This chapter examines belief in misinformation during the Coalition air war against ISIL in Iraq. In particular, it investigates a unique nationwide survey of contemporary Iraq that measures Iraqis’ factual perceptions about the Coalition airstrikes against ISIL, as well as whether they have lived under ISIL rule where the vast majority of strikes actually occurred. Moreover, this survey is paired with geo-located event data on the Coalition airstrikes themselves obtained from Airwars in order to measure the respondents’ proximity to the events more directly. Overall, the results reveal that Iraqis’ factual misperceptions about Coalition actions are widespread – fueled by both their own preexisting political orientations and streams of information in the dispute – but that civilians with greater personal exposure to the campaign are much less likely to embrace these falsehoods. Indeed, both experience living under ISIL control and proximity to the airstrikes themselves significantly reduce factual misperceptions about the Coalition’s aerial campaign, including false claims about its targeting of Shiʿa Arab-led militias and its strategic benefits to ISIL.

The dramatic impact of the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington sharply intensified relations between Australia and the USA. The bilateral relationship was reconfirmed as the two states joined in war against an elusive, and unexpected, enemy. As the war on terrorism broadened, Australia enthusiastically joined the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’, sending troops to fight in Afghanistan and, more controversially, deploying forces alongside the USA in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. From late 2001 commentary in Australia invariably accepted that ‘relations with the United States dominated Australian foreign affairs’ or more subtly observed that ‘the central dynamics of Australian foreign policy revolved around the issue of relations with the superpower, and the implications of this relationship’ for the broader exercise of Australian foreign policy.

The Australian Federal Parliament stands magnificently atop Constitution Hill in Canberra as a symbol of the importance Australia attaches to its long and strong democratic tradition. The semiotic message of the Parliament’s architecture is that this is a people’s place, ‘a publicly accessible monument’, a place where its visitors will be as much a part of the fabric of its business as the business of the legislature. The Parliament has used technology to match this physical accessibility such that never has there been a period when greater access to the business and deliberations of the Parliament has been more possible. This accessibility has, however, been matched in the period under review by increasing physical constraints and barriers to access never envisaged at its creation: for the first time in the history of the Commonwealth, the Parliament was closed to the people – on the occasion of the visit of President George W. Bush in October 2003. In this way, the Parliament stands also as a symbol of the way the world has changed since the bombings of the twin towers in September 2001.

As 2001 began, Australia’s relationship with West Asia could be characterised as one between perfect strangers. Despite regular military forays into the region, largely in support of the USA, and a burgeoning commercial relationship, the region had never been considered part of Australia’s primary area of strategic interest nor had political relations between the Australian Government and its regional counterparts ever really moved beyond occasional visits and diplomatic courtesies. Meanwhile, to the extent that Australia entered the consciousness of regional elites and the broader population, it was mainly as a supplier of primary products, such as sheep and wheat, and as a steadfast, if somewhat lower-profile, ally of the USA. In effect, there was a degree of mutual, if largely happy, ambivalence between Australia and the region.

UN Charter Art. 2:4 aims to protect states from forcible encroachments by other states, but it does not stand in the way of the Security Council taking or authorizing states to take enforcement actions under Art. 42 and did so in the case of Korea 1950 and Iraq in 1991.It may take or authorize enforcement actions – even inside states – under Art.2:7 and 42. It may also under Art. 53 authorize the use of force by regional organizations – and has done so. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine envisages the use of force to remedy extreme internal situations, such as genocide or massacres, but only within the rules cited requiring approval by the Security Council. The veto is often criticized as hindering action by the Council. It may, indeed, be excessively used but may sometimes be only a signal from one of the permanent members that it may be ready to use its power to resist an action proposed. Post WWII, force has been used by states – but only rarely – to acquire territory while ignoring the Security Council, notably by North Korea in 1950, Iraq against Iran in 1980 and against Kuwait in 1990, Russia against Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.

Chapter 12 is the story of Iraqi reparations imposed after the Gulf War. The rise in Iraqi indebtedness was a consequence of global geopolitical trends in the 1980s, when political lending trumped solvency concerns. It allowed Iraq to obtain financing on terms more favourable than offered by the US government. Reparations were a consequence of the end of the Iran–Iraq War when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Reparations were imposed by a UN Resolution with a direct enforcement mechanism to take money from oil revenues. I use oral history sources to trace how Iraqi debt was restructured after the US invasion in 2003. The restructuring was permeated by politics to inflict harsh terms on creditors at the Paris Club, at a time when creditor-friendly restructurings were the norm. Despite its apparent success, however, in going for a politically expedient deal at the Paris Club, I argue the restructuring missed an opportunity to enshrine a doctrine of odious debt in international law. All debt was written off, except war reparations, which were paid in full through sanctions and war. They proved to be senior to all other debt and did not enter the sovereign debt restructuring.

