Tt: RROR AND IERRI10RY
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Terror and Territory THE SPATIAL EXTENT OF SOVEREIGNTY
Stuart Elden
Uni1<ersity of Mirmesola Press
Porrions of rhe lnrroducrion ;md chapter 3 were prC'o·iously published .IS .. Terror and Termory," Antipode 39, no. 5 (2007): 821-45; rcpnnred with permission from \'
·lor and Fr-Jncis. Pomons of chapter 5 were prt''f'iously as and dtc ·war on Terror," f.Jwirc:mment lllld Planning·" 37, no. 12 11005): 2083- 104; reprimcd w1rh permission from PLDn LimJ(ed, London; ··Conungcnr So\·ercigmy. Tcrrirori· Press; ;Jnd as "BiaJr, Nco-conservatism, and rhc \War o n Territorial lnregrity; lmcrndtiollal Politics 44, no. I [2007): 37-57; reprinted with permission of Pa lgmve 1\.Lcmillan. !\.laps for rh1s book were crc.ared b)' Chris Onon of the Design and Imaging Unir m rhe Ocpartmem of Geography ar Durham Universiry. Copynghr 200Q by rhe Regents of rhe Universiry of Minnesota All righrs reserved. No parr of rhis publicarion may be reproduced, stored in a rctrtc'f·al system, or transmmcd, in any form or b)• ;1 ny IDC".ms, electronic, IIIC'Chanical, phorocop)•ing, recording, or otherwise, w1rhout the prior wrirten publisher. permis sion of Published by rhe University of lv1inncsota Press 111 Third A\·enue South, Suite 19{) Minneapolis, lvll\' 55401-252.() hnp:J/www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Catalogmg-in-PubliC;Jtion D;1rn Elden, Stuart Terror .:md territor)' : dte spari.1l extent of sm·crcignry I Smarr []den. p. cm.
Includes b1bhogmphical references :md mdcx. ISBN Q78-0-.8166-54.8.3-3 (hardco\•cr: alk. paJ)('r)-ISBJ\' 978-0-8 166-5484-0 (pbk.: alk. paJ)('r) L Sovereignty. 2. Hunun rerritonalir>·-l?olitic.ll aspecrs. 3. Tcrronsm. I. Title. JC327.£43 2009 320.1'5-dc22 2()()9010244 Pnmed in rite Unued States oi Arn<:rLca on acid-free papc:r:. The Universit}' of Minnesota is <111 cqua l-opporruniry educator <1nd employer. 16
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The territcmum is the sum of the lands within the boundaries of a community [cwitati.s]; which some say is so named because the magistrate of a place has the right of terrifying [temmdi], that is, exercising jurisdiction, within its boundaries. -Pomponius Mcmucll, in the Digest of Justinian
In the history of colonial invasion, maps arc always first drawn br the victors, since maps arc instruments of conquest: once projected, the)' are then implemented. Geography is therefore the art of war but can also be the an of resistance if there is a countermap and a counter-strategy. -Edward \V. Said
The Politrcs of Di.sposses.sio11
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
IX
Introduction: Terror and the State of Territory
xi
Gr:ograpbir:s of Fear, Tlm·
Territorial Strategies of lslamism
33
3
Rubbk Reduced to Dust: Targeting Weak States
63
4
Iraq: Destruction and Re-constitution
111
5
Territorial Integrity and Contingent Sovereignty
139
Coda: The: Spatial Extent of Sovereignty
171
Notes
179
Index
149
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
.Many of ideas were discussed with a range of other people, and some have informed jointly written pieces. Although I take responsibility for all statemenrs made here, E am especially grateful to Luiza Bialasiewic:t, David Campbell, Klaus Dodds, Steve Graham, Alex Jeffrey, Joe Painter, and Alison Williams for the experience of working ideas through in other places. Luiza generous.!}' gave her time in reading the full manuscript and made several useful suggestions. Neil Brenner was an enthusiastic and challenging interlocutor on a different bur parallel project. John Agnew, Louise Amoore, Ben Anderson, Richard Beardsworth, Lawrence lkrg, Dan Bulley, Elgin Diaz, John Donaldson, J..·lark Duffield, Jenny Edkins, Nick Entrikin, Derek Gregor)'. Engin lsJn, Kaiyan Kaikobad, Morris Kaplan, .Maria Margaroni, Eduardo Mmdieta, Claudio Minca, Mark Neodcous, David Newman, Colin Perrin, Martin Pratt, Allen Scott, Jamcs Sidaway, Jeppe Strandsbjerg, Haim Yacobi, and Maja Zehfuss all made thcir mark through instructh•c discussions. and ins.ightfl1l comments. I am deeply appreciative of Susan's love and encouragement. Jason \'(leidemann of the University of Minnesota Press offer"Cd constructi\•e suggestions, and the reports he commissioned on the initial proposal and final manuscript from Mick Dillon, Neil Smith, Matt Sparke, and an anonymous reader helped to sharpen the argumetlt and improve the prose. In particular, Mick's enthusiasm for the project r"Cinvigorated my own. The International Boundaries Research Unit and the Politics-StateSpace research cluster in the Department of Geography at Durham Uni\•ersity prm:ided conducive environments for thinking through many of these ideas. Chris Orton, of the Design and Imaging Unit in that department, drew the excellent maps in this. book. Hamzah Muzaini did an invaluable job of com•erting in-text rcfercnc"Cs to endnotes and compiling the index.
X
ACKNOWLEDC:.MEN
rs
Some of this work was funded by a Nuffidd Foundation gram, and much of the writing was completed while I was a visiting professor in the Deparcmenr of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, in spring 2007. The penultimate version of the manuscript was completed while I was a visiting scholar in the Department of Sociolog)' at New York University and at the' Graduate CcntC'r, City University of New York in late 2007. Lectures and conference presentations on these topics have been given in Australia (Uni"·ersity of Adelaide; Flinders University; University of Tasmania), Britain (University of Newcastle; University of University of Wales, AbC'rystwyth; Warwick University; Royal Holloway, University of London; Durham Uni\•ersity; Royal Geographical Society, London; Queen 1vfary, Uni\<·ersit)' of London), Canada (University of British Columbia; University of Bdtish Columbia, Okanagan), Cyprus (Uni,•ersity of Cyprus), Denma rk (Copenhagen Business School). Finland (Uni,•ersity of Turku), Ireland (British lntC'rnational Stud ies Association, Uni•;ersity of Cork), Israel (Ben Gurion Uni\•ersiry of the Nege\') , Singapore (National University of Singapore), and the United States (University of Colorado at Boulder; Association of American Geographers, Dcm·er; Uni\'ersit)' of Ca lifornia, Los Angeles; Purchase Colkge, State University of New York). The audiences in these places hclpe.d to test these ideas and pushed the work in useful directions.
INTRODUCTION
Terror and the State of Territory
In a tc:b•ision broadcast, a U.S. president addrt"Ssc:s the U.S. population. explaining air strikes abroad rakcn in response to terrorist attacks. The target was ''terror," made more con<:rc:te as fac ilities linked ro Osama bin Laden. Groups associated with the bin Laden network arc described as sharing "a hatred for democracy, a fanatical glorification of \'iolc:ncc, and a horrible distortion of their religion to justify the murder of innoce-nts," and as hating the: United States "prc:cisdy because- of what we- stand for and what we stand against. " He underscores that "'countries that pcrsistc:ntl)' host terrorists have no right to be safe have-ns," but that the actions arc- "not aimed against Islam, the- faith of hundreds of millions of good. pe-ace-loving people: all around the world, including the United States," bur rather target "fanatics and kille-rs who \\o'rap murder in the cloak of righteousness, and, in so doing, profane the- gre-at rdigion in whose name they claim to act." The-n, seeing these actions as part of a long process, the prt"Sident concludes: My fellow :\mencans, our battle agamst terrorism did nor begin with the bomb1qg ... nor wi ll it end wirh today's snike. It will requ ire strength, courage, and e ndura nce. We will not yield to this threat. "11/e will meet it, no marter how long it may take. llus w ill be a long. ongoing struggle bc:cween freedom a nd fanaticism; between the rule of bw and terronsm. \'(le musr be: prepared ro do all t hat we can for as lo ng as we must. Americ;1 is and will remain a t;Jrgct o f terrorists precisdy bec;;J usc we are leaders; because we acr to advance peace, democraq·, and bas1c human values! because we're rh e mosr open SOCiety o n and as we shown yet aga in, we take an uncompromising stand agamsr terrorism ...
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will lx no sancluary for will our J.nd o ur ........ help peopk of all faiths, m ::Ill p.1ns of world, who ro of ft::J.r \Vc will persist and will you, God bless )'OU and rna y God bless our country. 1
o ur
Tht' prt'sident was Bill Clinton, the date was August 20, 1998, and the spccific instance was the bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar as-Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7, the response was Operation Infinite Reach, in which a total of eighty-eight Tomahawk cruise missiles were sent against camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that was erront'ously thought to be making chemical weapons. Yet Clinton does not see the bombings or the response as unique: an open-ended script was clc-
IN I RODUC liON
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Yet the actions of the United States do not simply follow from these events. Depending on the perspective taken, a whole host of U.S. foreign policies provide a context for a ll this conflict and enmity. Taking a wider view, all of these incidents can be understood as responses of a kind: to U.S. support for Israd, in particular its occupation of the Gaza Strip, \Vest Bank, and the Golan Heights and its im·asions of Lebanon; to U.S. a rming of opposition to the Sm•iets in to the 1991 Iraq war and its consequences, norabl}' the continued stationing of troops in the Saudi peninsula, the impact of sanctions, and the constant bombing of Iraqi positions in the policing of the "no-fly" to the intervention and ignominious withdrawal from Soma lia in 1993; and to a host of other complicated networks and alliances with regimes across the world. This was not lost on the Bush administration, of course, which realized that U.S. policy has implications, but part of its tactics were to deny that this is the casc.4 Yet despite these complicated lineages, the "war on terror" is now often taken to begin with the events of September 11, 2001, in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. In terms of a visible event, this is understandable. In terms of sheer loss of IHe, these were greater than any single terrorist act that preceded them; however, the number of people who died as a resu lt of sanctions in Iraq following 1991, or those who died as a result of the lack of drugs that were formerly produced by the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant certain ly exceed this though Other dispersed through, rather than concentrated in, time and events, such the destruction of Grozny in Chcchyna, failed to visually register for the West due in part to the particular politics of the media. And as some have been quick to remind us, more than twice as man}' children died of diarrhea on September 11, 2001, and die every day, than died in the more-publicized events.• A similar figure is given for AIDS-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa alone.- In 2005, President George W. Bush himself put a figure to part of the consequences of his response, suggesting that a t least 30,000 people had died in Iraq since the invasion,8 while other counts have put the figures much Inevitably, these tallies risk losing sight-and losing the site-of the problem in making such muncrical ac-eounts; with accountanC}' in place of grid. Let us not forger, then, that these events arc a political, spatial, and tcmpora.l marker; yet they arc one that we give a particular significance to through our complicit}' in a construction. The shorthand of "September ll," or the more loaded "9-11" or "9111," masks the spa rial context of the events in favo r of a temporal indication 10 --onc that is reduced to a
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xvi
IN I RODUC liON
number in calendar timC' and scd:s a pri,ilcging of this date for AmC'rican pain, occluding other events on that day in this and other ye.ars." Indeed, this date has been seen as a caesura, dividing world history imo a "before" and "after." 11 Unlike the December 7.1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. which is convcnknrly referred to onl)' by a place, the lack of a single geographical site has turned the .. new Pe-arl Harbor" into a simple date. In addition, New York City and the Towers'' arc much more often noted than the other sites of the September 11 attack.' 1 Yet the of these events have not been concentrated in a single point, either temporal or spatial; there is continuit)' wel l as a breakdispersal as much as intensity. Instead, they arc in space and time, spreading across spatia l sc.a les from the local to the national and from the regional to the global. As Neil Smith indicates, this was both an .. utterly local"' and a "global e.,.cnt." But Smith's important question is, "How did September 11 become a natiouaJ tragedy?" suggesting that the targets were the World Center and the Pentagon, which arc financial and military symbols, rather than more obvious cultural, social, or political of American idcntity. 1• A whole range of media, political, and emotional responses indicated thcsc shifts. CNN, for instance:, initially uscd tl1e banner title of" America Under Attack," which they changed the following day ro "America at \Var. " 15 While there was some concentration on the national, in order to create an international coalition, the emphasis was placed at other times on the eighty different nationalities whose people died on that day. In Bush's words, "[TJhc attack took place on American but it was an attack on thC' hcarr and soul of thC' civilized world. "' 1" And, as Le Monde declared, "'Nous sommc:s rous Amfricains;• suggesting a shared experience: of suffering that transcended national boundarics. 1- The North Atlantic Trc<Jt}' (NATO) invoked Article 5, declaring d1at the events of September 11 were attacks on all members. But from these different scales of response, it is dear that these events were not. as conventional international relations scbolars bavc tried to suggest, "out-ofgeograph}'. " 18 Rather, as Derek Gregory argues, the convoluted origins "'have surged inwards and their consequences rippled outwards in complex, overlapping ways. " 19 Geography and the War on Terror
On September 27, 2001, Bush ga\'C' a speech in which he argued that standard practice no longer \'a lid and that new geographies needed to be conceived for the "war on termr'':
IN I RODUC liON
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We're J.lso a
cilJ.r is adjusring ro :1 nc=w type: of war. This isn't war thal we're waging. Ours IS a mar will have to rdkcl rhe new enemy. T here's no lo nger islands co conquer or beachhc=:.Jds ro storm. We face a brand of e\•11, the likes of wh1ch we haven't sc=en m a long rime in rhe world. These are people who srrike hide, people who .know no borden ... pc:ople who depc:nd upon m hers. And make no mismke about n, the new wo r is nor only ago i nst the: e\•ildoers, thcmseh•es; t he new war is against those= w ho harbor them them a nd feed them.N
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Bush here outlines a number of ways in which grography and the ''war on terror" intersect, in part producing a sct of circumstances thr ough his im·ocation of them. He suggests a particular set of geographies, referring back to previous U.S. \'ictories in the Pacific and Europe in World War 0, and perhaps the 1991 Gulf War, far more than Cold War events such as Vietnam, which arc perhaps intrndrd to be fo rgotten. This produces imagined and material geograph ies of terror and response, which both work in different wa)'S. On the one hand, there is the hint of new geographies of threat, where the "cncm}'" cannot be located straightforn•ardJy, where borders arc crossed and permeable. In practice, though, the geographical challenges have been reduced to solutions that fa ll back on previous ways of doing things, on a basis that is not very far from a fairly conventional poJitical geography. A clear sense of this trajectory can be seen Ln the explicit for the most direct linkage of the "'evildoers" to those who harbor targeting has be<"n of states. Indocd, Smith notes that October 7, 2001, is a more appropriate date for the beginning of the "war on terror" than September 1 t, 2001, for this is when Afghanistan was attacked and war actual!)· started.!' Yet the 1998 strikes and the 1986 bombing of Lib)•a could equally be seen as part of a broader "war on terror. "ll Geographers and others ha\'C offered man}' spatiaJ insights in their analrsis of the "war on terror. ,. This has included looking at the geographical spread of U.S. bases and mapping their interventions in rccenr }'Cars. The ideas of imperialism and colonialism have been given a spccificall}' geographical focus, and the impact on cities has been explored in pioneering ways. Other work has concerned the violent geographies of internment in sites like Guanranamo Bay and Abu Ghraib a nd the geography of e).'traordinal')' rendition. In recent }'Cars, there have also been studies of the grographic.al dimensions of issues concerning hatred and terror more gcncrally.H Not all work has been critical. A little over a year after the 2001 attacks, the Association of American Geographers (AAG) offered its own contribution to the "war on terror. '' 24 This was a book edired b}' two past
