Iraq - The Apocalypse
Imagine that, as an Iraqi, through no fault of yours, you are suddenly labelled as a member of the “Axis of Evil”. America, a superpower, had to find an outlet to shake off its frustration, an enemy to run down and what it cries out for retribution; the world becomes its echo chamber.
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Victims or Terrorists - Guilt by Association
September 11, 2001 attacks were a series of four coordinated suicide terrorist incursions carried out by al-Qaeda, a Muslim extremist network, against the United States. The attacks killed more than 3000 people and destroyed the famous Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. It was the most destructive terrorist act in human history and the biggest ever on US soil. The War on Terror had begun; the principal target was Iraq, despite the fact that 12 of the 15 militants were Saudi nationals. It was no good to blame Saudi Arabia; the US had a commitment to protecting the kingdom.
Iraq, though weakened by years of wars and ravaged by severe sanctions, still represented a likely threat to America and the Middle East according to the Bush administration in the White House. Hence, it was an ideal target; regardless of the possible human cost, it was to be a war of liberation, not one of aggression. carried out by ostensible ‘legal’ means. As it turned out, it caused a catastrophic refugee crisis, destroyed the fabric of Iraqi society, leading to segmentation, and displaced millions of people, as well as millions fleeing from the country.
Little did America realise that terrorism on its own soil is partly of its own making. The enigmatic obligation to fund and help Israel has made it a target since the 1967 Middle East war. America then and today may be rightly justified in thinking that terrorist groups originate in the Arab and Muslim world, and that ‘rogue states’ back these groups and seek weapons of mass destruction. But, by putting itself in this position, the US obliges itself to go after countries like Iran, Iraq and Syria. Israel is thus seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror, because its enemies have now become America’s enemies. In other words, America has created its own liability.
Be that as it may, the Media and the White House went into overdrive to justify a retaliatory attack on a worthwhile target that could fit the bill for easy justification, a preventative attack and invasion by employing highly racialised political rhetoric. Scapegoating Iraq was therefore the eureka moment; ‘Reality’ was carefully choreographed, printed, and broadcast to the populace by television and newspapers, fantasising guilty Iraq as a perceived reality that the country and its citizens had to bear the consequences. Killing innocent civilians, or humans, was considered as never mind all that. The United States had to construct an ideological position, a window through which all can view reality by presenting a linguistic structure of socio-semantics that Iraq is perceived as harbouring terrorists. By now the word Islam was synonymous with terrorism, while the popularity of the Bush administration went into the stratosphere following the “Axis of Evil” speech.
Coalition of the Willing
Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s authoritarian ruler, was seen as a loose cannon who had to be immobilised was the opening gambit. Unpredictable, a warmonger, a predator towards his neighbours, altogether a lawless president of a country that was suspected of harbouring WMD. An assumption and speculative illusion, as it turned out, but at the time was a good enough pretext to go to war. Iraq was ripe for regime change, so the US thought. An invasion army was being assembled, and strategic weapons were being accessorised. Still, the United Nations (the UN) needed to come on board to turn hypothesis into enough justification for a pre-emptive strike. In other words, monopolising the UN as a tool to validate what may be construed as an illegal war. Effectively, in the face of hegemonic manipulation of international law and coercion, the UN was a lame duck. The US was free to monopolise and validate the definition of ‘legitimate violence’ and monopolise international law towards geopolitical reconfiguration under the facade of democratic transformation. The credibility of such a design, however, never held up, as the repercussions later proved, but that is another story that can adequately describe the profound miscalculation and ideological hubris.
Shock and Awe
Before turning to the question of displacement and the diaspora, it may be useful to briefly trace the successive stages that led to them. The United States, together with its coalition partners, invaded Iraq on 20th of March 2003 under the euphemistic banner of Operation Freedom, better known as ‘shock and Awe’. The Awe here stands for an overwhelming feeling of fear, terror and dread. The killing of innocent civilians was ‘legal’. Iraqi people were no longer innocent but guilty of 9/11 and classified as terrorists. The Western media saw to that. The US unilaterally declared Iraq a future threat as justification for invasion and offensive violence, which juxtaposes the idea that all Iraqi citizens were collateral damage, a military necessity so a legal byproduct. For you and me, this is a shield that would otherwise be considered unlawful killing. Iraqi people were now categorised as Arab, as Muslim or Middle Eastern, having lost their individuality and political framing. They are now inherently violent, backward and dangerous. Iraqi individuals walking down the street are stripped of the presumption of innocence. They are now a de facto Red Flag, giving prejudice free rein to work its discriminatory effect on who matters and who is disposable.
Such was the effect of 9/11. The invasion is now ‘legal’, and its impact was catastrophic. It was to be an erasure of the Iraqi state and the destruction of all institutions. It became a type of warfare where the enemy does not wear a uniform, so every Iraqi citizen became a suspect, which led to mass arbitrary detention and torture. The burden of proof shifted; Iraqi civilians had to prove they weren’t terrorists. It quickly became clear that the American military juggernaut arrived not as liberators but as oppressors.