This chapter deals with an analysis of sovereignty and complementarity, including the political idea of ‘sovereignty costs,’ in which powerful actors will commit to actions which limit their power to achieve overarching aims. The exercise of complementarity in both postcolonial States and wealthy, Western States are also examined to determine whether such exercises of complementarity undermine the Court, or if these could reinforce the Court’s authority. The issue of shielding, as the protection of citizens from international prosecution through obfuscation, as a natural corollary to the preceding discussion, is then analysed, taking the examination of the situation in the UK/Iraq as a prime example. This serves as a precursor to a discussion of the examination of Afghanistan, which may confront the same issues and should be considered given that the UK/Iraq examination by the Court has now been concluded.

In the third chapter, the authors discuss the origins and evolution of the Shia political Islam with a focus on the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Ayatollahs’ revolutionary vision which aimed to export the Iranian political-religious model to other countries. This chapter gives an overview of the psycho-biographies of influential Shia leaders: Ali Khamenei, Hassan Rouhani, Ali al-Sistani, and Nouri al-Maliki. The authors discuss the operational code analysis results and deliberate on what kind of generic foreign policy behavior and strategies we should expect from Shia political Islamist leaders. The chapter also sheds light on what these results and strategies mean for the MENA politics and consider the implications of this analysis for Iran’s relations with the United States, the EU, and regional powers; Iraq’s foreign relations; and the future of Iraq as a viable power in regional politics. The authors conclude by discussing what these results mean for foreign policy decision-making and the international relations discipline.

Chapter 5 analyzes two cases of fake news as disinformation – the 2003 Iraq war and climate change. I look at how political and economic actors manipulate the news media to promote disinformation, in the process “manufacturing consent” for the public. With Iraq, I document the initial success of the Bush administration in selling the US invasion, producing growing support for the war, with the news-consuming public based on notions that Iraq possessed WMDs and ties to terrorism. Support for war declined over time, as the public was increasingly sensitized to rising casualties and the financial cost of the war, after the United States failed to find WMDs, and as the war was increasingly seen as unwinnable and immoral. I also examine how the fossil fuel industry utilized “false balancing” as a news management technique for encouraging mass confusion related to climate change, pitting climate-change skeptics against individuals recognizing planetary warming. Examining “climategate” and cap-and-trade legislation in the late 2000s, I show how reactionary narratives dominated the news, driving increased public opposition to efforts to address climate change. Public opposition receded by the mid-to-late 2010s as extreme weather and a warming planet undermined efforts to foster mass ignorance.

This chapter describes the relationships between domestic political institutions and war. Moving beyond older debates comparing democracies and autocracies, it presents a conceptual structure for differentiating among different types of autocracies. Autocracies vary as either being personalist or non-personalist, and also as being led by either military officers or civilians. Personalist regimes are less constrained by domestic audience costs, and military leaders are more likely to embrace the effectiveness and legitimacy of using force. The likely onset and outcome of conflicts vary across autocracy types. The chapter explores other ideas linking domestic politics and war, including the diversionary theory of war, coup-proofing (when autocrats take steps to reduce their risk of being overthrown in a military coup d’état), and the marketplace of ideas (when foreign policy issues can be freely debated in government and society). The chapter applies many of these ideas to a quantitative study on what kinds of political systems are more likely to win their interstate wars, and a case study of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Using a classical perspective tending to interpret existing positive international law, this chapter pursues a double objective. First, it fits in with the doctrinal trend embodied by the Institut de droit international (IDI) in emphasising that intervention by invitation is unlawful if it implies interference in an internal situation, contrary to the right of peoples to self-determination. Second, this research highlights the growing role of the UN Security Council in appraising and characterising the conditions surrounding the legal validity of intervention by invitation. The chapter focuses on military operations in Mali (2013), Iraq (2014), Syria (2015), Yemen (2015), and The Gambia (2017). It observes how, by adopting resolutions, the UN Security Council made pronouncements on which authority was entitled to give its consent, and on the legitimacy of the object and effects of the intervention. The chapter concludes that the Council no longer necessarily authorises any military intervention, but centralises and multilateralises the appraisal of the circumstances surrounding the formulation of the invitation.