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presidents and the executive director of the AAG, and thus it sen·ed as an almost "official"' statement of the relation between U.S. geographers and the Bush administration. ln irs preface, John Marburger, who became Bush's Director of Science and Technology Poliq•, Office of the U.S. President. notes: Whcn Prc-sidem Bush introduccd rhe norian of War Terrorism, my firsr thoqghr was how a map for such a war would differ from a com•cnrional battk map. Comrentional wars are fought For territory, easily mr-.uurcd on a chart w1rh lacitudc and longitudc, but tht' fronrs in thc war aga inst rC'rrorism cover muJtiple dimensions. How can we der«r an unprotectC'd Rank in this complcx tC'rritory? How do we mcasu re progrcss?2J
Marburger goes on to suggest that geographers arc best qualified to respond to such questions. 11tis is a particular kind of geographical approach: "while technology has aided terrorism, it is to technology that we must turn for tools to counter terrorism. "l4Ttms, in this volume, which Marburger calls ''timely," the modern tools of gcograph>•- gcographical information systems remote sensing, data modeling.. and the likearc brought to be.ar on the issues. What is at stake in Marburger's claims? Leaving aside the pccuJiarit}' of his first thoughts, the core is the idea that territory, understood to be twodimensional, destined to be conquered, and easily charted, is passe, and that the "war on terror"' is more complex, more multiple, and more diverse. Dimensions beyond those of latitude and longitude- presumablr including vertkality, and potentially including virtuality and temporality-need to be taken into ac.count. Geographers c<m, on this reckoning, be relied upon to offer new insights into surve-iiJance to detect unprotected potential targets for terror, o r to provide new models by which to "measure," in a particular sense of politics, what counts as "progress... This relates to Donald Rumsfcld's 2003 memo bemoaning the lack of "metrics to know if we arc winning or losing the global war on tenor, " which later led to a Pentagon c.all for contractors to develop just such calculath·e mcasurcs. 2 " Interrogating the basis for just such claims, questions, and assumptions at the very heart of any truly critical pcrspc:.cti ve on the "war o n terroL" In a number of v.rays, the "war on terror" has demonstcated the importani:'e of Henri L..deb\rrc:'s suggestion that space is dlC ultimate locus and medium of struggle and therefore a crucial political issue. For Ldebvrc, space is not just the place of conAict, bur an object of struggle itself. It is for this rcason that he claims "there is a politics of space because space is prnirical. "lll
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Considering the interrelation of the spatial dimension of politics and the political dimensions of space provides an important, arguabl}' essential frame for understanding the "war on terror." This book approadlcs rhar topic from a very particular, yet cmcial, angle. This is the question of territory. Much of tht' work on the gt'ographical aspr.cts of the "war on tt'rror" has operated within what might be a gt'ot'conomic rt'gistcr. Matthew Sparke, for instance, speaks of "a globalist ge(}('conornics thar both builds on and buttresses the mcranarrati\'t' o.f globalization's intcgrath•e inexorability, " !t analyzing what he and co lleagues call "neolibcral geopolitics. "' 30 Neoconservatism is, on these terms, the political and military support for nt'olibrralism.>' Neoconservatism imposrs a particular political and t'.Conomic constructing a neocolonialism of "dcmocraq• promotion" and "freedom," which art' effecti\'cly ciphers for a Western model of how a state should opcratt'. Thirty years ago, Giovanni Arrighi suggested that the United States had .. freed itself from the shackles of formal imperialism, which had ended by cramping its military and financial supremacy, in order to exercise irs hegemony through market forces. " ll Yet tht' "war on terror" has demonstrated that militar}' force may be needed to shore up the financial hegemony; a shift from the "hegemon)' of consent.. to the "hegemony of forc;C. " :U In a sense, this devdopmenr was an ine,·irable const'quence of the neoconservative criticism of Clinton. While he was hoping to spread freedom and democracy through the extension of global markets, his interventions were criticized as lacking a defining logic or purpose. Globalization is thus the economic strategy, and U.S. militarism its political counterpart. Indeed, the interrelation of politics and economics is cenrral: nicely summarized by Phillips as "trumpets of democracy, drums of gasoline... Yet the aim is broader and more subrle than one that can lx: grasped by the claim that it is "all about oil.">J Rather, the project is to "make the world safe for It is therefore revealing that the conflict was portrayed by Bush as a "global war on tcrror ..- global both in its scope and in its goal. In his analysis of the "long twentieth century," Arrighi argues that there is a .. recurrent contradiction between an "endless'' accumulation of capital and a comparath•cly stable organization of political space":r Centra l to such an under!>t:lnding is rhc: ddinit1on of a nd .. rc:rritonalism .. :J.S opposite: modes of rule: or logics of power. Tc:rritoria list rulers identify power w ith rhc: c:xrc:m and populousness of rhc:ir domams, and concc:i\•c: of wc:althlcapital as a means or a by-product of the pursmt of rc:rritona l expansion. Cap1r.1lisr rulers,, in comrast, idenrif)' power with the: extc:nr of rhc:ir command O\'C:I scarce: resources
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J.nd consider acquisinorts as a J.ccumularion o f capu:al.n
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Arrighi notes how discretc logics acrually operate in relation to each othcr "within a givcn spa.tio-tcmporal contcxt,"' and that as a conscqucnce, "actual outcomes have dcparted significant!}', even diametrically, from what is implicit in cach logic conceived abstracdr."n It is this insight that David Harvey has illuminating!)' brought to bear on U.S. practicc in the current moment, drawing om the tensions bctwcen what he calls, following Arrighi, the logic of tcrritory and the logic of capita l.10 The wider economic aspccts of the "war on tcrror" have rcccivcd extensivc analysis,, and this book docs not seck to rcpcat thesc discussions. lnstcad. through a focus on the tcrritorial qucstions, it adds a cruciaJ dement: an insistence on one aspcct of the "'geo'' in the geoeconomic and geopolitical. Deborah Cowcn and Ncil Smith suggest that "whcrc geopolitics can be understood as a means of acquiring tcrritory towards a goal of accumulating wealth, geocconomics re\•crses the proccdurc, aiming dirccdy at the ac.cumulation of weaJth through market control. The acquisition o r control of territory is not at all irrelevant but is a tactical option rather than a strategic ncccssit)'· " 41 While sympathetic to this a rgument, this book seeks to dig a little deeper into the specificaiJy territorial aspects of this change. As Cowen and Smith caution, "thc ris-e of gcocconomic calculation is highly uneven temporally as wcJI as spariaJly, it is episodic, and it can never fully supplant geopolitics. ".u What this requires is an understanding of the territorial in order to recogni:z.e the relation between the ongoing geopolitics in the geocconomic moment. Territor}' itself cannot be assumed to havc remained unchanged as strategies toward it morph into tactics. lndeed, wh ile territorial acquisition may have generally become a tactical rather than a strategic goal, this docs not mean that there is no territorial aspect to state practice, or that territory docs not continue to be an object of nonstate actors. Today's territorial logic is not the same as previous imperial practices. Indeed, a complicated set of territorial and politicaJ divisions and incorporations have oc.curred over the past several ycars, the underlying structures of which bc.comc more evident if the temporal scope: is broadened berond simply the period since 2001. Yet while we should certainly rethink and examine, and be open to analysis of the ncw, we must not forge,t that the war has thus far been fought with a very conventional sense of territory in mindterritory that has bocn targeted, bombed, and invaded. This book, therefore, offers an interrogation of the territorial logic of the present, suggesting that this is a cmcia l ingredient of anr examination of
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the tension betwe-en capitalist accumulation and state-territorial constra ints a round the distribution of resources and the accumulation of wealth. Despite me importance of this ropic, as this book a ims ro demonstrate, there has been little work looking at the question of territory explicit!}'· Indeed, at times the territorial has been distinctly underplayed. AI-Qacda has often been portrayed as a dttcrritorializ.cd nct>vork rather than as operating within, between, and against existing territorial frames; while the challenges to international law have been widd}' discussed, there has been little analysis of the implications for the kgal basis of tl1c relationship between SO\'erdgnt}' and trrritory. This book S«ks to providr such a corrective angle. In addition, while mr trrm "terror" has been widd)• r mployed, mere has been little examination of what it actually is:u The definition a nd scope of terror and territor}·, and their relation to the state, require careful analysis. Terror and the State
In this book, "terror" is understood in a broad sense-from the practices of the nonstate actors traditionall}' labeled as terrorist organizations to the actions of statrs in their international relations: and from the bombs, missiles, and bullets of death and destruction to me imagined geographies of threat and rrsponsc. States drarly operate in ways that tcrrifr-.4.1 The terrorism of nonstate actors is a \'cry small proportion of terrorism taken a.s a whole, with states ha\'ing killed far more than those who oppose This is as true in thc "war on terror" as in countless othcr conflicts. For many writers; thcrdore, thc distinction is one of degree, onc of tactics, rather than a complete disassociation. This lcads to a number of pro\'Ocative formulations, which act as a spur to thought evcn in their glibncss: .. onc man's terrorist is anomer man's freedom fighter'"; "a trrrorist is s.omconc who has a bomb but doesn't ha\'e an air forcc";4" the car bomb is me "poor man's air forcc." 4 ' In his book Luftbeben: A11 den Que/len des Terrors, which litcrallr translates as "Air Tremors: At the Source of Terror," the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk argues for an analysis of terrorism from and of the air, re.cognizing thc power of aerial assault, poison gas attacks in World War I, and thc gassing of Jcws in the Holocaust. 4 ' These arc, of coursc, actions of states. He broadcns thc analysis to look at radioactivity, meteorology, pneuma to logy, and thus provides a series of analyses of how commanding the air can tcrrorizc the carth. To express this idea, he coins tlu: term "'atmotcrrorism"-a broadening of terrorism from the earth to thc atmosphcrc.4 Y Slotcrdijk's point is that many forms of tcrrorism target
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indi,riduals and groups through the air that they breathc, thus targe,ting the air itself. !o> This is what is meant by the term Luftbeben-"air tremors" or "airquake." Thcrc is indeed something different about terror that comc:-s from the a ir. There were particular fears of the bomber airplane in World War U, with the idea that there was no effective defense and that the bomber would "always get through." As Herz purs it, "the roof blew off the territorial state." 11 This brought civilian popuJations into proximity with conflict in a way that they had prc\•iously never cncountcrcd-cspcdally in countries that had not been invaded in that war, such as Britain or Japan . In the Cold War, the fear of nuclear assault and the continuing attempts to create a missile ddensc shidd spc.tk nor simpl}' of the consequences of an attack, but in part of its mode of delivery. Truck and car bombs, and suicide bombers, whose ov.'ll bodies arc the means of delivering destruction, arc undoubtedly terrifying, but barriers and wa lls can be crccred to attempt to protc.ct a state from them. Assault from the air is much harder to prevent. It is not coincidental that tv.•o of the most extreme rcsponsc:-s of the United States and its a llies in the "war on terror" have been to aerial attack: to the airplanc:-s of St:ptrmbc:-r 11, 2001, and to Hezbollah's Katyusha rockC"ts launched against Israel in 2006. And yet those state rrsponses, like most other state-terror actions. also carne from the air. The "Shock and Awe" asS
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enemies, who usc it ... ,.. \'(Fe should recall that the term " terrorism" is of rdativcl)' recent coinage, deriving from the French word "terrorisme" and daring from the system of the "Terror" in the french Revolution. It first appeared in a dictionary in 1798. It is important to note that " terror" first emerges as a tactic used b)' states, with Robespicrrc suggesting that the difference between the operations of liberty and those of tyranny is simpl}' the purpose, nor the means. "virtue, without which The combination of virtue and terror is terror is disastrous; terror, w ithout which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing but prompt, scverc, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue. " j 5 Today, though, terrorism is seen as the tactic of nonst.ates, whereas the response of states is justice or war, or perhaps a "just war. " S6 Rather:, we need to recognize that war operates- as a necessary consequence of its ver)' logic-through threats. violence, and fear. It cannot be otherwise, however "just" irs purpose. "Just war" is just war. Politics operates in the same way. In addition, the notion of a lmost unquestioning!)' seen as a legitimate tactic, and one of states, derives from the same word. "Deter" means "to frighten from," Thus, as Slotcrdijk has suggested, "terrorism is not an opponent, but a modus opera11di, a method of combat, which is immediately shared by both sides of a conflict- which is why a 'war aga inst terrorism' represents a nonsensical fo rmula."r Legally, there arc also complexities a bout the definition of terrorism. In the U.S. Code, terrorism "means premedjtated, politicaJJy motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups o r clandestine agents, usually intended to influcn(lc an audience. "·18 Therefore, terrorism is not just any violence, but that with. a particular aim in mind. It is not simply war when there arc two or more combatants fighting. but rather actions explidtl)' aimed at noncombatant targets. Under this definition, it also excludes states, since it is perpetrated by "subnational groups or clandestine agents," although special forces such as those used by the United Stares, Britain, and other states would presumably be included. The definition is further clarified in terms of their intended effect on the audicnc.c. It describes actions that "appear to be intcnded-(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian popuJation: (ii) to influence the policy of a governmenr b)' intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affe.cr the conduct of a government b)' mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping." for this to be "international terrorism,'' they must "occur primari ly outside the territorial jW"isdiction of the United States, o r transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they arc accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their
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perpetrators Opc'ratc or seck asylum." Such a broad gcographic<1l fram]ng allows almost cvcr}rthing to be understood as "international." The attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, occurred within the United Stares; they used domestic fl ights. and those involved had been inside the United States for some time, but they were clearly intended to send a message to an audience wider than simply the United States. And the United States was quick ro link and situate the auad::s ro other countries. As chapter 1 will show in more they tJms moved from a legal, domestic response to a military, international one. The pre\•ious definition of the U.S. Code described terrorism as ''the calculated usc of violencc or threat of violcnce to attain goals that arc political, rcligious. or idcological in narurc ... through intim idation, coercion, or instilling fear. "J? This clearly cncompasscs actions by states, which thc rn·iscd dcfinition docs not. The ncw .,·crsion thercforc raises issues that the: prcvious one avoided, c\•cn as it sccks to close down other issues, especially sccking to dcfinc the States' terrorism itself out of cxistcncc. The U.S. Department of State similarly limits it to nonsratc actors,110 although in 2007, the United States declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was a "specially dcs ignatcd global terrorist," despite its being an o rgan of a state. (The "globa l" aspect a llows more far-reaching controls.) In the National Mj litary Strategic Plan for thc War on Terrorism, the definition is equall)' problematic, because it could clcarly apply to states: "Extremists usc terrorism- the purposeful targeting of ordinary people-to produce fear to coerce or intimjdatc governments or societies in thc pursuit of political, religious, or ideological goals. " 61 As Chomsky puts it, the problem is that You ro find a definirion thar excludes the rerror WI! out against them. and includes Me terror that thl!)' C:Jrrr OUt US. And thar's difficu lt. People hm•c- rricd ro rrsrricr it ro subnarional groups. But rhar doesn't work because rhey want to rallc: about terrorist st:Jtes.n
