Subverting Peace: The Origins and Legacies of de-Ba’athification in Iraq

ABSTRACT

Lustration, as an instrument of transitional justice, determines the extent to which members of the former regime or combatant groups can be reintegrated into a democratizing state. This article examines the effects of de-Ba'athification in the lead up to and following foreign-imposed regime change in Iraq. I demonstrate that exclusive and unconstrained lustration created an institutional mechanism that targeted and excluded key segments of the population as perceived regime collaborators, which subverted peacebuilding during the transitional period of the occupation. I conclude by illuminating the enduring effects of exclusionary lustration on subsequent attempts at state-and peacebuilding in divided, post-colonial societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Iraq war
• lustration
• de-Ba’athification
• transitional justice
• peacebuilding

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the participants at the workshop on peacebuilding and transitional justice in Iraq held at Boston University and the workshop on Religion, Violence, and the State in Iraq hosted by the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) and the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, both held Spring 2019. I extend my gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript. Lastly, the editors of the journal, Florian Kühn and Pol Bargués, for their support, patience, and feedback during the revision process especially in light of the constraints brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Occupation refers to ‘the temporary control of a territory by another state that claims no right to permanent sovereign control over that territory’ (Edelstein 2004, 52).

2 Political exclusion denotes the ‘denial of political rights to specific ethnic or ethnoregional communities, most notably the right to vote, organize political parties, freely contest elections, and thus become full participations in the political life of their country’ (Lemarchand 2004, 66).

3 Two reasons explain higher Iraqi Shias Ba’th party membership noted in works by Sassoon and Blaydes, First, Shia over representation in Ba’ath party membership is reflective of their majority demographics as they constitute the largest communal bloc in Iraq. Second, membership was mandatory for employment in state and civil service positions, which contributed to the overrepresentation of Shias as the country’s demographic majority. These two factors offer a political economy explanation for higher Shia Ba’athist membership rather than an entrenched alignment of Shia Arabs to Ba’athist ideology.

4 For a concise literature on the role of the CPA see, (Jabar 2004; Diamond 2004; Barakat 2005; Special Inspector General-Iraq Reconstruction 2009, 78–85; Dobbins et al. 2009; and Cooper and Catchpowle 2009).

5 Estimates fall within the noted range (see Phillips 2005, 145). Rayburn and Sobchak (2019,141) place the estimate between 30,000-50,000 Iraqis including senior civil servants, military leaders, and university professors.

6 The SoI were local recruits from predominantly Sunni regions who provided intelligence regarding insurgent locations, enemy combatant weapons caches, acted as a force multiplier for the Iraqi and American armies, and limited insurgent recruitment (Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction 2011, 5).

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Notes on contributors

Shamiran Mako

Shamiran Mako is an assistant professor of international relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.