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What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building
What do we owe Iraq?
America is up to its neck in nation building--but the public debate, focused on getting the troops home, devotes little attention to why we are building a new Iraqi nation, what success would look like, or what principles should guide us. What We Owe Iraq sets out to shift the terms of the debate, acknowledging that we are nation building to protect ourselves while demanding that we put the interests of the people being governed--whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, or elsewhere--ahead of our own when we exercise power over them.
Noah Feldman argues that to prevent nation building from turning into a paternalistic, colonialist charade, we urgently need a new, humbler approach. Nation builders should focus on providing security, without arrogantly claiming any special expertise in how successful nation-states should be made. Drawing on his personal experiences in Iraq as a constitutional adviser, Feldman offers enduring insights into the power dynamics between the American occupiers and the Iraqis, and tackles issues such as Iraqi elections, the prospect of successful democratization, and the way home.
Elections do not end the occupier's responsibility. Unless asked to leave, we must resist the temptation of a military pullout before a legitimately elected government can maintain order and govern effectively. But elections that create a legitimate democracy are also the only way a nation builder can put itself out of business and--eventually--send its troops home.
Feldman's new afterword brings the Iraq story up-to-date since the book's original publication in 2004, and asks whether the United States has acted ethically in pushing the political process in Iraq while failing to control the security situation; it also revisits the question of when, and how, to withdraw.
America is up to its neck in nation building--but the public debate, focused on getting the troops home, devotes little attention to why we are building a new Iraqi nation, what success would look like, or what principles should guide us. What We Owe Iraq sets out to shift the terms of the debate, acknowledging that we are nation building to protect ourselves while demanding that we put the interests of the people being governed--whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, or elsewhere--ahead of our own when we exercise power over them.
Noah Feldman argues that to prevent nation building from turning into a paternalistic, colonialist charade, we urgently need a new, humbler approach. Nation builders should focus on providing security, without arrogantly claiming any special expertise in how successful nation-states should be made. Drawing on his personal experiences in Iraq as a constitutional adviser, Feldman offers enduring insights into the power dynamics between the American occupiers and the Iraqis, and tackles issues such as Iraqi elections, the prospect of successful democratization, and the way home.
Elections do not end the occupier's responsibility. Unless asked to leave, we must resist the temptation of a military pullout before a legitimately elected government can maintain order and govern effectively. But elections that create a legitimate democracy are also the only way a nation builder can put itself out of business and--eventually--send its troops home.
Feldman's new afterword brings the Iraq story up-to-date since the book's original publication in 2004, and asks whether the United States has acted ethically in pushing the political process in Iraq while failing to control the security situation; it also revisits the question of when, and how, to withdraw.
Paperback
First published October 4, 2004
About the author
Noah Feldman
31 books213 followersNoah Feldman is an American author and professor of law at Harvard Law School.
Feldman grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, where he attended the Maimonides School. He graduated from Harvard College in 1992, ranked first in the College, and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he earned a D.Phil in Islamic Thought in 1994. Upon his return from Oxford, he received his J.D., in 1997, from Yale Law School, where he was the book review editor of the Yale Law Journal. He later served as a law clerk for Associate Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2001, he joined the faculty of New York University Law School (NYU), leaving for Harvard in 2007. In 2008, he was appointed the Bemis Professor of International Law. He worked as an advisor in the early days of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq following the 2003 invasion of the country. He regularly contributes features and opinion pieces to The New York Times Magazine and is a senior adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Feldman grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, where he attended the Maimonides School. He graduated from Harvard College in 1992, ranked first in the College, and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he earned a D.Phil in Islamic Thought in 1994. Upon his return from Oxford, he received his J.D., in 1997, from Yale Law School, where he was the book review editor of the Yale Law Journal. He later served as a law clerk for Associate Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2001, he joined the faculty of New York University Law School (NYU), leaving for Harvard in 2007. In 2008, he was appointed the Bemis Professor of International Law. He worked as an advisor in the early days of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq following the 2003 invasion of the country. He regularly contributes features and opinion pieces to The New York Times Magazine and is a senior adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 9, 2011
Feldman's book offers a very detailed legalistic and ethics-driven view of the occupation of Iraq, producing a short book packed with argument, however often making it somewhat unwielding and hard to get to grips with. Prepare to have to re-read sentences, paragraphs - even chapters - to fully grasp Feldman's arguments. But it will be worth it.