T he a rgument trying to differentiate this is most dca rl}' made br Wilkinbetween the force of a legitimate state; and the son, who uiolence of an unauthorized attack or an illegitimate sta te.63 As problcmatic as this clearly is, hinging on the notion of legitimacy, the United States has a lso found itself isolatcd in relation to other stares concerning the definition of terrorism. In 1987, for instance, it objected to U.N. General Assembly Resolution 42/159, which put opposition to "colonial and racist regimes and other forms of alien dom ination" in a difft'rcnt category, with a recognition of "the legitimacy of tht'ir
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M.any states had overthrown oppression in the: name of indc:pc:ndencc, and did not wish to ddcgitimizc othe rs in similar positions. Historic<1lly, of course, such a description would fit the United States a nd its •·revolutionary war" or "war of independence" (depending on which side of the Atlantic you a rc on), but morr rocently, it would drscribc the situat ion of many of the newly independent ex-colonies of European powers in Africa and elsewhere. But in 1987, recognizing the distinctiveness of the struggle of "peoples under colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation or other forms of colonial dom ination" could be used to describe opposition to South Afric
Turning attention to the question of territory also opens up a number of questions. Territory is traditionally understood to be a bounded space under the control of a group of people, usually a state. Interestingly the term "territor}·"' is sometimes used to describe an entity that has not attained statehood. Britain a nd France, for example, have "overseas territories" as legacies of their colonial and there arc: the "occupied territories" of Palestine and \Vcstern Sahara. Frderal states operate in similar ways: Australia's Northern Territory is not a full part of the federation, whereas Canada has three territories that arc not of the: same constitutional standing as its provinces. Most states of the Un ited States were labeled territories before becoming part of the union. and man)' of its overseas possessions, includ ing Puerto Rico, retain this designation today. While the concentration here is on state territory, and the state: of trrritory, these rxamples give an important insight into the term
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itself, as territory is a precondition for statehood. Territory is a political and legal term concerning the rel ation between sovercignt)·, land, and people. A critical interrogation of the basis for the emergence of this concept within Western political thought and its impositio n on t he rest of the world is beyond the scope of this book, but some key issues can be outlined. •• The idea that political sovereignty is tied to land, and lhen to the goods, resources, and people that occupy it, is a relatively recent notion . It emerged in a recognizably modern form in the late Middle Ages, a central prerequisite for the establishment of the modern state. Controlling large extents of land from a centralized location, a capital city, with thc emergence of national economies a nd structures required a whole ra nge of contexts and techniques that were not previously available. Territory is not mcrdy Iand-a political-economic relation of property rights- although this is cle3rly important. Nor is territory simply a political-stratrgic relation, a military srnse of terra in, though undoubtedly wars a rc fought ovrr territory, a nd territoria l control is one of the indicators of success in this domain. Equally, ideas of territoriality, where control ovrr land is seen as an innate human behavior either through biological drive or social nerd, is roo diffuse a concept. It lacks specificity and analytic purchaSt' in ta rgeting the specific relation betv.'een place and powrr that is the modcm state's sovereignty over its territory. Ra ther, two other questions need to be taken into account: the law and technical ability. The legal framework for the relation between territory and sovereignt}' (from initial formu lations through early twentkth-ccnmry attempts to secure this a nd the U.N. Charter, which provides such context today, arc discussed more fully in chapter 5. T he technical issues depend on a twofold q ucstioning of the standard definition of territory as a " bounded space." \'(That is "space," and how is it bounded? Space, as understood in its narrow, specific sense, ir. a particular determination of the materia l world that arises in the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, understood as calcula ted and measurable, extended in three dimensions. Rene Descartes provides the most and he suggests that this compelling indications of how this is arrived determination of the material world means that geometry is the science that best allows us access to it. Advances in geometry at this time, such as the coordina te or anal}'ric geometry pioneered by Descartes, which uses algebra and equations, arc partnered by developments in and land surveying and improvements in the accur ate measurement of time through more advanocd docks, which allow longitude to be determined more
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boundaries arc nor a primary distinction that Thus, on this "s" "'territory" from ways of understanding control of land, but a second-ordcr problcm founded upon a panicular sense of calculation and concomitant grasp of Boundaries existed at a of spatial and at many times, yet onl)' states had particular to bound their land for political rather than just e.conomic or strategic reasons, and only when they had techniques to do so through any terrain, such as mountains, descns, or arctic ha\'e today. In other words, regions, did they assume significance only bc.come possible in their modern sense through a notion of space, rather than the other way around. A properly critical of territory to investigate the quantification of spacc and the role of calculative mcchanisms in commanding of territory, and cstablishment of In much contemporary literature, initially inspired by Gilles Delcuzc and Felix Guattad but detached from direct the term "'deterritoriahzation" is uscd. Some ha\le seen this as demonstrating the lack of weight that territory has in a globalized world. Yet, as and Guattari insist, is a continual process of tion and retcrritorializ.ation. En other words, is an ongoing and complicated rcconfiguration of spatial relations than thcir end. In mcir book A Thousand Plateaus, claim that they arc "always connected, another" and that dcterritoriaJization "always occurs in caught up in relation to a rc.tcrr itorializtion. ..,.., Indeed. they this point more forcdull}' they stress that territoriality itself is thc condiin spite of its name, should not tion for changc.b9 Yet as an argument for the of me importance of territory. Indeed, the reverse, because territory is both its cond ition of possibilit}' and, in some newly configured form, its outcome. lbe continual and reshaping of spatial relations may take on-indeed must rake fo rms in times and places, bur this is not a vision of a static world of fixed territories suddenly thrown into flux, as it is in much of the literature on dctc:rritorialization ." Rather, the analysis is closer to Neil Smith's claim: hen before 9111 and the Afgh::m and Jraq wars., before the hardemng of U.S. borders, it should have be.en obvious th::Jt wb::JteYer the power of rhc gloool, much it now opcr::Jtes through gco-cconom1c mort" than geo-politiCal calculario n-ncvcr rdinquisnes tcrmori.al defi nition. Powl'r is ncv<"r dctl'rmori.alizcd; n is spccdic to particular places. Rdl'rrrtorinli:zation counters dt"territoriahzarion at t"very turn. - 1
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This book draws on ongoing inro the history of me state of territory, and uses the particular rechnicaJ configuration of the late century as a lens through which to "war on terror." It so in a number of ways that challenge conventional political and academic -..visdom on the topic. It critically the deterritorial of al-Qaeda, with its diffuse nel\vork of contacts and operations, ytt supplements this discussion br examining the territoriaJ bases of its actions and the territorial understandings that puncture its actions and It thereshows how the evrnts in New York and Washington, D.C., were explicitly in Afghanistan, and how this trades on arguments about the of weak or failed states. h examines how particular geographie-s of fear, threat, and division play out territorial!)', within their territories and how states that arc unable to govern been recast as global dangers. is rhus a trrritorial dimension both to the imaginaries of threat and the practices of retribution. It critically examines the way in wh ich Iraq's was understood before, during, and after "major combat operations," with emphasis on the United Nations and tl1e legality of the war, as well as the process of reconstructing the country and its political system. [ t suggests that this war, the ''war on terror" in general terms, and earlier " humanitarian interventions" such as Kosovo have had a profound impact on the understanding of territory, specifically through me term "territorial integrity. '" This is concomitant to where new geographies, maps, and configurations arc Terror and Territory
The link betv.•ccn "terror" and "territory" is more than merdy coincidental. As writers such as William Connolly, Mark and Barry Hindess argued, words ha"c a complicated andl related etymology.' These concerns hinge on the Larin words that the English word "'territor)"' derh·es from. The standard claim is that .. territory" is formed from Larin "land or terrain. '".J The land or the rnrth sustains and nourishes the peoplc,"4 and even, in founding myths, ga\'C birth to them, "Terra"' as land or is the straightforward and most common definition, and territory undoubtedly bears a relation to these political-economic and politica l-strategic issues. But the actual term from which territory is directly is the Larin "'tcrritorium." The and meaning of this word itself is disputed. The
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suffix "-orium'' is uncomplicatro: it means "the place of something,'" or "surrounding something.'" The English words "sanatorium" and "crematorium," and the Latin "dorm itorium '' or "praetorium'' all work in this war: the places of he.alth, death, sleeping, or the praetor's residence. If the prefix is "terra,"' then "territorium" me.ans the place surrounding an area, such as a town: the word is derived from two "spatial "' or locational terms, "terra" and "orium.'" However the Oxford English Didionary (OED} suggests that the etymology of "territorium"' is: Unsctdcd: usually taken as :1 dcri\'lari,rcl: of terra earth, kind (to which ir was ccrminJy referred in popular Llarinl. when alrcrcd to terriitormm); but the anginal fonn lte"iJorh1m] has suggested dcri11aric:m from l!!"ere ro fn,ghten.- 1
The OED refers to two sources for this. One is Godcfroy's Dictionnaire de I'attcienne langue which notes variant spellings of the French antecedent tem1 as "territoire " (used in 1278), "terretoire" (1302 and 1303), and "terratoire" (1311). This is a term that Godcfroy describes as an "extension of land form ing a political district ......, Thc s-econd sourcc is Roby's A Grammar of the Lari11 Language, which suggests the fo rm ation of territorium may indeed derive from terrue, and is therefore "a place from which people are warned off. ..,,.,. The OED also dim:t& re-.aders to a related term, "terroir," used in the fifteenth century but now obsolctc, which was based on a French term of thc same spelling that meant either ''territory" or "soil." Similarly. the older French 'r'erb ''terrir" has a range of me.anings from the earthy "trample underfoot'" or "make landfall," "atterir," but also to frighten:s Again, there is a relation suggested lx-tween "terrere" and "'terra.'' There is therefore a possiblc direct linkagc bctwcen "territor"}"' and "terror. ,. Terror, like "terri f)•," is more nonproblematically derived from "terrere." Using this logic, "territorium" would be a place from which people a rc frightened, or where terror is exercised, as the epigraph from Pomponius suggests. As Connolly argucs, this complicate
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as debates certainly we do not need ro rdy on this suspoct etymological basis. More importantly, we can relation in practice, too. Creating a bounded space is already a act of exclumaintaining it as such require-s constant vigilance and sion and the mobilization of thre-at; and challenging it ne.('essarily entails a transgres:sion.U ldebvre dc-scribcs the modem state in these ve-ry terms: Son•rcignr:y implies "spJce," and whar is more ir implies a space against which 'riolence, whether larcnr or overr, is dirccred-a sp:Jce csrabhshed and consriwred b)' violence.... [\'cry smre IS born of violence, and srarc power endures only b)• \'irrue of violence directed towJrds a space.... A violcnc,e , and connnuous ere-arion by violent me-ans (by fire and blood, in B1smarck's phrnsc)-such arc the hallmarks of the sr.ue.i>J
This is, in part, what Etienne Balibar means by the violence of borders and the .,·iolcncc beyond Elsewhere, Lefebvre claims that "viois to political space, not onlr as an expression of (political) will to power, but due to a permanent reign of terror .... ••gs This cannot be seen in isolation from political and the of unification to the state and its States whercb)' social practice is arc territorial, ccrtainl}', but the territorial aspe-ct is not a mere container control of territory is what makrs a pos:siblr. for state action. Thus, control of territory accords a to the and its spatial Those in control of act in ways that those not in control of territory cannot is to exercise terror; to territorial To control a obscurrd b}' the workings is to rxrrcisc terror. Whilr the first is of the system, the is continually reinforced by it, in that sdf-dctermination movements the world over (that is, those that seck control of space currently held by a state) a rc The misnamed United Nations-a le-ague of states coded as or an assembly of gm·crnmrnts would be apt-is appcalro to as the of such ln 1988, for instance, U.N. Sccre,t ary General ja\•ier Perez de Cuellar described the United Nations as an organization of and said that it would be "against our philosophy to be in touch with the rncmics of The continued insistrncc of the Unitrd Nations on the idral of "territorial intcgrit}'"-that states should have their existing borders and have exclusive- sovercignry within this link, The current international s ituation, brought into specific focus in the "war on terror, •• exposes the tensions within this term. For some statc-s, sovereignty, starr violence,
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and state terror is rendered problcmaric, comingent., ycr state tcrrirory is supposed to remain unquestioned. This book therefore interrogates the territorial aspects of rhe "war on terror" twofold, both that it important territorial dimensions, which arc palpable yet underplayed, but a lso that taking territor)' into ac.count provides a scrirs of valuablr insights into t he "war" more generall}'· It rccognius that today, many people arc arguing for an understanding of political-spatial relations that gOC"s beyond territory, but it counters this suggestion by showing that it is still a crucia l component of state-spatial thinking and one that rhe international legal system still privileges. As Brenner narcs, analyses oft·c:n suggest that territory is an either/or problem, with territory either bC"ing prcscnr or absent. "Consequently, the possibilit}• that territoriality is being rC"configurcd and rcscaiC'd rather than eroded cannot be adeq uatcly explored. " 90 This book therefore docs not aim to suggest that a ll configurations of power arc nor that this .is the onl}' spatial scale of ana lysis. Rather, it demonstrates that territory is an important a nd neglected issue that demands intrrrogation. In doing so. it shows how a critical geographical perspective, informed by historical work on p
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"Terrorism cannot be reduced to circumsta nces; but neither can it be severed from them. " !U The usc of historical material. explored most fully in chapter 5, raises an importanr point. This is that the "war on terror" is taken to be an intensification of pre\'ious trends-<>ne that makes explicit what has previously been implicit. rather than making a radica l brC3k from the past. Temporally as well as spatia lly, the "war on terror" encompasses a wide terrain.