Dismantling a highly modern, institutionalised state became the catalyst for flight. The US administration stripped 50,000 civil servants of their jobs, as well as rendering over 400,000 armed individuals unemployed. Demolishing water and electricity utilities, as well as healthcare institutions, overnight. The De-Ba’athification meant stripping hundreds of thousands of civil servants, doctors, professors, and administrators of their livelihood. Even though, their employment was based solely on party membership, which was a prerequisite for professional advancement. The dissolution of the Military, turning half a million armed men into unemployed civilians overnight, created a security vacuum that eventually sparked the sectarian civil war. All this meant the very people, the very substance of the complex grids of a working society, were targeted, marginalised and completely unprotected. It culminated in The Collapse of a complex Society
The Brain Drain and the destruction of human capital.
Iraq was proud of its leading institutions, with some of the most advanced healthcare and education systems in the Arab world before the invasion. Baghdad historically served as a capital of intellectual ferment and artistic expression, leading to the famous regional proverb: "Cairo writes, Beirut prints, and Baghdad reads".
The invading army created a security vacuum, having dissolved any state protection; lawyers, doctors, engineers, and academics became primary targets for kidnapping, extortion and assassination by sectarian militias. They were forced to flee in the hundreds of thousands to Amman, Damascus or Western capitals for survival, leaving the country stripped of its intellectual backbone or seek protection from sectarian or tribal factions. This marked the first phase of localised displacement after 2003. An estimated 40% of Iraq’s professional class fled the country; by 2007, more than half of Iraq’s registered medical doctors had fled. This systemic brain drain due to the safety vacuum engineered by the coalition crippled universities and hospitals altogether; this also meant that those who survived the bombings to live a dignified life had disappeared. Those who arrived in exile were economically hollowed out; they had to sell their homes and land, and many arrived in foreign countries with only a shirt on their backs, as well as losing their class and identity.
Displacement and dislocation were not an accidental byproduct of war. The invasion was not just about regime change but, as we have seen, a deliberate destructive policy. The Coalition Provisional Authority's policies engendered a weakened state shaped by sectarian rivalries. As if that was not enough, before the invasion, despite living under a brutal dictatorship and despite the society's fracture, Iraqi identity was largely understood through a secular, nationalist framework. The invasion shattered Iraq’s unified political capital and replaced it with a system designed to divide: the Muhasasa system. Empowering an entirely Shia majority, taking hardly any account of the Sunnis, who formed the largest minority, assured division and resentment.
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Sectarianism and remapping of Baghdad
True to form, ugly sectarianism followed. Among an already crippled society, peace was not to be. One wave of displacement followed another. The trigger this time was the bombing in 2006 of the Al-Askari Mosque, a Shia shrine in Samarra that unleashed intense sectarian violence and structurally altered Baghdad’s geography. Sunnis fled to Sunni-dominated western Baghdad (Al-Hurriya) while Shiites moved to eastern strongholds (Al-Dora). The US military accelerated this separation by constructing massive concrete blast walls to seal off violently contested areas-intercommunal unmixing. By then, the Tigris River had gained another chapter within its once-illustrious history. It infamously became a separating border between the Al-adhamiya (Sunni) and Kadhimiya (Shia). Two areas sat directly opposite each other, and the bridge that separated them was barricaded. Sectarian violence became the primary driver of this displacement. The capital inverted its demographic makeup within months, from a highly homogeneous, integrated city to sectarian enclaves separated by military blast walls.
Estate agents enjoyed a booming business, pairing families and helping them trade legal deeds. It is estimated that 80% of all internally displaced people in Iraq originated from Baghdad.
Lawlessness and systemic violence became Baghdad's new landscape. Abduction became a highly organised "cottage industry" and a tool of terror. U.S. officials estimated that up to 40 people were kidnapped every day, ranging from ordinary Iraqi citizens and prominent academics to foreign journalists and aid workers targeted for massive ransoms. Among them were the leading cardiologists, neurologists, and Iraq’s leading academics and university professors. It was suspected this was a deliberate campaign to destroy the best and brightest as part of the cultural cleansing taking place by religious extremists. Mass migration of this ‘Brain Drain’ naturally followed, hollowing out the country of its human capital. Forced segregation was imposed by sectarian militias through their systemic campaigns, plastering notices of evictions on doors, giving people 24 to 48 hours to leave the area, and flipping areas completely. As for the minority Christians in the area, they were forced to live under Sharia law and pay Jizya (tax) for protection.
