraq War as a biggest cause of rising anti-Americanism, pre-war and post-war situation should be compared. There were some arguments that, Anti Americanism in Iraq had been existed before the Iraq War. The book The Rise of Anti-Americanism, include some quotation from Fawaz Gerges in the Chapter ‘Anti-Americanism in the Muslim World’ which was written by Iyanatul Islam. In this quotation Gerges depicted that how Muslim society’s approach towards America has changed in last sixteen years. According to Gerges research pro- American approach “in Indonesia, in 2002, more than 60 per cent had a favorable opinion of the United States; it fell to just 15 per cent by 2003. In Turkey, over 50 per cent of the population in 1999–2000 claimed that they liked the United States; the proportion fell to 15 per cent by 2003” (Islam 70). This statistics show that, both pro-American and anti-Americanist approaches existed in the different kind of Muslim societies, before the war. And he also argues that, even if anti-Americanism always was existing in Muslim countries actually Muslim society widely admired to United stated in 1950s. He also accepts this year as a ‘golden year’ of pro-Americanism in Muslim world. In the last decades, there is a reversal in positive opinion about the United States. However after the Iraq war “In February 2004, 48 per cent of Iraqis expressed confidence in the United States; by May 2004, the incidence dropped to 20 per cent.” (Islam 70). These intriguing statistical which shows the dropped pro-American opinion in Muslim countries are affected by the United States’ declaration to war against Iraq. This is the evidence that, anti-Americanism was existing before The Iraq war however the war is the biggest cause of rising Anti-Americanism not only in the Iraq but also in the whole Muslim society all over the world.
As a conclusion, Anti Americanism in Middle East is observed prospectively and retrospectively, and it is obvious that one of the substantial reasons is the Iraqi War. It encompasses the facts of the lack of legitimacy and reliability towards to USA’s official reasons for declare war on Iraq, the contradictive results achieved, and immoral aspects of Iraq war. Same with it was mentioned in the interview, the first hesitation of the people begun when American forces secured only the Ministry of Oil during the loots and not cared much about the rest. The people was suspecting that Americans was not caring about the democracy, freedom and security of Iraqi people but caring about increasing control power over the natural resources of Iraq. Not people in Iraq but also whole public’s opinion evaluates in this way. What is the real aim of Usa? After the war United Stated, US Secretary of State Collin Powell's presentation in United Nation confessed that, although the reports about evidence of WMD existence were one of the most successful ones of the intelligence units, the evaluation, intervention, assumptions and worst-case scenario selections were over-judged by politicians. This presentation some extend was accepted as a confession of some fault in Iraq. Both strategically and morally mistakes of Iraq war, gave large extend damage to rightness of America in Iraq war. Because of the difficulty in justification of Iraq War, hatred replaces reliability of USA. Therefore Iraq War becomes a biggest cause of dramatic increase of anti-Americanism.
Work Cited
Al-Khatib, Kemal. Personal interview. 6 April 2010
Hamid Shadi and Brooke Steven. “Promoting Democracy to Stop Terror” Policy
Review 13.159 (2010): 45-57. EBSCO Host. Web. 1 April 2010.
Islam Iyanatul. “Anti-Americanism in the Muslim World” The Rise of Anti -Americanism. Griffiths Martin and Brendon O’Connor (2006): 91-100 print.
Mellow David. “Iraq: A Morally Justified Resort to War” Applied Philosophy 23.3 (2006); 293-310. Print
Miller ,Richard , “Justifications of the Iraq War Examined Ethics & International Affairs”; (2008): 22.1 43-67. EBSCO Host. Web. 1 April 2010.
Rubin Barry ‘The Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism Foreign Affairs (2002): Web. 1 April 2010.
Sgihn Robert “Are We all Americans now?” The Rise of Anti -Americanism Griffiths, Martin and Brendon O’Connor (2006): 25-68 print.