CHAPTER ONE
Geographies of Fear, Threat, and Division
Replacing Terror
It did nor take long after the e\•rnts of September 11. 2001, for the United Stares to work out who was going to pay. Flight transcripts were examined that day, and on the register for American Airlines Flight n were Khalid ai-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who were known to U.S. authorities as members of aJ-Qaeda. Even had this very obvious linkage been ltnavailablc at the time, many of the examinations of available intdligence have made clear that warnings had boen made. Ron Suskind notC'S a number of thCS(' instances and suggests that President George W. Bush had a tendency to rdy on his ability to judge experts as his basis for making key decisions. "At an eyeballto-<:yeball intdligencc briefing during this urgent summer [200 1]. George W. Bush seems to have made the wrong choice. He lookod hard at the panicked CIA bridcr. 'All right,' he said. 'You've covered your ass, now."" Gi-.,·en the way that the: nc:nts played out in the media, and given responses to prn·ious attacks, it seemed inconceivable that the United States would not respond in some fashion, and man}' expected it to lash out very quickly. Indeed, when told by Ddense Secrctary Dona ld Rumsfdd that force could not be used for retribution bur only as a pre\'entative measure, Bush said, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we're going to kick some ass."'' Other commentators joined the chorus. One of the more sober, and therefore inherently most worrying. analyses was that of Henry Kissinger, fo rmer secretary of &tate and National Security Advisor. Kissinger suggcstod that the goal was to "destroy the network": An arrock such as yesterday's requires plannmg, :.1 good organiun1on, a lot of mone)' ond a base. You cannot impro11ise
2
GEOG RAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. f HREA I. AND DIVISION
something like this, and you cannm plan Jt when you're constanrly on the move. Heretofore our rC"sponR to attacks., and understandably so, has been to c-.ury out somt" act that was s.uppcsc:d ro the scales whde hunn"g down the :1crual peopk who did ir. This, is an ::m.ack on the" territorial Unired State-s,. which is. a thrC"at ro our roc1al wa)' of hle and to our C'Xisrencc: as a frC'C' society. lr thC"rt"fore has to bt" dea lt w ith m a different wa)'-wlrh an arr;.1dt on the" system that produces lt. 2
There is a telling recognition of the logic of using preYious responses as retaliation-for example. Libya under Ronald Re.agan and Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan under Bill Clinton-which is illega l under international law. The stress on the "base" a nd the recognition that this is not an entirely mobile adversary is crucia l in terms of what actions would follm'>'. So too is the suggestion that there is a fundamen ta l difference between previous attacks and this one, which was "an arrack on t he territorial United States." Though that swiftly shifted into one which is a threat to a way of life and a society. the territoria l stress is important. Kissinger then made a number of moves. He suggested that the response should be against the "system," which he described as "a net\.vork of terrorist organizations sheltered in capitals of certain countries." The diffuse network is locatable, he argued. He bemoaned the way that existing U.S. policy maintains normal relations or docs not actively punish states that shelter these organizations. Then, in a paragraph of casual case, he dispensed with straightforward ideas of causa lity or responsibility: We do nor yt"t know whe1her Os.ama bm Ladt-n d]d rhis, alrhough it appe:1rs ro h.we r.he eannarks. of :.1 bin laden-4:ypc operation_ Bur any that shdrc=rs groups capable of th1s kmd of attack, whether or nor rhey C:Jn lx shown to havt" been m\·olved m rhis. mu!>r !XI)' an c=xorbmtnt price.l
Bush too agreed that this action had to be more than ··pounding sand," 4 criticizing Clinton's 1998 snil::cs on Sudan and Afghanistan. as well as Operation Desert Fox against Iraq. The conteA't of that time was. of course, shaped b)' the manufactured scandal around Monlca Lewinsky, with much criticism that the response was a way of ddle.cting attention from Clinton's domestic problems. This produced very different kinds of r"Cacrions. Afghans apparently began to call Tomahawk missiles "monicas."s Others saw this as a crude and macho response. But in the light of September 11, 2001, Bush claimed that it actual!)' showed "the impotent America . .. a flaccid, you know, kind of technologically competent but not vcrr tough country."' l11is was, therefore, not nearly effective enough for Bush, who
GEOGRAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. fHREA I. AND DIVISION
3
declared that "when [take action, I'm not going to fire a two-million-dollar missile at a ten-dollar empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. h's going to be decisive.... A number of mm·es were thus made. On September 12, Bus h said that "the deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war." The definition of this conflict is significanr. The sm•ercignry of the United States was profoundly challenged, and a sovereign response, a was needed. This was to brand the acts, and the response, as a rvur: either the "war on terrorism" or the (global) "war on terror." The term "'war on terror" seems to have been finally settled on in Bush's speech to the joint se-ssion of Congress on September 20, 1001. This term was deemed problematic befordtand. e The naming of this event is certainly erratic, fluctuating from a war on, or against, "terror" (a state of bodr and mind) and "terrorism" (the actions of states, groups, or individuals), and has been redc-scribcd at various times as the "long war'' and a "struggle against violent extremism. ''9 As Weber puts it, U.S. supremacy is partnered by its being "supreme!}' vulnerable, " 10 and thus it is perhaps not surprising that a demonstration of American weakness require<J a show of American strength. But war was not the only option, although it is one that has both marked the political n·ents that followed and has regularly characterized U.S. projections of its power. Indeed, in a fumbling speech made on the day of the attacks. Bush declared that he had " directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcemelU communities to find those responsible- a nd to bring them to justice," suggesting a rather differem responsc:.' 1 a judicial response had been the reaction to both the: 1993 World Trade Cemer attack and the USS Cole attack. But the very next words of the September 11, 2001. speech demonstrated bow this was likely to proceed: "we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." As Bush's sometimc:-speechwriter David Frum suggested, "with those words, Bush upgraded the 'war on terror' from metaphor to fact. "' 2 The collapsing of the disti nction between those committing an act and their spatial location enabled the move to target states, to locate: the: "war on terroL" n Regardless of the terrorists' e-stablished positions within the United States and other Western states immedia tely before the attacks. the intention was to find suitable places in ·which to respond. Sovercignt}' over territory became both a priYilege and a liabilit)•: a privilege for dominant powers who im•oke it as legitimation for self-defense; a liabilit}' for states that have nonstatc actors operating within their boundaries. As Vice
4
GEOGRAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. fHREA I. AND DIVISION
President Dick Cheney expressed it, "in some ways rbe states were easier targets tban the shadowy terrorists." 14 Even though September 11, 2001, differed from Pearl Harbor in tbat the Uniteti Stares was not attacked by a state in the former incident, it did not take long to shift thC' focus. Osama bin Laden and ai-Qaeda were named as primary suspects on September 15, 2001. and it was a short step to position ai-Qaeda in Afghanistan, although there was an immediate struggle in the Bush administration as to whether this indeed shou ld be the first target or whether this provided the opportunit)• for outstanding scores to be settled with Iraq.U A putati\•ely detcrritorializt"d thrt"at-the netv.•ork of netv.•orks of ai-Qaeda global Islamism•'-was therefore reterritorialized in the sands of Afghanistan and, later, Iraq. for Benjamin this was torrured logic: Like the drunk looking on the wrong side of the srreet for the keys he dropped on the 01her side bemuse ''rhe light 1s lxner over here" rhe United St:.ncs prefers the ir o n locate and vanquish ro the rerronsiS ir o nnor t:\•cn
In tbt" short tem1, Afghanistan was to win out in tht" U.S. search for a target, with an immediate demand that the Taliban shut down tht" terrorist training camps. Not meeting this demand left the Taliban vulnerable as harborers, a situation that is analyzed in more detail in chapter J. YC"t at the same rime as it began its plans for a foreign response, the United Stares also rcstrucmrcd its domestic spatial politics. This was the notion of " homeland security," first a policy and then later a new department of the federa l go\•ernment. 19 The Bush administration thus imposed a rigid reinforcement of the territory of the United Statc:s itself. As Gregory put it, this was ro assert the importance of "a national space," by dosing its airspace, scaling its borders, and contracting itself to "'the homeland. "20 Thus both the enemy and the home to be protected arc located, placed. On the foreign front, we have one kind of assertion of sovereignt)', where the relation between state and territory is questioned; on the domestic sidC", there is another, wher'C the increased securitization of borders is rcinforccd.1' There is thus a forced double Yet these policies, as well as the boundaries between the fo reign and the domestic, arc increasingly blurred. Yet as Brimmer suggests, "'Homeland should bc- more than just about defending territory.. .. Safety depends not only on territorial integrity, but also on 'societal sccurity.'"' 11 The idea of "social"' or "societal" security, not simply in the sense o.f prott"Cting rbe population from the conscqucnCies of illness, injury, or unemployment, but more broadly concerned witb securing the socia l body of the nation, led to a range of
GEOGRAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. fHREA I. AND DIVISION
5
legislation. Capitalizing on the bipartisan unity within tbc: United States, a grant of spe-cial powers was made to the: president on September 14. 2001. As Suskind notes, "it so happened that administration lawyers had for months been incubating theories about how to expand presidential power. "H The initiative for this espe-cially came from Cheney, who thought presidential power had been unduly limited since the Nixon era. On &ptember 14, the presidem was empowered ltlo ust" all nc-cess:Jr)' and nppropriate force: ngainst those n:1t10ns, org;miz.:Jtions, or persons he planned, nuthonzed, committed, or aided the terrorist att:Jcks that occurred on Seprember 11 , 2.00 I, or hnrbored such organiz:Jtions or persons, to prevl'nt any fumrl' acts of international terrorism against rhe United St::nes by such n:uions, org,;miz.:Jtions, or persons.M
Extc:mallr. then, the president would not be: limited. The linkage betv.•c:en nonstate groups and the: sta tes they inhabit is fomlalized. Yet Suskind notes that the: administration pushe<J for this clause to read, "to usc all necessary and appropriate force i11 the United States." This would, he: suggests, cffecti\'dy "'grant war powers to anything a president deigned to do within the United States. Senators shot that down. That would be without precedent. A resolution passcd in tbc: Senate by a vote: of 98 to 0 and in the House by a vote of 420 to 1. '" !J The passing of rhe USA PATR]OT Act prmrided a much more pcrmanenr basis for these scc:mjngl}' "extraordinary " powers. 26 Thjs act further underlines the strict scclU·itization and tcrritorialization of the U.S. homeland. Yet The Century Foundation, for instance, said more: needed to bc done: 9/11 rerrorist armcks higlllighred rhe facr th:n our borders and ocrons are nor effecrive barm:rs for rerrorisrs w ho plot ro ::mack wnhin U.S. Wl1ile Aml'ric:Jn soldiers cominue ro in conltins overseas, few sncrifkes have undertaken ro reduct" vulnerabilines ar homl'.rr
While the idea that the anacks of September 11, 2:001, wcre conducted by tcrrorists because: they hated our freedoms is palpably absurd, it has bcc:n a powerful Civil liberties group& have: pointed to tbc irony that many of the mo&t prcciou& fre-edoms of Western &ociety, such as the right not to be deuincd for extended or indefinite periods without charge or trial, ha\·c: been profoundly compromised in the responses to those attacks. These compromises have been made both at home and abroad. Many critics of the "war on terror" have: made this somctimcs suggesting that the angry response of thc West may actually bave
6
GEOG RAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. f HREA I. AND DIVISION
been part of the terrorists' intention, a nd that this brings into the open foreign policy actions that had previously been hidden a nd renders visible the repression that is part of the everyday violence of the state. As Eagleton puts it, "the more \'(festern society reacts to terrorist assault with a n answerable illegality, the more it drplctes the very spiritua l and I resources which it its.df to br protecting... 29 In this wa)', thr response is as much of a Joss as the act it is responding to. Yet as Ncoclcous has com•incingly a rgued, st'Curity is the fundamenta l category of libera l socict)', a nd the opportunity given by the attacks merely one in a long list o f rationales. 30 A number of rhrmrs rhus arise in the ways that particular geographies of threat, and division have been proposed, outlinrd, and worked through in the "war on terror." Thrsc ways of depicting a nd dividing the world arc not especially new. While there has bt'Cn no shortage of a rmchair generals drawing the maps for the "war on they arr actually trading on a much longer hcritagr, one that dates back a t least as far as the latr 1980s. Thus, this chaptrr looks a t a numbrr of ways in which the post-Cold \Var ,.,·orld has been mapped by security analysts. It begins by briefly outlining the a nalyses. of Francis. Fukuyama, Huntington, Zbignkw Brzezinski, and Robert Ka plan. It describes the territoria l aspects of the Projec t for a t'\ew Crntury (PNAC) and shows how these link into the st'Curity strategies of the Bush administration . It then provides an account of the writings of Robert Kagan and Thomas Barnett, looking at the implications of thr spatializ.ation of the world 's current gropolitical sta rr and its attendant da ngers. Finally, the chapter looks in more drtail at how Bush's. intrntion of making no distinction betv.'Ccn terrorists and those that harbor them has enabled a move to target states; how the proposition of " with us. or against us" establishes particula r geographies. of integration and opposition; and how the "'axis of C\'il"' predicates. a series of potentia l comparisons and connections . All of these exceed the straightforward binaries that they arc often assumed to entail and have important territorial implications. Not least, the conflation of terrorists with those who harbor them explicitly rcterritoria lizes the putatively dcterritorializcd threat. This leads. into the next chapter, which a nalyzes the territorial strategies of Islam ism itself. Cartographies of the Post-cold WtJJ' World
Toward thr end of thr Cold War, a whole range of academic and popular commrnta tors brgan attempts to make srnse of the politica l geographies
GEOGRAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. fHREA I. AND DIVISION
7
of the world order." 6 Tuathail has describro this as a ''geopolitical understandings no longer made and various vertigo," 3 1 where \vriters have tried to map rhis disorder. In the face of a of certaintr and a reterritorialization was needed, a new geography. Without lines of opposition, politicians and analysts alike looked for and intellectual moorings. Four of these widely discussed and criticized arc wonh noting. essay End of Histor)•?" The first is Francis Fukuyama, with fortuitous riming in 1989 .n B}' 1992, shorn of the question mark, it had expanded into a book The End of History and the Last Mau.3 l Fukurama, as is now widely known, suggesteJ Both Huntington and Fukuyama influential, althougJ1 work was subjected to criticism, both at the and since. Fukuyama became an important w ithin right-wing debates in signatories of the PNAC, an organiza1990s America, being one: of tion further discussed later in this chapter. H His theories of the supremaqr of models of economic a nd political systems a link to imposition of democracies today. September 11, 2001. and a rguablr before, H untington's prognosis has become a popular
8
GEOGRAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. fHREA I. AND DIVISION
media shorthand fo r the: conflict taking placC'.40 As Arjun Appadurai suggests: This is primord•ahsm wirh a rn acrogrographio l oose. It ignores tlte vast amount of glob:! I inrcracnon between c:ivihz.arional :1rcas, it erases regions. a nd ir deleres the di:1logucs and debarcs wirhm overlaps and hybridines. In a word, it cvacunres history from culture, leaving only geograph)'. The world appcnrs as a large seri es o f slowl)' moving culrural glacit"rs, wirh sharp c:onrr-asrs at rhcir boundanes and lirrle \'Micry within. This spanaliz.arion of culrurt', painrcd m large srrokes in the rrope of ci\'disations, a lso opens rhe door to 3 danguous c:oll3pse of relig1on., culrurc :1nd race m Hunnngron's argumenr .. . H untington's error was to conflate messenger and message and ro map inro a realist geoJ?,raphi cal picrurc of acrual, phys•this complex call:lnd masses which were st"Cn 3 S the homes of anragonisric cl\'ihzanons. Especially in the case o f Is lam, this is 3 c:osdy error b<-cause it feeds, perhaps uni nrennon all)·, rhe spanahzcd fanras it"s. that led George Bush and his ad,>lsors ro rry ro localize AI-Qacda m :\fghanisran and decimate a cell by t'r.lSing a landmass.••
Thus Fukuyama concentrates on history, or what he terms " History, " ignoring geographica l Spt".cifidty did Hcgd, a nd, a rguably. Marx, in their broad sweep accounts of human progress), whereas Huntington buys inro a modC'rn variant of geographical determinism, ignoring history, along with much else. The third of these commentato rs is the former National Sccmity AdviZbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinskj had, even sor to President Jimmy in the late 1970s, begun tile strategic proc-ess of pla nning for American supremacy, and his thinking is arguably as importa m as what happened during the Reagan and first Bush administrations in terms of shaping the geopolitical cmrironment:n It was Brzezinski whose actions had helped to fomen t instability in Afghanistan by a rming the enemies. of the pro-Soviet regime. Brzezinski had suggested to Carter that " tilis aid would induce SO\'ict military interYention" a nd t hat when thc:y d id intervene', "we can give the U.S.S.R. its own Vietnam war. Sn·cral years after leaving office, Brzezinski articulated his ideas in the book The Great Chessboard, which offered a series of cartographic representations of the new global security, which thcmsclvC's linked to a much older linC"agC' of gcostrateg)', such as Halford Jt.·t ackinder a nd Nicholas Spykman. Two of Brzezinski's rC'presemarions a rc particularly worth highlightir1g: "the global zone of percolating violencC''' 44 and " tile critical core of Europe's Sccurity. ''41 Yet Brzezinski dis misses ideas that his actions le<J to the contempora ry
.. . •.
