Orientalism and the application of international law in the 2003 Iraq War and occupation

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/jglobfaul.8.2.0186
• Pages: 186-208
• Published date: 01 October 2021
• Date: 01 October 2021
• Author: Bamo Nouri

Orientalism and the application of international law in the 2003 iraq war and occupation

Bamo Nouri

186

Orientalism and the application of international law

in the 2003 Iraq War and occupation

Bamo Nouri1

Abstract

This paper contemplates the impact of orientalist discourse on the application of

international law, with a focus on the 2003 US occupation of Iraq. The emphasis of the paper

is on how international law failed to protect Iraqis from imperial US decision-making, and

served US elites to the detriment of Iraqis – something which international law specifically

aims to prevent. The paper argues that knowledge production in the form of orientalist

discourse played a crucial role in legitimizing and expanding the meaning and application

of regulations during the occupation of Iraq, served the interests of the occupiers, and led to

regular violations of international law.

Introduction

The decisive role of orientalist knowledge production in facilitating the imperial ambitions of

colonizing powers has been explored in detail since the publication of Edward Said’s

Orientalism. Said demonstrated how the way in which Western scholars and travelers wrote

about the Orient (Asia, Middle East, and Africa) determined the knowledge and perception

of the nations in these spaces. The breakthrough Said made was that imperial European ven-

tures of the 18th and 19th century utilized studies by “orientalists” who projected the East as

backwards, degenerate, and debased to justify domination of these regions. Although in

theory – and by intention – international law seeks to protect sovereign nations from domi-

nation by imperial powers, there are shortcomings in practice. The concern is that there is

selectivity in the interpretation and application of international law in the Middle East, with

the interest of the local populace being secondary to the dictates and agendas of the West.

Instead, international law alongside liberal international institutions such as the League of

Nations and the UN Security Council have contributed to the transformation of the orient

from an “alien into colonial space” (Said, 1978: 211).

This paper contributes to existing studies of orientalism by expanding its scope to

focus on the impact of orientalist knowledge production on the application of international

law during the United States’ (US) occupation of Iraq. The central argument is that there is

a dominant facilitating factor which comes through discourse that enables the bypassing of

international law for the pursuit of imperial expansion. Here, the creation and use of orien-

talist knowledge has crafted a significant divide between territory that is deemed backwards

and territory that is deemed civilized, which subsequently impacts upon the way interna-

tional law is applied. Said explained how orientalist knowledge assisted imperial power in

the East through “dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it,

describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style

for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient” (Said, 1978: 3). Therefore,

a key argument made in this paper is that the language used in the Bush doctrine was fun-

damental in sanctifying the unregulated use of US power in the 2003 Iraq war and occupa-

tion, creating a climate of lawlessness, thus, rendering international law redundant in

serving its purpose of protecting the Iraqi people.

Journal of Global Faultlines, 2021

Vol. 8, No. 2, 186-208.

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The function of discourse in US foreign policy: “Americanism” in US ideology

When analyzing orientalism and its role in US foreign policy, one must also acknowledge and

understand the influence of US ideology given its important impact historically on shaping

diverse aspects of US life, in addition to the foreign policy decisions of US elites. The influ-

ence of ideology on the conception of American power – known as “Americanism” – has been

influential from the birth of America to its imperial East to West expansion from 13 states in

1776 to 50 states by 1959. The famous Frederick Jackson Turner argued convincingly that, in

order to understand America, one must understand the expansion of American settlements

in the “frontier thesis” (Bonazzi, 1993). Beginning from the early school years, Americanism

becomes firmly ingrained in the hearts and minds of Americans through “The Pledge of

Allegiance,” and the belief that America is “a nation chosen by God,” the shining “city upon a

hill” as described by John Winthrop in 1630 (Engen, 2020). On visits to America in the 1830s,

Alex de Tocqueville observed that Americans were concerned about their country’s interests

as if they were their own, with feelings towards the homeland being comparable to what a

person feels for his or her family (Tocqueville, 2010). The ideas of liberty, freedom, and oppor-

tunity for all to prosper regardless of color, ethnicity, class, gender, or religion in the land

where everything was possible with limited barriers, reverberated inside America and abroad.

The American dream – based on capitalism, limited government – became a cornerstone in

the rationalization of US imperial pursuits from the outset through scrupulous uses of dis-

course and imagery. From John O’Sullivan’s “manifest destiny” conception of the American

march from East to West in 1845 (Locke and Wright, 2020: 315–342), and John Gast’s painting

of “American Progress” in 1872, through to the Iraq War and occupation, the US has unfail-

ingly contrasted the picture of “civilized America” with the “uncivilized other.”

The notion of orientalism is crucial to understanding the ideology of the US in its

foreign policy decision-making. Said maintained that orientalism derived from the British

and French colonial domination of the Orient that lasted until after World War II (Said,

1978: 4), when the US assumed control of the region (Said, 1978: 285). Imperial pursuits

result in legacies that are long-lasting, and in some cases irreversible. For example, British

rule in India left racist (and casteist) legacies that associated “whiteness” with civilizational

advancement and prosperity, and which could even be found in advertisements of Pears

soap (McClintock, 1995; MacKenzie, 1990; Mills, 2020). From the 18th century onwards,

British officials embraced orientalism to entrench views of Arabs, Africans, and Asians as

backwards, barbaric, incompetent, and inferior. Such views would be used to justify and

rationalize British imperial ambitions in territories ranging from India to Egypt. Strategically

for the British, the need for Anglo-Saxon guidance was manufactured through orientalist

perspectives on Ottoman rulers, outdated Islam, and a social-Darwinist view of Arabs as a

race (Said, 1978: 31–40).

The role the Occident (West) plays for the Orient (East) can expand as far as assuming

the power to decide a nation’s fate in existence. In the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement parts of the

Middle East were divided based on areas of British and French control. To this day, the deci-

sion has left the region unsettled, with ethnicities being divided into different countries (e.g.,

the Kurds with a population of 40 million are split geographically between Iraq, Iran, Turkey,

and Syria). The case of Sykes-Picot, when applying Said’s theory, exemplifies “why” interven-

tion in a culture so distant (physically and culturally) could be justified at the time. Orientalism

assumes that the Orient needs intervention and assistance, and that the Occident is best posi-

tioned to do this in an intricacy that also brings popular support domestically.

Since this paper focuses on the US occupation of Iraq, it is important to briefly

acknowledge some noteworthy utilizations of orientalist thought in US foreign policy over

the last two centuries. As far back as 1841, the sixth President of the US, John Quincy Adams,

justified US imperial pursuits by arguing that there is a