Despite having no such explicit mandate, IOM is one of the largest global actors in IDP response and protection. Yet, its activities on behalf of IDPs have been remarkably under-studied. This chapter appraises IOM’s obligations under the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (GPs), and assesses the extent to which IOM applies these in its work. The chapter does so in two main ways. First, by mapping references to IDPs and the GPs in IOM’s policies, and, second, by examining how these policies are implemented in practice in two country contexts – Haiti (disaster displacement) and Iraq (conflict-induced displacement). While important to recognise the positive impacts of IOMs IDP protection efforts, this chapter identifies and interrogates, with some concern, substantial inconsistencies between IOMs activities and the ethos of the GPs. In particular, the chapter is critical of IOMs almost exclusive camp-based focus and its predominant preference for return as a durable solution. Also troubling is an observed decline in IOM references to the GPs as the leading international standards for IDP protection. The chapter finds that IOM adherence with the GPs cannot thus be taken as a given - indeed, adherence to date is likely more by chance than by design.

This chapter maps the history of efforts of Black Consciousness activists to rebuild their shattered armed wing post-1976. It advances the story in exile through a careful look at attempts at Black Consciousness organizing to restart their armed struggle. This tenaciousness, ever-present in the Azanian Black Nationalist Tradition, highlights the continued importance and relevance of Black Consciousness to the eventual fall of apartheid post-1977. They continued to fight up until 1993 despite the ANC actively obstructing and preventing state or NGO support from being given to organizations under the Black Consciousness banner. These newer formations (IRE, SAYRCO and AZANLA) would engage closely with the wider Third World Revolution and find ways to adopt different lessons, tactics, strategies, theories and perspectives into their ever-expanding political praxis. This did not lessen or dilute their Black Consciousness praxis; on the contrary, it complimented its theoretical and organizational capacities. Nevertheless, the lack of state support, unevenness in centring the gender question, the continued strength of the apartheid war machine and serious disagreements among different Black Consciousness factions hurt the movement in exile. Regardless, they continued to fight.

This chapter provides a summary of recent legal reforms undertaken by the state of Qatar to advance the status of women. While most legal initiatives in Qatar were top-down, initiated mostly by the state, there is a growing and active civil society that is emerging to press for even more progressive reforms. One of the most important legal reforms was the codification of the Qatari Family Law (QFL) in 2006. This chapter explores the most important articles of the family law, as well as highlighting potential challenges, to women’s equality in the state of Qatar.

Chapter 4 examines the Jazira’s divided connection from 1918 to 1939 as the region was divided between the Republic of Turkey, French Syria, and British Iraq. It does so through a focus on locusts, refugees, and various interwar state-making projects. While all of the different states in the Jazira endeavored to differentiate themselves from the Ottomans, they undertook strikingly similar projects based on refugee resettlement and sodium arsenite, the new insecticide that each state wielded to kill locusts. The substance did not altogether end the reign of locusts in the region, but it marked a shift in envisioning the land without the insects. The change also coincided with an unprecedented autonomist movement advocating for a French protectorate of the Jazira, and the ensuing conflict encompassed all of the protagonists of Locusts of Power, from the Shammar and the Millî to Armenian genocide survivors and Assyrian refugees. The autonomist effort failed, and the Jazira became the foremost space of Syrian agricultural development, Ottoman dreams of prosperity finally coming to fruition.

A comprehensive assessment of the Fragebogen is presented in the book’s conclusion, including speculation about the enduring effects of denazification on the two German successor states. The unexpected achievements of the zonal screening programs are measured against their many weaknesses and negative results. Consideration is also given to more recent ideological screening projects in different parts of the world, and the historical lessons ascribed to denazification. The book ultimately concludes that despite the many inherent and acquired problems of the Fragebogen screening program, it is difficult to imagine a denazification process that would have been more effective in achieving both the removal of Nazism as a practical political force and the transformation of the beliefs of individual Germans.

To understand the ways in which Saudi Arabia and Iran have engaged with Iraqi politics and sought to define the principles of vision within Iraq’s political field, one must understand the structural factors conditioning and curtailing the deployment of capital. Here, tracing the evolution of Iraq’s political field is essential as a means of understanding the actions of Riyadh and Tehran. This tracing involves reflecting on identity politics and the interplay between identity groups and the state. The nature of this interplay, in turn, allows for the development of relations with regional powers, on both an individual and a communal level.

A classic tenet of the just war tradition is that the purpose of a just war is to secure a just peace. In the past generation, securing a just peace in the wake of military victory has been perhaps the thorniest problem in United States foreign policy, encountered in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, and Kosovo. This chapter offers a moral framework for judging and pursuing a just peace in the wake of military intervention – an ethic of political reconciliation. It roots the ethic in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, seeks also to express it in secular language, and contrasts it with the globally dominant liberal peace. The chapter then applies the ethic to Iraq and shows how the it may help to build a deeper and more lasting peace and thus secure a critical foreign policy interest of the United States.