Bm:zlzane a1 ••• pelllllll.hg--"(19!11)
-
oar ,.IliMn • ponr..yea .,,.., N\:lllmal Yllory Pion ·· ·- ftlr Ihi> WIJJ an T..ncr.IITI lr.dng
(JIIill Cl11eft. DI Sild' 21m)
Cartographies of ltle post...Cold War world
10
GEOG RAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. f HREA I. AND DIVISION
situation. He: suggests that Tali ban arc insignificant compared to ''the collapse of the Union," and that is. no such thing as "'a global Islam," but rather a whole range: of coumric:s that have nothing more in common than "Christian countries. The fina l writer to be: discussed here is Robert Kaplan. In a 1994 article, expanded into a book in 2001, Kaplan spoke of "the coming anarchy. " 4 ' What would characterize the post-Cold War world was neither a settled debate concerning political structures nor vast hegemonic blocs facing off against each other. Rather, there would be sporadic conflict, violence, and disorder dispersed across the world and lacking any significant unifying cause: or focus. Kaplan discussed what would today be called " rogue" and "weak" or "failed'' states, and this hclpcd many to make sense of the "new wars" of the 1990s in Somalia, Bosnja, Rwanda, and elsewhere. Clinton apparently had a copy of Kaplan's 1994 article faxed to U.S. embassies across the world. These ideas gained popular Cltrrenq• through the depiction of wars and U.S. interventions in films like Black Hawk Down and Behirtd E11er1ty LineJ:n Kaplan argued that there was a .. bifurcated world," part of which was occupied b}' Fukuyama's Last Jvlan, and part of which was a disintcgrated zone of Hobbesian chaos :·" \'(13r-m.aking
enrim·s will no longer be resutcred m a specific temmry ... Loose and shadowy org:.misms such as Islamic rerrorisr organisations suggest why borders wi ll men n increasingly lirrle nnd sedjmentttr)' la)·ers of rribalisric idemiry and conuol mean more.... Imagine 3 c3rrography in rhree dimensions, as 1f in a hologram. In rhis hologr3m would be rhe O\'erlappmg sc:dimc:nts of group and orher idenrit1es arop rhe merely two dimensional colour m3rkings of city-smrc:s and rhc: remaining narions, rhemsd\·es confused m places b)' shndowy rent..1cles, hovering 0\'erhead, mdtcaring rhe power of drug C:Jrrds, mafi:Js and privarc: securiry 3gencic:s. lnsre3d of borders., rhere w1ll be mm·ing -cenrers" of power, as in rhe Middle Ages. l'\'bny of rhese la)·c:rs would be in mocion. Replacmg lixed and nbrupr lines on 3 Aat spacc: would be 3 shiftmg pntrc:rn of buffer entitles. ... To rhis prorro n hologram one must add other factors, such as m1g,rarions of populations. explosions of birrh mres. vecrors of d isc:o1se. Henceforward rhc: map of rhe world ,vjJJ ne\•er be s.uric. This future map-in a sense:. rhe -Lasr .lvlap"-will be an e\'er mumring represcnrarion of chaos. 10
It is clear how much contemporary of ai-Qacda trade upon this logic. Like thos-c- readings, Kaplan made usc of a range of racist and imperialist tropes of "primitive: sa\'agc:ry" and animalistic " liberation in violc:ncc." 1 1
GEOGRAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. f HREA I. AND DIVISION
11
Kaplan's argument works in at least two tc:rritorial registers. There is a challenge to accepted territorial distinctions, where previous, borders no longer hold or prcvcnr danger. Threat spreads, ro it must be contained. In the face of this dctcrritorialization, there must therefore be a rctcrritorialization of the power of the: state. Bordc:rs neal to be protected, rdnforccd, or erected, and the apparatus of the state takes on an even more role. Kaplan has written a number of other smdics,, and has travcled across the globe, especially to "problem" areas, to im•estigatc these stiiJ further. Somc arc presented as travelogues, others as political commentary; mos,t arc a bit of both. These ha\'e included studies of places such as the Balkans, the M.iddle East, West Africa, Central Asia, and the Caucasus,u and Imperial Gmms, a study of locations whcrc U.S. troops arc dcployed.·u The chapter titles of this book bear the names of U.S. military-gc:og:raphical commands, such as CENTCOM and SOUTHCOM. Even bdorc September 11,2001, Kaplan found his influence on the \Vhitc Houst"'s thinking wouJdl continue with the new administration. Mnfson recounts how Bush read Eastward to Tartar)' at Camp Da,·id in carl}' 2001, and tbcn invited Kaplan to tbc White House to discuss its idcas. 14 In a 2006 piece cntitlc:d "'The Coming Normalcy?" on U.S. occupation in Iraq, Kaplan sees the potential for creating a scmblancc of stability through continued U.S. involvement in the: region, suggesting that "except for the collapse of Turkey's empire, thc creation of the state of and the Iranian revolution, nothing and nobody has so jolted the Middle East as has George \YI. Bush. " fl
"In Search of Monsters to Destroy"
ln the 1990s, during the two Clinton administrations, out-of-office conservatives and otbcrs began to plan for a funtrc Republican administration. Drugs, "'rogue statcs'' with weapons of mass destruction, and the instability caused b)' "failed" and "weak'' states were the llCW enemies thC)' mobilized against in their geographies of fear, alongsidc marc traditional enemies such as a rising China. Although there were a number of think tanks, the IPNAC became particularly influential. This is partly of the figures invoh·ed in its foundation, including Chcney, Rumsfdd, Paul Wolfowitz, and Zalma}' Khalilzad, who all took on major roles in the Bush administration, along with Bush's brother Jcb and former Vice President Dan Quayle. In addition, PNAC included figures such as William Kristol and Robcrr Kagan, who werc associated with tbc conscrvati•lc magazine The \Veekly Stat1dard.s• Tbcy arc traditionall}' labeled "ncoconservati,·c,'' wbicb had
12
GEOGRAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. fHREA I. AND DIVISION
originally largely bc-C"n a term used to describe a particular kind of domestic politics, but now largcl}' indicates an approach to foreign policy.>- There is a dose relation between neoconservatism and neoliberalism, with one content to operate in a political realm and the other in a broadly economic realm. Harvey has suggested that the difference of neoconservatism from nco liberalism is twofold: "'fint. in its concern for order as an answer to the chaos of individual interests, and second, in its concern for an overweening moralit>• as the necessary socia l glue to keep the bod}' politic secure in the face of external and internal dangers. " 58 If this sounds like the politics of the New Right under fo rmer British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Reagan, a program Andrew Gamble memora bly summari:z.cd as '' the this is not coincidentaL Howe.,·er, free economy and the strong state, some commentators have suggested that the term "neoconservative" is misleading, suggesting that it is used to describe a disparate group of largely unconnected thinkers and that "if you ever read a sentence that sta rts with 'Neocons bdic\'c,' there is a 99.44 percent chance everything else in that sentence will be untrue."' 60 Nonetheless, there is a certain unified purpose, par ticular ly in terms of PNAC's initial "Statement of Principles," to which many of them signed up.o• The arguments PNAC would make hark back to July 1996, when Kagan and Kristol wrme an essay for the inAucnriaJ journal Foreign Affairs entitled "Towards a Nro-Reaganite Foreign Policy. ""1 j ohn Quincy Adams had declared that America ..goes not abroad in search of monsters to destrO}', "'fJ but this essay takes the exact opposite line: America sltmlld go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. The rcason, according to this argumenr, is that the consequences of inaction arc wors.c: than war: The: alrernati\•c: is ro lc:3ve monsters on rhc: loose. ravaging and pillaging ro their hc:arrs' conrc:m.... Whar may ha,rc: been w1se counsd in I 823 (siC], when America was a small, 1solarro power in a world of Europc:nn giants, IS no longer so, w hen Amc:ric3 is me: giant. Because AmericJ. has the capacit)' to conta in or destroy many of the world's found w1rhom much sc:Jrching, and monsters, mosr of wh1ch rhc: rc:sponsibdiry for the JXace and security of the inrc:rnarional order rc:sts so heavily on America's sho ulders, a policy of sirring arop a hill and lc:3d ing by exampk bc:comc:s in pract1ce a policy of cowardice J.nd dis ho nour.fr.l
We can sec in this essay the germ of subsequent policy, in rhe idea that the United States should actively seck out conflict, dcaJing with issues that emerged as tlJey emerged, or even trying to anticipate future problems.
GEOGRAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. fHREA I. AND DIVISION
13
The geographical net should be thrown wide, as it is in the follow-up edited \'olume Presmt Danger.s.iD The aim shouJd be to spread "bcne•;olenr global hegemon>'· ''M The arguments were not simp!}' forged in oppmition, however. Thq• bear dose rdation to a text written in the last year of Bush the father's presidency. This was the 1992 "Defense Planning Guidance." The first draft of this was written by Wolfowitt and Khalilz.ad, fo.llowing an earlier review of the U.S. military after the first Gulf War, but was deemed to be too controversial.•- It was rewritten, in style if not in substance, b)' I. Lewis ''Scootrr" Libby for Key themes rrmerged in a rrport Khalilzad wrote for the U.S. Air Force.• 9 Among othrr things, the rrport urged the United States to "show the leadership nm:ssary to rstablish and protect a new o rder that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a grcatrr role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interrsts." In this, it was not mcrdy content for thr United States to be in a dominant position, but it needed to ensure that it remained unrivaled. While some of this might be done b)' persuasion that these possible rivals' rational interests would be best served by following the United States, there was a need to "discouragr them from challenging our lrndership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order ... [or) even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."71l PNAC accordingly called for the United States to recognize and embrace its unrivaled position as global leader. It proposed "a Rcaganite policy of military and moral clarit>•;' suggesting that though it "'ma}' not be fashionable today . .. [it) is necessary if the UnitC'd State's is to build on the successes of this past ce-ntury and to ensure our security and our greatness in the ne).'t. , -. PNAC a imed to provide the- intdle.ctua l justification fo r the Unitrd to usc power. both in terms of influence but also potentially its military force. But this not merely be: reactive; rather, it should anticipate and preempt problr-ms before they become fu lly realized. As they suggest in their Sc-ptemlx-r 2000 report Rebuildi11g America's De{e11.ses, .. the history of the 20th century shouJd have taught us that it is important to shape circwnstances before crises emerge, and to meet thre-ats before they becomr dire. •n Smith claimed that Henr}' Luce's famous t 941 editoria l for Life magazine. "The AmC"rican Century," masked its spatial, territorial ambitions through a temporal aspiration.-! Following this, Ha rvey has suggested that PNAC "deliberately repeats. therefore, all the e\'asions that Smith exposes in Luce's presentation. "-4 Yet Luce's piece had explicitly argued that "tyrannies may require a largr amount of li\'ing space. But Freedom requires and w ill require far
14
GEOG RAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. f HREA I. AND DIVISION
greater lh•ing space than Tyranny. "'.5 So too docs PNAC make explicit its territorial agenda. PNAC sets out to establish four core missions for U.S. miJitary fo rces: • Defend r.hc Homeland; • Fighr and dcclsl\'dy win mulnplc, ma1or • rhc "consTabulary,. durics associarcd with shaping riry t'nvironmcnr in crincal rcgjons; • Tr:1nsform U.S. forces ro cxploir rhe ··re,•olurion in mllimry
wars; se
Thr spatial imaginary of these propositions is pronounced. PNAC says that the aim of the United Statrs should be to "sr.('ltre and expand zones of democratic peace; deter rise of new gre.at-power competitors; defend key regions; exploit transformation of war.''- During the Cold War, there was the potential for a "global war across many theaters," but now the preparation has to be for several "potential theater wars spread across the globe,"' which may need to be fought against "separate and distinct adversaries pursuing separate and distinct goals ... U.S. troops therefore need be present "in critical regions around the world" as "the visible expression of the extent of America's sta tus as a superpower and as the guarantor of liberty, and stability.""'ll This "cx:pande.d"' understanding of U.S. security means that its forces "provide the first line of ddense in what may be described as the 'American security perimeter' ... [which] since the collapse of the Soviet empire ... has expanded slowly but inexorably. " 80 Thus "the cavalry on the new American frontier ... must be positioned to rdle.('t the shifting strategic landscape. " 81 Thus PNAC's ana lysis trades on demems a lready found in Fukuyama, Huntington, and Kaplan, among others. The United States needs to ensure that a common defense and security policy in the European Union docs not weaken U.S. influence, and that the rise of China is a peaceful one. nercfore. certain (probably more subtle) forms of power need to be used in those areas that arc already part of a network of global, political, and economic cooperation. Other forms of power need to be used in those places requiring intervention. These arc variously described as "'threats,"' as "zones of instabilit)•,"' as " rogue states," as. "states. of concern," and as "globa l hotspots." Thry must be targeted and dealt with, both to soh·e those problems and to ensure that they do not spread chaos or disorder to the a lready-existing zones of economic cooperation and democratic pcace. This now becomes a new narrative to make sense of U.S. forrign policy since the demise of the So\•iet threat. Rogue states, the "'war on drugs," and militant Islam can be scripted into a coherent story. u
GEOGRAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. fHREA I. AND DIVISION
15
The influence that PNAC had was astonishing. As Irwin Stelzer suggests: At irs peak, PNAC had four
and an
budgn of about
$400,000. Irs imdlectually congenial :\mc:riC::Jn Enterprise lnstltllrc: has sixty-h\'C: scholars fellows and annual of about $ 18 million. The smaller Hudson Institute l which I Opc'mtc:s df«rivd)· with a budget of less than !8 milhon. The: more: libc:ml mamstream Brookmgs Institution has about 150 scholars, an endow$200 miJhon and an :utnual budget in the neighborhood ment of of 540 million. Add ro that the: enormous budgets of rhc: lefr-lc.1 ning incl uding Harvard's John F. Kennedy School-the ho me: of ol power" alternative to neocon policies-and we have: a tffi1moniaJ m of IQ and to trump the: superior financial resources ol their polrtical opponents.13
This is, of courst", disingenuous. The number of figures associated with PNAC that had been members of tbe Reagan or the first Bush administrations a nd the number that would take up offic.e with tbe administrations of the second President Bush demonstrate that it is not merely a question of cmployet"s and budgets. Rather, the relations arc closer to what William Connollr has described as " the evangclical-capiu list rt"Sonance machine," a series of networks and contacts that arc often informal, rarely explicit, and emergent and resonant rather than straightforward ly cfficicnt.84 Indeed, PNAC reali:z.cd tbat they were unlikely to immediate!}' affect foreign polic}', noting that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalysing event- like a new Pearl Harbor. " 1 3 PNAC was not content simply to shape the intdle..ctua l climate of foreign policy discussions. Rather, they urged the United States to intervene actively. In 1998, for instance, they signed a letter to Clinton suggesting that he act decisively agai nst the threat Iraq posed with its weapons of mass destruction. This was a question of ''the most fundamental national st"Curity interests of the country," and they exhorted bim not to "accept a course of weakness and d rift"' that ·would "put our interests and our future at risk.''8 " Following the election of George W. Bush in late 2000, thqr had a more re.ceptiYt" government-inde-ed, \Volfowitz wrote tbt" 1998 letter- and September 11, 200], provided the "catalyzing evenr." On October 1, 2001, " An Open Letter to the President," published in The \Veekly Staudard and signed by a lmost a ll the key PNAC figures not actually in tbe Bush administration, urged a wide approach. 8 " They suggested that captuJ·ing o r killing bin Laden and destroying "his network
16
GEOG RAPHIES 01- F-I:AR. f HREA I. AND DIVISION
of associates" should be "a key goal, but by no proposed next step was Iraq, suggesting that:
the only goal." Its
E\ren 1f evidence- docs not link lrnq dirccrly ro the au:1ck, any strarcgy aiming at me emdication of rcrrorism and 1rs sponsors musT include a determined dfon ro rcmo\•e Saddam Hussein from power m Iraq. Failure- ro undermke such an dfon w1ll consrirure an early and perhaps decisl\'c surrender in me w:1r on intcrnarional rerrorism.x1
This was closely followed by the urging of action against Hcrbollah and its "state sponsors" in Iran and Syria, and a rdusal to assist the Palestinian Authority until they "put a stop to terrorism emanating from territories under its control and imprison those planning terrorist attacks against IsraeL "n It also urged large increases in defense the enlisting of other countries' aid, and economic and financial measures. An open-ended script for the "'global war on terror'' was dearly c-twisagcd. Rumsfdd had urged his staff to "Go massive. Swee-p it all up. Things rdatcd and not," suggesting a grand narrative for future US. policy.90 Bush had declared to Congress on Septembe r 20, 2001, that "our war on terror bcgjns with al Qacda, but it docs not e-nd there. It wiJl not end until every terrorist group of global rcach has bc-cn found, stopped, and defeated. ., Against Adams's warning. this was an open call to find monsters abroad continually. This is positioned not as a choice, but as an injunction. Ddensc budgets arc justified because of these enemies; enemies must be found to justify these defense budgets. As Chcrnus notes. "since we must live in monsters must always be found to threaten our 1 a constant state of terror and national security. '" ' This is intentionally ambiguous in terms of its aim, allmving the- Unite-d States to launch new attacks or declare victories at will. No e-xternal means of validation exist. Even broadl}' sympathetic U.S. commentators have found fault with the broad scope of these policies. A report for the Century Foundation, headed by Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism chief to both Bush and Clinton, suggeste-d that should be clarity that the threat is not 'te-rrorism,' or C"\'en all te-rrorist organizations, but rather the jihadist groups who seck to hijack Islam and usc violence to replace existing democracies with theocracies."1'2 On some level this makes sense:. YC"t, looking closer at the- states under threat demonstrates something rathe-r difbcnt. the states being opposed by Islamic movements actually democratic? Iran is suggested to have been a successful takco\•cr, along with conte-mporary challenges in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pak istan, and lraq.9 l We might add Indonesia and othe-r states in Southeast Asia to this list. To what c.x.'tcnt arc- any of these actually There arc partial
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exceptions in certain periods of Pakistan's history, and an optimist could try to argue the case for Iraq today, but Iran under the Shah was unq ucsrionably a dictatorship, and Egypt and Saudi Arabia fail ro meet man)' "Western standards" today. Yet they do share one key criterion, which is that they art' U.S. allies, dependent on its aid and armamt'nts. In the 1990s, Kaplan outlined a world where oldt'r, more traditional canographics of S<:curity arc thrown into question by chaos and disorder. This has been a dominant understanding ever sLncc, and has been used to makt' sense of the post-St'ptembcr 11 world. In a ..,·aluablc anal}•sis, Emmanuel Todd t'Xposes tht' "myth of universal terrorism" and shows how the: media have bCt"n complkit in the construction of "the image of a world organized by hatred and ravaged by 'r'iolence, a world whert' the massacre of individuals and whole peoples occurs at an accelerating Yet while the threat is geographically diffuse, source locations can be continually found. This is through the linkagt' of thrt'at to states, whetht'r in themselves or as "harbors" or "safe havens." The U.S. National Military Strategy makes this explicit, in that it "will work to den)' terrorists safe ha\'t'n in failed states and ungoverned As chapters 2 and 3 will show, the usc of the term "safe haven " is revealing here, as it parallels idt'as of humanitarian safe spacc:s.116 Such language was pronounced throughout the strategies published by the Bush admin istration. StrategJes agaJnst "Contagion" One of the dominant ..,.,•ays in which the problem of terrorism has been dt'picted has bct'n through metaphors of disease andl infection. Kaplan's "shadowy tentacles" and "ever-mutating representation of chaos" give war to ideas of breeding and swarming. Bush suggested that "ddeating the militant network is d ifficu lt, because it thrives, like a parasite, on the suffering and frliStration of Blair declared in a spcrch to the U.S. Congress that: The r.hrc::Jt com5 b<:causc:, m another JY.lrr of rh.c: glob<:, dtt'rc: is shadow :1nd d:1rknc:ss wht'rt' not allrhc: world is frc:e, whc:rc: many millions suffc:r under brurnl dicurorship; where: a rhird of our planc:r li v5 in a pO\'C:rr)' beyond anything c:vc:n the poorc:sr in our socieries c::m imagine:; :1nd whc:rc: :1 f:Jnntical stm in of rdig1ous c:xtrc:mism h.as nrisc:n, that 1s a mmation of rhe true: and pc:acdul faith of Islam and beca use: in the: combination of thc:sc: afAinions.. a new and dc:adl)' virus has c:mergc:d. The: virus is rc:rrorism, w hose: inum ro inAict destruction is uncons.trainc:d by human fcdml?,; and whose: C:lJY.lCity to mflicr It is enlarged by tc:
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This 1s a that can't be fought or won only by annies. are so much more in ::111 con\'enriono l ways the even in a ll our might, we ore taught humiliry. In rhe end, It is nor our power alone that w1ll ddeat this evil. Our ulunl3te weapon is not our guns but our bebefs.YI
This ".,·irm"-a "strain,"' a " mutation," "these afflictions"-is one that needs medical operations to erad icate. Richard N. Haass, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations and previously director of policy planning in Colin Powell's Stare Department as well a member of the Carrcr, Reagan, and George H. \Y.l. Bush administrations, has elaborated upon this at length: :\norher way of looking ar the challenge is ro view international terrorism as analogous to a terrible, lethal ' 'irus. Terronsm hves as pan of the environmem. Sometnnes dormant, somerimes it is always presem in some form. Like a virus, international terrorism respects no boundaries-moving from country to coumry, exploitmg globalized commerce and commumcarion to spread. h can be panicularl>· malevolent when it can find a suppornve host. therefore need to rake appropriate prophylactic measures or home and abroad to pre\·ent terronsm from muJtipl>·mg a nd check it from infecnng our soc1eties or damaging o ur Li·ves. \Tie need, for instance, better border control regimes and improved international counrenerronsm cooperanon across rhe board. We also need to make sure th:u the does not mutate inm somethmg e11en deadly through the acquisition of nuclear, bJOlog1cal, or chemical wc:o1pons of mass desrrucrion_ The cha llenge of terrorism is thus akin to fighring a ' 'irus Ln that we can accomplish a grc:-.ar deal but not eradico1te the problt<m. can take steps ro pre\renr rt, protect oursel\·es from it, and, when an outbreak occurs, quar.annne it, mimmiz.c: rhe dnn1::1ge 1r inAicrs, and attack it with .all our power_ the ultim::ue goal of our campa1gn is progress sm:cc:ssrs. Patienc,e and through the steady accumulation of persistence wiJJ be rhe warchwords for this campaJgn _Y!