Over 2 million people fled the country, and another 2.4 million, roughly 15% of the total population, were displaced within Iraq’s borders. Despite allowances of around $1000 per family to encourage return as of 2008, few took up the offer. Many families ended up with no fathers, only mothers with young children to look after, badly in need of human assistance. In other areas, insecurity remained an issue, making it impossible to live in their previously mixed areas. They would now rather integrate into their safe place. In certain areas, those displaced still felt vulnerable due to fear of inter-tribal conflict and eviction orders. They would return when things got settled. It never did.
I have mainly concentrated on Baghdad, the capital, where most operations formed the nucleus and where it represents the prime example for the rest of the country, but displacement was happening throughout. Discussing regional societal collapse falls outside this narrative. Suffice it to say, the history of Marshland tribes of the South as well as the Kurds of Iraq north of the country was nothing short of violence, political and moral misery. That is not to say the Kurds themselves were peaceful; instead, they engaged in inter tribal armed struggle due to two-pole power politics, which also led to segregation.
Iraqi people historically held immense pride in their country's status as the ‘Cradle of Civilisation’ and the intellectual powerhouse of the Middle East. Now see themselves stripped of what they had of class and identity as ‘displaced persons’. Mainly in the USA as potential security threats, where ‘Mohamad’ and ‘Ali’ were a no no names.
In the decade following the invasion, Iraqi professionals and youth entered host societies where the public narrative cast them as "security risks"; they faced double victimisation. In many parts of the world, Iraqi refugees were classified as guests; they were largely barred from legal employment, forcing a highly educated population into deep urban poverty. When physicians, professors and engineers fled the country, their professional credentials were rarely recognised; they faced a sudden transition from high social status to the working poor. Neurosurgeons found themselves driving taxis in Amman; university deans were forced to retail work in Detroit, USA. This loss of class stripped away the dignity that had historically defined the Iraqi professional identity.
After being falsely associated with terrorism at home, Iraqi refugees faced intense suspicion; a hostile Western reception awaited them. Public opinion was already conditioned to view them with fear; they faced incredibly slow asylum processes. A proud, highly educated population found themselves living in poverty, forbidden from working legally and facing Islamophobia and bureaucratic walls in the very nations that invaded them. A proud population that had nothing to do with 9/11 found themselves double-victimised by having their state destroyed by foreign intervention, and second, by being legally locked out of safety by the nations responsible for their displacement. The irony of exile couldn’t have been more morally cruel, living strained in their chosen sanctuaries.
Overcoming this required deliberate, strategic resilience; they had to constructively and individually re-mobilise their human capital to overcome prejudice in jobs, schools, and civic life. Applicants with Middle Eastern, Muslim or Arab-sounding names faced widespread hiring prejudice, and reports show that they were under severe strain to overcome this ‘culture risk’ employer psyche in hiring them. When hired, they were placed in low-paid jobs or paid well below the normal rate for a ‘native’ doing the same job. To overcome this discrimination, the Iraqi diaspora bypassed traditional corporate gatekeepers; many relied on their own merit and entrepreneurial spirit. Other highly skilled professionals underwent intense recertification processes, taking low-tier jobs to gain "local experience" before climbing back into their fields. Despite the challenges, however, they most coveted safety and freedom in their new surroundings to live a life free from fear.
Education was first and foremost for the first-generation Iraqi diaspora to overcome the 9/11 conditioning. The height of excellence was eventually achieved despite heightened bullying, structural marginalisation, and systemic low expectations from educators. Iraqi students’ personal resilience utilised academic adjustment to dismantle discriminatory biases in universities. Unfortunately, names stood in the way of securing interviews in job applications. It was easier for ‘John’ and ‘Emma’ to get an interview on an identical CV than for ‘Ali’ or ‘Mohamad’. Snap judgments based on the CV header didn't go in their favour. Anglo-Saxonising names followed: ‘Zainab’ became ‘Zee’, ‘Tariq’ became ‘Tony’, and Mohamad became ‘Mo’. However, that was not enough to dampen their spirited enthusiasm and ambition.
The Triad of Deprivation (As conclusion)
The catastrophic effect of the invasion should stand as a warning against the manipulation of international law to validate pre-emptive warfare. The inevitable result, as we have seen, is the sanitisation of human suffering leading to educational, economic and security deprivation. The tragedy of modern Iraq shows that when a powerful state sets out to violently reengineer another nation under the guise of global security, the civilian population bears the structural burden of that arrogance. The 9/11 rhetoric casting innocent civilians as terrorists, and as members of the Axis of Evil, permanently altered the lives of millions, transforming a complex modern society into one of the largest refugee crises of the twenty-first century. In conclusion, the plight of the Iraqi people reveals that the true cost of pre-emptive or preventive war needs not only to be measured in structural damage and political transitions but, above all, in the possible damage to a society. In this case, a society weakened by decades of war and sanctions. Against all the structural erasure of a nation’s institutions, the blaze of destruction to the framework holding its citizens together, the consequent displacement of its people, and all the suffering the superpower has caused, Iraq stood defenceless.
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