Abstract
The terrorist attacks of September 2001 in the United States by Islamist suicide bombers prompted a massive US-led military operation that ousted the radical government of the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and led to the fleeing of the leaders of the al-Qaida organisation, the primary sponsor of the 2001 attacks.1 The neoconservative US administration at the time declared a War on Terror, whereby it reserved the right of preventive strikes against those it considered potential terrorist threats against the United States.2 Attention was thereafter focused on the dictatorship in Iraq, where for decades the tyrannical government of Saddam Hussein had resulted in a brutal suppression of the Iraqi people and caused two major wars, one with Iran and another with Kuwait.
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Notes
Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace ( New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007 ), p. 28.
For a detailed account of the background to this conflict see, among others, F. Ogboaja Ohaegbulam, A Culture of Deference ( New York: Peter Lang, 2007 ), pp. 104–5.
Condoleezza Rice, ‘The Promise of Democratic Peace: Why Promoting Freedom is the Only Realistic Path to Security’, The Washington Post, Sunday, 11 December 2005.
See on this a very interesting article: Shahrbanou Tajbakhsh and Michael Schoistwohl, ‘Playing with Fire? The International Community’s Democratization Experiment in Afghanistan’, International Peacekeeping, 15 (2), pp. 252–67 (2008).
See Sara Baxter, ‘America Ponders Cutting Iraq in Three’ The Sunday Times, 8 October 2006.
Michael W. Doyle, Ways of War and Peace ( New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997 ), p. 206.
Ali Rahnema, An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shari’ati ( London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000 ), p. 94.
See Tom Campbell, Seven Theories of Human Society ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981 ), p. 79.
J. S. McClelland, A History of Western Political Thought ( London and New York: Routledge, 1996 ), pp. 235–6.
Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 ), p. 16.
Arthur Goldschmidt Jr and Lawrence Davidson, A Concise History of the Middle East, 8th edn ( Oxford: Westview Press, 2006 ), p. 24.
For a recently written source on Iraqi tribal life see Sam G. Stolzoff, The Iraqi Tribal System ( Minneapolis, MN: Two Harbors Press, 2009 ).
See S. M. Farid Mirbagheri, ‘Shi’ism and its Impact on Iran’s Politics: A Theoretical Perspective’, in Farid Mirbagheri (ed.), Islam and the Middle East: An Insight into Theory and Praxis ( Nicosia: University of Nicosia Press, 2009 ), p. 40.
Oliver P. Richmond, Peace in International Relations ( London and New York: Routledge, 2008 ), p. 74.
See Stuxnet virus attack: ‘Russia warns of “Iranian Chernobyl”’, Telegraph, 6 June 2011.
Yaakov Katz, ‘Stuxnet Virus Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Programme by Two Years’, Jerusalem Post, 15 December 2010.
See Edward G. Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909 , Elibron Classics Series (Cambridge University Press, 2007 [1910]), pp. 148–9 and 174–90.
Ervan Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), Kindle edition, locations 1456–61.
One writer with such a belief is Mike Evans; see Mike Evans, Jimmy Carter, the Liberal Left and World Chaos (Phoenix, AZ: Time Worthy Books, 2009 ). The author contends that Carter’s administration was conspiring to remove the Shah of Iran from power.
See Guy Dinmore ‘US Rejects Iran’s Offer for Talks on Nuclear Programme’, http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000467.htm and Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer, ‘Unprecedented Peril Forces Tough Calls’, Washington Post 26 October 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62727–2004Oct25?language=printer. The sites were last visited on 3 June 2011. Also see Donette Murray, US Foreign Policy and Iran (Abingdon, UK and New York: Routledge, 2010), p. 126;
Semira N. Nikou, ‘Timeline of Iran’s Political Events’, in Robin Wright (ed.), The Iran Primer: Power, Politics, And US Policy (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2010), p. 235. Even though some have disputed the actual contents of the proposed deal, due to the reticence of Tehran and Washington on media reports, there seems little doubt that some kind of a deal may have actually been proposed.
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© 2012 S. M. Farid Mirbagheri
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Mirbagheri, S.M.F. (2012). Current Conflicts and Muslim and Islamist States: Two Contemporary Cases. In: War and Peace in Islam. Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137001313_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137001313_6
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