Others. have spoken of "the h}•dra of jihad." 100 though Benjamin and Simon quote an unnamed Pentagon official who suggested that although ''they keep likening [ai-Qaeda] to a snake .. . it's more like a dcadlr mold."'' 0 1 For Ruthrn, trading on Mao's remark that communism was a fish that needed "sympathetic waters." "'terrorism can be likened to a pest or a parasite, such as the mosquito, which needs stagnant waters or a swamp to breed in. Drain the swamp. clear t he waten, and the threat will be reduced, if not climinated"'' 102 With regard to Iraq, even one of the prowar
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commentators admitted that there was always a danger of "crc•ed sim ilar language. Chomsky has suggested that U.S. fuiiUic in Afghanistan has "spread ai-Qacda all over the world, like a c
11, 20Q1.10S Since that date, the United States has published a series of strategies that outline its vision of response to this threat. There have been security, defense, military, counterintdligencc, and homeland sc-eurit)' strategies, and strategies to combat terrorism and weapons of mass Many of the ideas have a direct lineage to the writers so far d iscussed, and at times straightforwardly adopt PNAC phrasing or ideas. In the preface to the National Semrit)• Strategy, Bush dcclarc<J: In a world th:u is safC", pc:opk will bC" abiC' to make: rhc:ir own li\'C'S bcttc-r. We- will ddc-nd the: by figtuing rc:rrorisrs :md tyrams. We- wi ll prc-sc-r\'C' the: pe-ace- br building good among rhc- grc-:u powe-rs . We- wall c:xtc-nd rhc- pc-act." by e-ncouraging frC'
Pc.acc is here seen both as an achic\•c:mc:nt but also something territoriall}' defined. Some parts of the world arc at peace and should be defended and preserved; other parts of the world need pcaoc extended to them. oQJ Integration is about geography as much as values, democracy, and capitalism. Bush's preface similarly sees the interconnection of a world. Russia is seen as a partner politicall)', economically, and in the struggle of the "war on terror." China is seen as making economic progress, with a hop<' and expectation that "in time. they will find that social and political freedom is the only source of national greatness." io-> But the key claims arc those that arc unsurprising given prnious rhetoric: The- Unite-d Srarc:s of America is fighting a wa r ag,ainst tc-rrorisrs of global rC"ach. The: C'nC"m y is not a sanglc: rc:g,imc- or pe-rson or re-ligion or ide-ology. The: e-ne-my is tc:rrorism-prc:mc:ditarc:d, violence- pc:rpc-rrarc:d agamsr innocc-nrs .. . no c<Just." justlhC'S
20
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terror. The United Srnres will make: no con.a:ssions to rc:rro ris r demands J.nd srrike no deals with th em. We make: no disrincrion berwc:en terrorists ond those who knowmgly h.arbor or provide a id to
In addition, there is repetirion of the argument that prc,rious boundaries arc blurred: "Today, the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs is diminishing. In a globalize-d world, e¥ents beyond America's borders ha"·c a greater impact inside them ... ,., The Strateg)' for Homeland Defense aud Civil Support is even more explicit that the United State-s can "no longer mink in terms of the 'home' game and the 'away' gamc. Therc is only one gamc." 112 For Cooper, this is a dircct cons.cquence of globalization, which has eroded "the di:stim:tion between domestic and foreign events," and thus makes interference- that used to take place only in "unusua l circumstances" more common. 113 At least two moves arc being made here. The first is that "home" needs to be treated as "away;• to recognize that threats can come from within the continental United States rather than simply from outside. This is in part a recognition of the failures of September 11, 2001. The second is that "away'" needs to be treated as "home."li1e United States needs to recognize that the rest of the world is as much its concern as the fifty states; it needs to securc and exrcnd the zone of democratic peace and globalized markets and pursue strategies of integration and, where necessary, intervention. Other claims from tl1e stratcgies will be cxplorcd in more detail dscwhcre in this book: the continual invoking of the we-akness of some states and their inability to dc.al with nonstatc thrc.ats in chapter 3, the particular references to Iraq in chapter 4, andl the wide-r territorial and sovereignty issues in chapter 5. To make sens.c of the situation the Un ited States currently finds its.clf in, some commentators have tried to fuse clements of the Fukuyama, Huntington, and Kaplan analyses. Some parts of me world share a consensus about the way to organize themselves politically alld economically, while others do not. Some parts of the world arc thus open to U.S. trade and sympathetic to its politics, and hence pose it no threat. The European Union is clearly parr of the same system, even if it fails to understand the United Stares and its role in the world. Parts of it might support the United States, whHe other parts may not-Rumsfcld's division between "old" and " new" Europe being one attempt to label this.' 14 Other parts of the world (such as China) arc broadlly congruent in terms of contemporary interests, c..·en if they may well be a mrc.at in the future. China is playing a long game. Other parts of the world arc full of chaos and disorder. Elements of this kind of analysis can be found in the writings of PNAC cofounder Robert Kagan, who suggests an incommensurable differcncc between the
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United States and the European Un ion in terms of how ro deal with the contemporary global situation. 11 5 The European Union has moved into a "post-historical paradise," insulated from events ar1d llOW existing in a kind of Kantian "perpetual pcaoc." The United States, by contrast, has to operate within a wild Hobbesian world, one of perpetua l war, and remains "mired in history. "''h Kagan suggests that Europe is unable to act and as a consequence sees war as undesirable, but it is at least as likely that the reverse is true: Europeans have reduced their armies bec<Juse of their lack of appetite for conflict. For Kagan, though, the United States and Europe were dfectivcly oc.cupying different worlds, in terms of their perception and response. The United States needs to intervene in the chaotic parts of the world pre.cisdy to secure and ensure the European model of thC' future. Because of its particular role in these areas, the United States is forced to operate outside the law, and the European Union should not impose its unrealistic moral and political standards on it. As he puts it, "among oursch•es, we keep the law, bm when we arc operating in the jungle, we must also usc the laws of the jungle."..- This move is a clear indication of the logic behind U.S. securit}' strategy and practicc. 118 A further anal)•sis is the suggestion of a "'connected" and "disconnected" world under globalization, an imagined geography where reonomic disconnection is ,·iewed as a securit}' issue-a threat. Although the relation between the globalized \'(fest ar1d the noll-integrated rest of the world can be viewed quite differently, such a division has important geopolitical consequences. Take New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, on the one hand: If one rhing srnnds our from 9111, it's fact that the tcrrorm:s onginart"d from the least globali7-Cd, Lr-asr leasr in regrated corners ol the world: in namdy, Saudi Yemen, :\fghanisran, and nonhwesr Palnsran.'"
In contrast, the: official 9/11 Commission concluded: Amt"rica stood out as an objt"Ct for adm1ranon, l"rt V>', :md blame. Th1s created a kind of cultura l aS)'IJlmerry. To us, Afghanistan sc:cmt"d very far away, To mc:mbt"rs of al Qaeda, Amc:rica sc:emed ver)' dose. In a sense, rhey more globalized than we wcrc.llJI
Although they differ on this point, both arc intent on inscribing a particular geopolitics of division. one that functions tC'rritorially. Friedman, especially in his best-selling book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, ' 21 offers an account of the globalizrd world where everyone desires a Lcxus, compared to people fighting over olive trees . The world of tradition is
22
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as backward to globalization.•ll olive arc a but they particular symbol of the Palcstinianllsracli conAict, of arc a lso about territory, who controls the resources of sc.arc,e and ferti le land, and the division which the Israeli wall or has marked more clcarly. m A similar logic is found in Friedman's 2005 The World Is Flat,' 2• which suggots not that the world is not round as much as it is not vertically stratified. This ideal of world as flat or kvc:l is both description and prcs<:ription. where those \'ertical that remainbarriers in all senses-need to to aid the free flow of ideas. And yet some barriers-notably those that might terrorismwill either remain, be or bui lt. The 911l Commission report dissents from some of Friedman's analysis of the extent of gloto balization, but it agrees that it presents new threats and allows more rapidl}'· of these ideas is found in the work of Thomas The most detailed Barnett, fom1cr director of the New Rule Sets Project at the U.S. Naval College, and then Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Department of Defense. In an initial and then a book-length he discussed what he called "the new map. The map shows a world with a "'functioning and gap"; that is., those countries that share American values and can seen as part of a globalized world, espcciallr the global economy, and those that do not share those valuo and arc not part of the global system. In this map, places unconnected to global "disconnection defino danger," in that systems arc the places where problems will arisc.•J.o Barnctt provides two claims: one is a picture of the globe's maps of the world ro illustrate over the physical gcograph)' in two halves, with a dark "stain'' and north and south to \'arious discenter, across the tances, taking in the East, Asia, and the Balkans; the is a map of locations where inten•ention has taken since the of the: Cold War. intcr.·cntions include both combat and peacekeeping missions and a range of operations between them. Around these" a dotted line is drawn-a lasso around the problems of the world. stain and lasso enclose the same areas. Barnett sars that this map makes of the strategic incoherence of the: Clinton years- the various in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. It fits with the initial deployments of the "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Iraq, Somalia. Yemen, and Lebanon and hdps understand and predict the future. It bears rdation to the ideas of Brzezinski. These serve an purpose and fit a wider strategy. While they reactions to particular states of affairs, they a lso part of
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a wider picntre, the rc:alizarion of "'the opponuni[}' to make globalization truly global. "' 127 Barnett thus claims that the aims of the "global war on rerror" and the doctrine of prccmprion are part of a wider project and should be "!mbordinatcd to the largcr goal of spreading economic globalization around the planet." This new grand strategy of integration into globalization's rule sets is the "historica l successor" to the Cold War strategy of conrainment. 1l.8 States that fai l to pla}' "by the security rules we hold dear-like 'Don't harbor transnational terrorists within your territory' and 'Don't seck weapons of mass desrruction'" 'l.\1-require intervention. Their sovereignty is no longer absolute but nrcessaril)' C"Ontingent. The wider lessons and "9/H was an amazing gift-gs benefits can now be seen more twisted and crud as that smmds. [t was an invitation from history, albeit one: with a horrific price tag." 130 This is the momcnt of the creation of "a new international sr.curity order, .. 131 and the actions of the Bush govcrnment need to be seen in that contcx't. The stratcg)' is one of not just "growing the Core but shrinking the Gap as wcJl": otherwise. the problems will spread from the gap to the corc."l U.S. interventions in iraqboth in J99 J and 2003-and Afghanistan were not interstate conflicts, bur were dfr.ctivdy tl1e United States acting in the interests of the "international community."' While rhe confl icts may be personalizedL-Saddam Hussein or bin Ladcn- Bamelt claims that "the danger isn't a who but a where. " UJ Yet this is not a problem area that can be contained, because it is not that there is an inside and an outside, but rather a gap inside, in the intrrior. The only option is to reduce the gap. This is a strategy that will e-qually take time: "Since there is no cx:iring the Gap milirari ly, there is no such thing as an exit strategy... IJ.I Like Kagan, Barnett sees a distinction between the Kantian world of "perpetual peace" and the Hobbesian state of nature as chaos. The Kantian world is that of thr core: the Hobbesian world is the gap. T hur. the United States, although part of the cor'<= itsdf, "'ncc:ds special consideration for the security roles it undenakes inside the Gap. In dfcct. we don't want fellow Core members appl}ring their Kantian rule sets to our behavior inside the Hobbesian Gap." The justification is both that the United States is "globalization's godfather, its source code, its original model," 134 but also rhat nobody dse is willing to risr to the challenge. The United Nations is "toothless," Russia "feeble," Europe "barely united,'' and China merel)' "rising. '" 3 - We thus have a gcographically separated world: part at "'perpetual peace," part in a state of "perpetual war." As well as providing a new cartography of conflict, Barnett suggests that we need a new Pentagon to go along with this new map," effc.ctivdy requiring "t:v>•o militaries: one
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to figh t wars and one to wage peace. " 138 OncC' more trading on metaphors of disease and cure, Barnett suggests that the situation is stark: One of us musr die. Eather t he Core :.usimii;U(S the Gap, or the Gap divides the Core. Either lhe forces of connecoviry pre\•ail or rhe dictarors of disconnenedness mr1ve. This cancer either spreads or we exrerminare it. There as no t":Oting the Gap; there is only shrinkang rhe
Barnett has developed the claims of his book furthe r in what hC' calls a Blueprint for Action.'.w These ide.as arc revealing in terms of the geopolitics of the "'war on tcrror"-the spatial imaginary of spreading libera lism, Bush's "freedom on the march," and Barncu's vision of imcgrating the world, of shrinking the Gap. 141 The "With" and the "like'" Bush's speeches immC"diatdy aftcr Scptcmbcr 11. 2001, made it clcar that thcrc would be no distinction made, nor entertaine-d, betwccn those who committed acts of terrorism and those who supported them: America has a message for the nations of the world. If )'OU harbor terrorists, you are terrorists. If you rrain or :urn a rerrorisr, you are a terrorisc If you fet"d a tt'rrorist or fund a tt'rronsr, you'r<" a rnrorist, and you will bt" hdd accountable: by the Uni ted States and o ur friends."!
Lines have dcarlr been drawn hcrc. As a number of the pronouncrments analyzed in this section makC' clrar, Bush's administration wanted to demarcate, to establish clear guidelines for action and criteria for cooperation. Yet the lines drawn in these speeches arc not nc.arly as straightforward as is sometimes claimed; nor arc thrir effects so easily policed. ThC' claim of making no distinction bctwern thosc who acted as terrorists and those who harborrd thrm was, in parr, Bush's own. The previous draft had rcfcrrcd to those who permitted, tolerated, or encouraged them.•.u Thus, for some, this principle is thc Bush Doctrinc. 14<1 For the la\\'}'Cr Michael B)•rrs, this has become part of customal'}' international a dcepl)' worrring o utcome. Yt"t rhc: policy of not harboring terrorists is longstanding in U.S. foreign policy, with the Unitcd Statt"s abstaining in a U.N. censure motion against Israel's bombing of Tunis (where the leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization were in exik} in 1985, a lthough the administration had joined the rest of the U.N. Secur ity Council in condcmning thcl r earlier bombing of the Osira k nuclrar reactor in Iraq in 198l.'.u Terrorism and nuclcar proliferation- at that time, and in a complic.ated set of a lliances between Israel and Iran, and between Iraq
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and the United States---seemingly called for diffnent responses.. Reagan's. secretary of state, George Shultz, had daime
The global pretensions of the United States will be rrturned to throughout this book and given particular focus in the com:lusion. But the kqr point is dear: the United St ares must prote.ct its own tcrritory and sovereignty at a ll costs, which necessarily wi ll require it to sec territorial sovereignty everywhrre else as cntird}' contingent. Wolfowitz pledged that "it's not just simply a martcr of capturing people and holding them accountable, but rrmO\'ing thc sam:tuaries. remm•ing the support
26
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systems, ending states wl10 sponsor terrorism. "•sz Once again, then, it allows the mo\·e to target states, such as Afghanistan, [raq, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, and Sudan. Bm it also demonstrates a crude equation of the dissimilar. A process of cooption, connection. and incorporation of disparate dements into a unity that can then be dealt with in a s ingular way, or a process of comparison. This tactic is something that characterizes some of the other fundamental phrasing of the "war on terror" lexicon, beyond that of making "no distinction'' between terrorists and those who "harbor" them. Two seemingly straightforward words-''with" and " like"-function as mechanisms of incorporation and integration. ]f we pay attention to how these words actually function in a couple of speeches by Bush, we challenge the idea that the "war on terror" is predicated on straightforward binaries. The first of these words is "with." ]n a number of speeches, but notably in the September 20, 2001, spcc.ch to Congress, Bush made the judgment that "either }'Oll arc with us, or }'Oll arc with the terrorists." He returned to it at various times: "The doctrine that says, 'Either )'Ou're with us or with the enemy,' still holds. It's an important doctrine. It's as important today as it was 13 months ago." m Many ha\'e been quick to sec this as a straightforward dh•ision into two camps. Arjun App.adurai, for instance, sees this as a way of turning the world "into a list of supporters and detractors, ayes and nays, supporters and opponenrs of what became the names of an ominous global enemy: terrorism, terrorists. " 1·14 For Domke, it was an "archetypal example of an either/or construction of rcality."'ss Domke suggested that "the Bush administration offered a conception of political reality that emphasized binaries, an unbending form of thinking and language that people, institutions, behaviors, and ideologies into opposing 'camps. "' 11" Indeed Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York_ turned this phrase into a more straightforward division when he dcdared: There is no room ior on rh.c issue of terrorism. You're either with el\•iliurion or warh te.rrorasrs. On o11c side as democracy, rhe rule of I::Jw, respe1:r for human Iife 0 011 the other is l)'l"::l nny, arbiuary ex«utaons, murder_ We're right and rhey're wrong. h 's as simple ::1:s
Bin Laden's October 7, 2001, pronouncement on a ·world di,·ided between faith and infidclit}' also suggests such oppositions. 1ll The idea of "us" and "them" in the "war on terror" has therefore received some careful anal)'sis.m and the media a rc undoubtedly complicit in the production of this particular vicw.••0
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27
The idea of a dear divide of sides would appear to leave no space for indecision or an active decision of neutrality. For Byers, "it obviated a central aspect of state SO\'ereignty-thc right not ro be involved-and rocast the United States as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong."'"' Some nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations thought that this kind of formulation denied them the independent space that they traditionally attempt or claim ro operate within.••l For Chalmers Johnson, it was clearly intended to resonate, for at least some of Bush's audience, with the Bible verse Matthew " He: that is not with me is against me."' •u Domke has suggested that Bush's "consistent rhetoric about the 'war on terrorism' being a divind)• ordained undertaking forced political opponents and the public into an undue position: they were either with the Bush administration or aga inst God."' 104 for Benjamin and Simon, this requires us to decide "whether we want a strategy for this conflict or a theology.''••s Yet it is a more phrasing than generally acknowledged, and we: should nor find binaries where are there arc none. To Bush, it is not simply "us versus them," but us, a of operating alongside, or, in the words of Blair, "shoulder to shoulder.,.,..., It thus demonstrates a more subtle set of divisions and incorporations than is general!)' acknowledged. It is offering at le-ast three terms: us; those "'with" us; and those '' not with" us. Standing "shoulder to shou lder" with Bush docs not form a unity, in that they become part of a collective "we"; rather, it seems to be about incorporation, or integration-a bringing together. In some respects, there is a theological resonanc-e, "with" as a communion, literally coming wgether.••- The rdated phrasing of "'with the terrorists" introduces another term, although the distinction between ''the terrorists" and those "with" them is deliberately much less finely drawn. Much has been written about the notion of "we" as the fint-pcrson plural pronoun of indefinable extent. \'(fho is included and who is excluded? But here1 there is not simply a cooption, in that Bush's "we'' or ''us" begins to include others that might previous ly have been excluded. Rathcr, thcre is a "we'' that refers clearly to the United States }'Ct remains nebulous and questionable, and then a diYision of evcryonc clsc in terms of their relation to that first term. The "with" or the "against" in this phrase functions as means of association or disassociation with an unproblematicall)' defined first term. To be seen "'with"' something dse. most essentially as a mode of being alongside or being together is a complicated issue, cspcciallr when worked through in terms of a political community. How do indi\ridual discrete units-proplc or states, for instance-first get posited as discrete, and then how can they be grouped together so that they can
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lx treated as a whole or a unit? In other words, bow can things be made sufficiently similar (if not the same) in order that they can be summed and aggregated? It is only when there is sufficienr simiJarity to allow comparison that there can be difference. tt.J We would do well to remember here that identity and differ'Cnce arc not opposite terms, but that d ifference is the play between the opposites of identity and non-identity. It would be unfortunate if identity/difference became the new binary. Endorsing and reversing Connolly, tbere is no identity without difference; there is no difference without identity. In terms of the notion of "against" and opposition, what exacrly docs it mean to be against something? Is it that something is so dissimilar that a process of comparison becomes impossiblt·, or that something is irreconcilable to shared norms of identification or bclm•ior? Politics is far too often understood effecti'l·ely as a polemic, which derives from the Greek work pQ/emos, meaning struggle. The jurist Carl Schmitt argued for a view of polirks predicated on tbe friend/enemy distinction, and both conservative and liberal commentators ha\'e willingly accepted this.•':'() Politics on th is understanding is about recognizing who your enemy- polemos in Greek-is. Yet pokmos need not be understood in such a way. For Hcidegger, it can be understood as related to agort, wbkb is a less "'iolent model of struggle. Heideggcr therefore somC"timcs translates polemos as Auseina1rdersetzrmg, a seuing-apart-from-another, a mode of disassociation. 171 In addition, as Drucilla Cornell has pointed out, there is a profound ambiguity about another pronoun invoked. This is not the first-person plural of "we," but the third-person plural of "'they... Cornell argues that .. Why do they hate us?" i.s a question founded on ambiguity, with no definable object.•":! It is not surprising then that the principal forC'ign policy and security strategy shaping U.S. foreign policy today is one that can be described as a of integration, of bringing countries into line with U.S. accepted and criteria, of making "tbem" more like "us." AI> Haass dC'clar ed in 2.002., anticipating an argument made by Barnett: Is :1 successor idea lo I dunk there IS. Iris the of mrc:gr.uion. The I of U.S. foreign policy should be ro persuade the omer major powers to sign on to cenain !key ideas as ro how rhe world should oppos:inon ro terrorism and pons of mass destruction, supporr for Ire<: trade, lnregrarion IS J.bout locking rhem inm th= poJic1es and tllen building institutions that lock them in c:ven more.1" 1
Elsewbere, he has madC' it clear that the foundation of this wider system is "integrating new countries and peoples into the global economic order
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so that they can reap its rewards instead of being left behind." n This is a change from his earlier position in The Reluctant Sheriff, where he had argued against Wolfowitz's idea of expanding the "democratic zone of peace." ,-j Haas!> has become more hawkish, with his newer ideas much closer to Clinton and Anthony L3ke, for whom the successor doctrine to containment was "engagemen£ and enlargement."'-6 As Appadurai notes, this drawing of lines cffc-ctivcl)' functionC"d as a diagnostic war, but not merely in terms of identifying an enemy. [tis the choice that is made into a binary, not the identiC)'. 1_,. In addition, It sought m identify the: supporters of t he: United Stares and the: United to declare t herr loyalties; and Kin gdom; forcc:d Europe and made many fen«-s itr<."rs fall on the srde of t he Umrc:d Srntes, wihate\'er their resc:rvaric:ms. This was a plebiscm: ca lled b)' the mighty U.S. war machme and absr<."ntions were not permitred. 1'll
The other main phrasing to examine is tht" notorious "axis of evil" spee-ch, Bush's January 29, 2002, State of the Union address. The phrast" "axis of evi l"' was, apparent!}', original!)' a n "axis of hatred" (David Frum's phrase ), but was changed at the last minutt" to one" of more obviously rdigious and moral resonance b}' Michad Gerson.''? This spC"ech provoked much criticism a nd commentary. Iran, Iraq, and North Kort"a were explicitly named as problems requiring U.S. attention, a pparent!)' in part bC"causC" three soundC"d bcner than two."10 These duee arc not entirely sur prising, sinct" a picc·e written by future National Security Advisor and Secretary of State" Condoleez:z.a Rice earlier in the election year of 2000 for Foreign Policy had pi npointt"d them as tht" three key "rogue regimes," and they were frequently featured in analyses of such statcs. 181 A Rurnsfcld memo of early 2001 bad joincd thC"sc: three to Russia and China as "investing in capabilities that explo it provocative lapses in U.S. capabilities. "' 12 Some havt" qut"stioned the metaphor itself. For PC"ter Galbra ith, "tbe phrase rdlccted poorl)' on its author's knowledge of geometry and history. An axis is a straight line between two points. North KorC"a, Iran, a nd Iraq could not form an axis. " 11:.1 This seems to miss the point entircl)' because the historical rdcrcncc is to the Axis powers of \'(Torld War II, and Ital}'• Germany, and Japan cannot fo rm a geometric axis, either. Similarl}' "axis" need not constitute a n alliancc, which means that Ga lbraith's other admonition misses Bush's point. Galbraith notes that "at that time, tht"re were no more" bitter enemjcs than the Iran of the a}•atollahs a nd d1C' Iraq of Saddam Hussein. " 18• What he doc!> more hclpfull}' recognize is that such a statement can actuall}' bring a state of affairs into being, ta lking of a new
30
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"Shiite crescent. "i iS Yet it should phrasing was used by Clinton:
rC'memlxrcd that a not-dissimilar
America musr srand :1gainst lhe pOisoned :1ppe:1is of nationalmusl combat an unholy :1xis of new thre:us from terrorisrs, ism, imernarion:1l crimin:1ls, and drug uaffid:ers. These 21 sr-cernury prc"dators f«d on t«hnology and me fr« flow of mfonnm1on and ideas and people and rhey will be all me more lethal if weapons of m:m desrrucnon fall into their
Thu!> Clinton invoke!> nationalism, terrorism. criminality, and drugs- all justifications given for previous U.S. interventions-as an axis, and raises the opportunities crcated by technology and globalization. and the specter of weapons of mass destruction. Bush, in contrast to Clinton's broad sweep, invokes states, which means that even knowledgeable reports of his spcech suggcst that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea are thc "'axis of evil. " W But Bush did not say that these sta tes were an "axis of evil." Ra ther he named those three statcs for different problems, and then said: "states likc thesc, and their terrorist allies, consriturc an axis of evil, anning to thrcaten the peace of the world."' 151 The key word in this phrase is actually "'like," although the linking "'and" also docs a lot of work. It is "states like these, and their terrorist allies." An association of the .. like" is actuall}' a more intricate approach to thc choosing of sidcs and the drawing of lines than is generally credited. Bush's spocchwritcrs knew what they were doing. 18" As Chernus puts it, There" is, in principle, no limll to tile numbe-r of narions dur mighl be pm m "ax-is of e\·rl." ... The axrs he- meant ro describe was nor a -states like connc-cnon among stales but, rJther; the- link the-se" to nonsratc: terrorist
Thus coeva l with integration is a strategy of exclusion. What, then, constitutes sufficient similarity that other states that arc deemed to be .. like" these three can a lso be sc<:n as part of the "axis"? Will Bu&h define or so remit? \"(fhat kinds of reduclabel them, or docs this give an tions arc necessary that they can cffectivdy be aggregated, e:sscntiall)' rendered the same? \Vhat this has meant, in practice, i& that othcr &tates have been seen as. sufficiently similar., or cffoctivcly coopted. The axis-now eve""n more nongcometrical-cncompasscs more than the three named states. John Bolton's speech to the Heritage Foundation in 2002 declared that ''states that sponsor terror and pursue WMD must stop. States that rcnouncc terror and abandon \VMD can become part of our cffort. But those that do
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not can expc.ct to lxcome our targets. "' 1' 1 Rogers sees this as clear evidence that the axis "is in the process of being extendcd''; 191 the BBC reported that the "U.S. expands 'axis of C"vil. "' 191 The \'CiaslJington Po.st recounted that one Bush administration official suggested that Libya, Syria, and Cuba were the members of the "junior varsity axis of cvil."'ll-l Yet this extension is not something that is being done to the concept but is inherent in its ver)' definition. t\'ot coincidenrally, the countries oftm routed as sccondary or "honorary" members arc those other countries on the State Deparonem list of state sponsors of terror, which is comprised of Libya, S)•ria, Sudan, and Cuba as well as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Yct on Octobcr 7, 2001, one particular harborer was singled out: Afghanistan. Bringing together many of the themes of this section, Bush norcd that he had dirC('tcd forces to target Al-Qoedo terronst rr.tining camps ond m1lrmry insmllotions of the Toliban rcg1me in Afghomsmn ... we- ore joined m this opera tion by our suunch friend. Grcot Britain.. .. l\·1orc than 40 countries in rhe Middle Eost • .-\frico, Europe and across Asio have g.rantt:'d air transit or landing
Thus, these processes of incorporation and intcgration ha\•e importa nt territorial aspc.cts. Bush was able to divide the world a long a series of linesthe United States, its ''staunch friend," "'othcr close friends'' and allies, positioned against those who had not allied themselves in this way. This was a process of incorporation that creates a linkage of the "with," the together or alongside, rather than a simple tmification. Different degrees of linkage arc dearl)' envisaged-the role of the United Kingdom is differcnt from more reluctant a llies, themselves differentiated from some of the more peripheral members of the ..coalition of the willing." On the other side is a loose alliance-created by the United States as much b)' any prior decision-of states equated with nonstates, and of states compared to others of sufficient similarity they can be dcemed "like .. threats. The conflation of nonstate groups with states, those that harbor them or similar, gives an explicit territorial location to putativcl}r nebulous, Dcterritorialized threats. There is, of a purpose to portraying rogue regimes and terrorism this war. As well as spotlighting three particular rcgimes and those "like'" them, it portrays "an omnipresent terrorist threat as evil as it is widespread."' This allows the United States to legitimate "any punitive action it might take, anywhere at any time. " 19" Bush has cxplicidy noted the "global scale" of this campaign: "'from the mountains of Afghanistan, to the border regions of Pakistan, to the Horn of Africa, to the islands of the Philippines,
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to the plains of North Central Irnq.''' 9 - Politically, spatially, temporally, there arc, it seems, no limits to the responses . As Barnett puts it: What stands between us and tite goal of making g]obaliz:nion rruly global IS rite threats pose-d by Me forces of disconnecrednC"SS-{hc bad mem individu:1 l acrors that plague rite Gap. Defea t rhem by the Gap 3S rhe1r own and rhe Core wins this war on terrorism, plam and
It i!> therefore clear that on the e\'ening of Septcm bcr l l, 2001. the Bush administration had a number of geographical ana lyses of the threats and opportunities of the post-Cold War SinOC" then, they have had many more. The continuities between the prc•·ious U.S. administrations should not be underestimated. T hc complcx topographies and the notw-complex diagnoses of them ha\'C continually shaped U.S. policy. This a number of the states that have found themselves targets, depicted either as "weak'' or "failed" sta tes that arc breeding grounds for terrorists, or "rogue"' states like Iraq or Iran. In addition, it raises the question of just what is the relation of lslamism to thc understanding of territory? It is to these questions that the following chapter!> turn.