August 10, 2023
Read this for an article I'm working on, and I found it hard to assess. It's very much a product of it's time: written just after the first year of US occupation by someone who seemed ambivalent about the war itself but joined the COalition Provisional Authority as a legal advisor in the constitutional process for a time. Feldman is a nuanced writer and thinker, but this book was written before Iraq went really downhill into full-blown civil war, before US objectives shifted from leaving behind a democracy to simply leaving behind some kind of semi-stable, semi-representative state. So the book reflects that cautious sense around 2004 that we hadn't slipped off the edge yet and could still save this thing. But the collapse of the Iraq project (and Afghanistan) means that few people today still think as Feldman (and many other people) were thinking in 2003-2004.
So what was he thinking? The book deals with a basic paradox of the IRaq War: even if you shouldn't have invaded, what do you do when you are there (Powell called this the Pottery Barn rule: you break it, you own it)? Feldman looks at this question from an ethical standpoint: What do we owe Iraqis now that we have taken down their govt, unleashed a lot of chaotic social forces, and simultaneously done considerable damage but also created a chance for a better future? Moreover, how do we balance the national interest with our responsibilities to Iraq?
Feldman argues that we owe it to IRaq to maintain tolerable security, help them with economic development, and to guide (but not force or pressure) the constitutional and political process toward something representative, stable, inclusive, but not dictated from abroad. He argues that the core U.S. interest in Iraq (after we didn't find WMD) was building democratic institutions that would prevent Iraq from becoming a new hothouse of extremism and terrorism. This was what you might call that GWOT consensus that united many on the left and right behind the Iraq War, even after its initial rationales fell apart. Feldman has some useful and thoughtful discussions of what the United States can do in Iraq to build a nation and state there, but I think he kind of overlooks the big strategic questions in his focus on ethics: how much does stability in Iraq matter to US interests? How long and costly an occupation is it worth to create some type of democracy there? Is that even a feasible goal at this point in Iraqi history, or something that outsiders can really achieve?
I think the fact that no American politician since about 2007 has whispered the word "nation-building" shows how this admittedly thoughtful book became a sort of historical artifact very quickly. Still, it is useful to scholars and takes no time to read. For instance, he begins with an anecdote of being on a cargo plane to Iraq with a bunch of other CPA advisors, and they were all reading about Japan and Germany? This is highly revealing of the mindset of the US when we went into Iraq, and the book features a number of interesting tidbits like that.
So what was he thinking? The book deals with a basic paradox of the IRaq War: even if you shouldn't have invaded, what do you do when you are there (Powell called this the Pottery Barn rule: you break it, you own it)? Feldman looks at this question from an ethical standpoint: What do we owe Iraqis now that we have taken down their govt, unleashed a lot of chaotic social forces, and simultaneously done considerable damage but also created a chance for a better future? Moreover, how do we balance the national interest with our responsibilities to Iraq?
Feldman argues that we owe it to IRaq to maintain tolerable security, help them with economic development, and to guide (but not force or pressure) the constitutional and political process toward something representative, stable, inclusive, but not dictated from abroad. He argues that the core U.S. interest in Iraq (after we didn't find WMD) was building democratic institutions that would prevent Iraq from becoming a new hothouse of extremism and terrorism. This was what you might call that GWOT consensus that united many on the left and right behind the Iraq War, even after its initial rationales fell apart. Feldman has some useful and thoughtful discussions of what the United States can do in Iraq to build a nation and state there, but I think he kind of overlooks the big strategic questions in his focus on ethics: how much does stability in Iraq matter to US interests? How long and costly an occupation is it worth to create some type of democracy there? Is that even a feasible goal at this point in Iraqi history, or something that outsiders can really achieve?
I think the fact that no American politician since about 2007 has whispered the word "nation-building" shows how this admittedly thoughtful book became a sort of historical artifact very quickly. Still, it is useful to scholars and takes no time to read. For instance, he begins with an anecdote of being on a cargo plane to Iraq with a bunch of other CPA advisors, and they were all reading about Japan and Germany? This is highly revealing of the mindset of the US when we went into Iraq, and the book features a number of interesting tidbits like that.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews