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| Volume X, Fall 2003, Number 3 |
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| EXCERPT: Peace and Development in Post-war Iraq |
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| Jon Barnett / Beth Eggleston / Michael Webber |
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Dr. Barnett1 lectures in development studies, Ms. Eggleston is a research student, and Dr. Webber is a professor of geography, all at the University of Melbourne.
Now that Iraq is ostensibly under
control by U.S. and coalition
forces, the focus of effort has
shifted to the process of reconstruction. This entails rebuilding society in the aftermath of conflict (or other catastrophe). The extent of the reconstruction effort in Iraq and the way it is conducted will reveal much about the motives for this war. One justification for the war was to bring peace and freedom to the Iraqi people. If this was indeed a principal motivation, we can expect the welfare of the people of Iraq to improve; peace and freedom are both the means and the ends of development.2 But development is a much-contested process. It can be regarded as an attempt to achieve an ideal state3 or it can be regarded as an attempt to envelop societies within the western-dominated capitalist world system.4 These two notions of development may not be incompatible, at least as far as neoliberal development theory is concerned.5 However, when "development" as integration into the world system requires Western values of liberty, secularism and progress, then conflict over the meaning and practice of development is inevitable.
This paper discusses some of the larger political and economic challenges in reconstructing Iraq in order to foster domestic peace and development. It does not speculate about the motives for, or the legality of, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq;6 nor does it consider the regional security implications of developments in Iraq. Our concern is broadly to consider the capacity of a U.S.-imposed reconstruction to pro-mote peace and sustainable development in Iraq, and the problems that must be resolved.
1 Corresponding author: SAGES, University of Melbourne, 3010, Victoria, Australia. Ph: +61 3 8344 3786. Fax: +61 3 8344 4972. E-mail: jbarn@unimelb.edu.au.
2 Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 2000).
3 For example, as seen by Sen, ibid.
4 For example, as seen by G. Rist, The History of Development (London and New York: Zed Books, 1997).
5 C. Leys, The Rise and Fall of Development Theory (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996).
6 But see: R. Bleier, "Invading Iraq: The Road to Perpetual War," Middle East Policy, Vol. 9, No. 4, December 2002, pp. 35-42; L. Hadar, F. Anderson, F. Mohamedi, and I. Lustick, "In the Wake of War: Geo-Strategy, Terrorism, Oil and Domestic Politics," Middle East Policy, Vol. 10, No. 1, Spring 2003, pp. 1-28; and D. Hepburn, "Is it a War for Oil?," Middle East Policy, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 29-34.
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