CHAPTER TWO
Territorial Strategies of lslamism
AI-Qacda is often portrayed as a deterritorialized network or association. Yet C\'cn networks have connections, and examining tbe materialit}' of its nodes demonstrates that it is a much more groundeJ organization. If we think through bow ai-Qacda actually functions, it is clear that it operates in a profound[}' territorial way. both within and against conventional understandings of tbc rdation bct>vccn sovereignty and territOr)'. In tem1s of a di.,·ision of labor within ai-Qacda, the gmcrallr accepted \'iew is cltat Osama bin Laden is the orator and Ayman ai-Zawahiri is more the strategic planncr and recruiter. AI-Zan•at. for example, suggests that al-Zawahiri is the key person behind the September 11, 200l , attacks.• \Xfhilc ai-Zawahiri is often described as bin Laden's lieutenant, his role is as more of a coorganizer and leader. They have each influence() the other, rather than the older ai-Zawahiri shaping bin Laden. One of the key issues that bin Laden is credited with has been ai-Zali\rahiri's move from targeting the "ncar enemy" of Egypt, as a means to challenge Israel, to a direct targeting of the "far enemy" of the United States. A key 1995 writing of ai-Zawahiri was "The Road to Jerusalem Passes Through Cairo''i yet in 1998, he was a partner to bin Laden's wider strategy of iihad against Jews and Crusaders, a move cllat drew criticism from his colleagucs.2 The influence of ai-Zawahiri on bin Laden was to persuade him to embark on jilmd himself, rather than funding operations and working as an Islamic relief worker and pre.acheL3 Taking account of this shift of priorities demonstrates a crucial geopolitical strategy. The proximity of "ncar" and "far" enemies and the spatial politics of jihad indicate the geographicaJ and territoriaJ aspects of al-Qaeda's The argument here is thus in opposition to Ro}'s claims that bin Laden "has no strategy in the true sense of the word,. and that " there is no geostratcgy of Islam use Islam is not a territorial Indeed, despite his claims about "dctcrritoria lization," Roy's
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analysis continually invokes a series of sites, countries, and strategies that demonstrate a significant territorial sense. As Balibar has a rgued, the idea of a network as simply a "dctcrritoria lization'' is "the constitution of a network is also of course a rctcrritoria lization.".i A!!. Mustafa puts it: The canogrophy of terromm will al.so h.t\'e co move bc:yond traditional compartmenulisro gcograph)• of nation smrc:s.... The: sovereign sp-.1cc:s of nation smres a nd the nodal nttworks of mrc:rnauonal terrorism offer a fundamcmal ch:1llmge to rhe moo:krn srarc-cenrered g.lobal geopolitics. 6
Similarly, Ehtcshami has suggested that the stratcgks of Islamism act as a challenge to the "basis of the existing internationa l S)'Stcnt-thc system of territorially-based states."' But approciating these insights requires more than a simple ar gument that we have gone beyond state territory or straightforward geography. Rather, it requires a fundamental rethinking of the geographies of territory. Eslamism acts as a challenge to the relation between state, sovereignty, and territory. Nonstatc actors can control territory; many states cannot. A range of issues arc often used as justifications for terrorist attacks. These go beyond the widespread condemnation of Israel and extend to a range of issues with direct U.S. involvement and those with a more indiroct linkage. These territorial aspects would include, but arc dearly not limited to, Russia in Chcchnya, India and Pakistan in Kashmjr, inaction in Bosnia, conAict in the Philippines with ethnic Muslims, support fo r the Indone-sian government in the Cold War, and the stationing of U.S. troops on the Arabian Peninsula, as well a& the long-running sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. They have now been joine-d by events in Afghanistan, Lebanon (already a repeat of events from 1978, 1982, and long after}, and the Horn of Africa, as well as the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At the very least, these issues arc indicati\rc of the ongoing widespread nature of territorial problcms in thc \Vorld that have been maskcd by the end of the Cold War and the supposed triumph of globalizarion. 8 The 9111 Commis.sio11 Report rocognizes that many of these territorial issues arc, in part. the answer to the question "Why do 'they' hate a lthough the report tdlingl)' docs not mention the stationing of U.S. troops. On this last point. it is worth noting that opposition is not simply to the presence of U.S. troops in the "land of the two Holy but also bc.cause bin Laden, Hush with success in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, had offered to rid Saudi Arabia of the Iraqi threat himself w hen Iraq invaded Kuwait in the early 1990s, only to have- this offer spurned by the royal family.''
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As former CIA l'r'1ichad S.Cheuer notes. the United States is " hated across the Isla mic world beca use of spcrific U.S. government policies and actions .. . arc at war with an ai-Qaeda-led, be-cause of a nd to defend those policies, and not, as lsla mist President Bush mista kenly has said, 'to defend freedom and a ll that is good and just in wo rld .'"' 2 He notes six reasons: • • • •
U.S. support for Israel th:n keeps Palc:sunians in the Israelis' thra ll U.S. and o ther Western trOOP'S o n the Arabian l'eninsui J. U.S. occupation o f Iraq and Afgha ni.s.ro n U.S. support for Russia, lnd1a, and Gina aga inst rhc:i r 1\·tushm mihunrs • U.S. pressure: on Arab energy producers ro keep oil pnces low • U.S. support for aposr:1re, corrupt, a nd t)'rann ic:J l governments13
All bm the last two arc obvious!}· territoria l; all can
understood geopolitica lly. M any other things that couJd be added to this charge sheet actions against Libya a nd Sudan a nd a whole range of events in Central America and South America.' 4 Yet where such issues a rc acknowledged, this is generall)' done in such a Wa)r as to o bscure and erase differences, such as in the fo llowing speech by President George Wl. Bush: Q,•er the years these: extremists have used a lirany of exc uses. for violence- t he Israeli presence on rhe West Bank, or the U.S. military of me Tali ban, or the Crusades presence in SJ.udi Arabia, or t he of a tho usand >'ears ago. In fact, we're not facing a set of that c:J n be soothed and add ressr<:l . We're facing a radical ideology whole narions and the with malterable objecri\•es.: to world_ No act of ours invired rhe rage of the killers--(Jnd no concession. bribe. or act o f appeasement wouJd change or limir rhe1r plans for murder . .. Some: h:Jve also argur<:l that ext remism has been by the J.Ct Jons of o ur co:Jiinon in Iraq. claiming rh:n our presence in thar o f rad ica ls.. I would country l1.1s somehow caused or triggered rhe remind rhem mat we: were nor in lrn q o n September II , 200 l--and al Qaeda :Jttackcd us an>'Wa>'· The hatrro of rhe radicals before Iraq W:JS an issue. and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The g,ovc:mment o f Russia d1d nor support Opcrarion Iraqi Freedom, :Jnd yet t he: mihunrs killed more rha n I SO Russia n schoolchild ren in Bcslan."
O f the man}' things that co uld be sa id of this, two will ment of the United States in Iraq reaches back to over a
invol\•c-
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Scptcomber 11, 2001, with the enforcement of the no-Ay zones, the U.N.sponsorcd scanctions regime, and the bombardments of Operation Desert Fox in Docember 1998; and the a.trocity in Beslan is linked to Russia's involvement in Chcchnya, a different, albeit re lated, war. Given the fog surrounding the "war on terror," some understanding may be appropriate. It is equally important to rocogni:z.c that the ma jority of territorial claims arc £O rocovcr lost land rather rhan conqucr, 1" although the notion of what "Muslim lands" arc can be rather vague, sometimes extending to lands lost to Islam in the fifteenth century. Thus, this chapter looks at a i-Qaeda and militant Islam more genera lly through the territorial aspects of its operations and the particular territorial imaginary of its leaders. In doing so, it explicitly retcrritoria liz.cs the analysis, looking both at specific territoria l grievances across the world and rhetorical ideas of a new Caliphate. Reading Bin Laden
Despite the portrayal of bin Laden as livi ng in a cave, he is generally acknowledged to be an expert at using the media to communicate his messages. In re.ccnt his organization's media tactics have changed, with an extensive usc of the Internet. 1- Yet while he is able to reach a widesprccad audience, he is much less effective in terms of getting Western audiences to actually listen to what he says. Part of the reason for this is, of course, the role of the media in acting as a conduit for his messages. In the late autumn of 2001, for instance, major U.S. media outlets agreed to limit the public release of bin Laden's messages on the instructions of then- National Security Advisor Condole.czza Rice. 18 One of the claims was that the messages might include coded messages to terrorists, something bin Laden himself has d ismissed as "hilarious ... it's as if we were living in the time of mail by carrier pigeon, when there arc no phones, no tra\•dcrs, no Internet, no regular mail, 110 express mail, and no electronic mail. " 19 Clearly the point was more to deny him a \'Oice/0 in much the same wa}' that the British govemmcnt used to overdub Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams in media interviews with the words of an actor during the 1980s and early 1990s. A similar outcry ac.companicd the September 2007 visit of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak a t the Un ited Nations and Columbia University in New York. Yet as the speeches and writings of Stalin and Hirler bccar both historical and political importance. so too do the words of a ll participants in tbis current war. The historical and political significance of his speeches require examination. Understanding docs not, of course. mean empathizing. As Fisk
II:FHHTO FI IAL S IRAII:GII:S 01- I SLAMI SM
37
suggests, '' bin Laden might lx crud, wicked, ruthless, or c:viJ personified, but he is intelligent. " 1 1 In these terms, Tariq Ali's view of Sayyid Qutb's 1964 work Milestones, alrcrnari\'c:Jy translated as Sig11pos1s, is instructive: ''From a materialist viewpoint the book is rcpc:titive, banal, uninspiring., and intdkctuall}' offensive. Yet it has had a massive impact on two generations of Muslims, and that alone necessitates an cngagc:mcnt with its idc.as. "'11 Yet bin Laden docs nm ncc,cssariJy sec a distinction bc:twc:cn speech and acts. His speech preceding the 2004 U.S. presidential election was as powerful as an attack, and as Faisal [)c,rji notes, he "describes the C\'Cnts of September the dc\•cnth not as hostile: or vc:ngcful actions so much as a set of communicatiom. " .U In his own words, his encmics "only understand thc language of attacks and killings. '' 14 Even if his \'iews arc controversial and at times abhorrent, bin Laden is a dcepl)' impressh·c orator. The comments of Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs and one of the main intc:rprctcrs of bin Ladcn, arc instructive: He is doquem, doquem. He usc:s cbsstcal ..\rabtc, which makes h1m one of the roughest people ro rr:mslare. He also has an exrraordmary knowledge of rhe Koran. He has memoriz.ed the Koran. He choosc:s ltis quores. He also 1mpro\'1ses h1s speeches. This is someone who does nor re-ad spC'C'chcs. In a ll of rhe videotapes [har I have seen and translated, he dOC's nm even look at a script, and he can go on for hours nonsrop, staying dC':lr and on message. He doesn't get nred. You can say he's ollC' of thOSC' top public spcakers.ll
has claimed that bin laden is " not an original thinker" and not "an outsunding Qur'anic scholar: hC' lacks the command of ttxrual subdc:tics that mark Wahhabi C'xcgctes in Arabia, or their Azhari coumerparts in Cairo." Instead, Lawrence suggests that his strength is his "'literary gifts," suggesting that "what actually distinguishes him ... is that he is first and forcmo"St a pokmi£ist. " 24 Thc usc of the Koran is, of course, a major part of his rhetoric, even if his interpretations of it arc disputcd. Whilc the theological aspects of his will not be discusSl'd here, a fcv.• aspects arc worth underlining. One is that bin Laden and Zawahiri do not generally preach or practice antiShi'a politicsl attempting to hold to the: line that the divisions within Islam arc less important than those between Islam and the West. An internal war wrthin Islam will, he suggests, gi\·c victory to their common cncn1ics. As Dc\ii puts it, "bin Laden is not averse to claiming the support not only of herc:tics for the jihad, but of apostates as wdl. '" 1- Gunar atna has described this as a "goal-orientated rather than rule-orientated doctrine. Differmccs between types of Islam arc important, certainly, but the blankct assumptions
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of some Western politicians and dements within the media arc tending to erase differences. As bin Laden himself has phrascti it, "this battle is not bctwcm ai-Qactia and the United Stares. This is a battle of Muslims against the global Crusaders. " 29 Indeed, and potentiall)' more so even than Bush. bin Laden is strategically interested in drawing dividing lines. Chapter 1 argued that Bush's usc of the term "with" was sophisticarcd and that undemanding this point was important in cha llenging the idea that the "'war on terror" was predicated on binary thinking. For bin Laden, such divisions-intentional or consequential-arc strategically powerful. As chapter 3 shows, many states found themselves in an awkward position as a result of Bush's imposed choice. For bin Laden, this was a form of terrorism itself: The e\'enrs pro\·ed the of terrorism that America exercises in the world. Bush Slated that [he world has to lx: dn•ided 111 two: Bush and his supporters, and any country that doesn't get inro the global crusade is wnh the terrorists. Wh:u rerronsm is dearer rh:m rhis? Many go\·ernterrorism." They had to go menrs were forced to suppon rhis along with this although rhey knew that we arc defend ing our brothers and defending our sacred \'alues.JO
Bush has described the terrorists as "barbaric criminals who profane a great religion by committing murder in its name. " 11 He has returned to this theme continually: Some call thts e\•il hlamic rad1cahsm; orhers, mdir.ant J iha still others, lslamo-fasctsm. \Vhate11er it's called, rh1s ideology is ver)' differcm from [he rchgion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to sen·e a violent, political \'ision: the establishment, b)· terrorism and sub\·ers1on and msurgency, of a rotalitarian emptre mat all polit1caland religious freedom. These cllcremists d istort rhe 1dea of iihad into a ca ll for terrortst murder ogamsr Christians and Jews and Hindus-and also again5l from orher traditions, who rney regard as hcrcrics.ll
Thus, while Bush continually attempted to drive wedges bctv.•e,cn factions and to insist that this is not a war against Islam, he has not succeeded. Indeed, this attempt has resonances that he may not have intended. As Chemus puts it, "he took it upon himself to define categorically what docs and what docs nor constirute aurhcntic [slam, or authenticity in any religion .... This enabled him to depict the war as a battle against sin waged not just b)' the U.S. but b}' every imaginable form of genuine religion and morality. "JJ
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39
Bin ladcn is also skilled in taking specific words that have bocn used and exploiting their full resonances : Bush s:ud n in his own words: ..crusade." When Bush says rhat, thq rry to co\•er up for him., then he s.·ud he d idn't mean it. He sa1d Bush divided the world imo rwo: With us or wirh terrorism." Bush IS the leader; he carries t he big cross and walks. I sweor rhot e\•ery one who follows Bush in his scheme has gi,·en up Islam and the word of the prophet. This is very clear. The prophet hos said, don'r follow Jews o r Cllrisnans.,. Our wise people ha\•e s.11d thor those who follow the unfaithful have become unfa ithful rhemselves. Those who follow Bush in his crusade against Mushms have denounced
Bin Laden is thus able to cxploit the full potcntial ramifications of Bush's intrnrional and unintrntional rhetoric. Thr usr ofthr word "crusade" was indeed a gift to his cause, allowing him to claim " this is a recurring war. The original crusade brought Richard from Britain, Louis from France, and Barbarus from Germany. Today the crusading countries rushed as soon as Bush raised the cross. They accepted the rule of the cross. " 11 Turning the "with us or against us" formula against the United States enables him to paint those who support thr United Statrs as enemies of Islam, even if those who oppose it would not ordinarii)' side with bin Laden or his particular interpretation of lslam . In this sense. the usc of the term "crusade" was a spectacular, and casil}•cxploitablc, blunder. More generupon support because many of those ally, he is able to who disagree with his tactics can find common purpose with his causes. As a report for the Ccnmry Foundation declared; "'If the criteria for iihadist support were the belief that the U.S. militar}' should depart Iraq or the Israeli military should depart the West Bank or Gaza, the majority of Muslims would probabl}' agree. " 36 It is worth adding, though it should be obvious, tha t many non-Muslims would also agree. In one of the most insightful analyses of the spatial pracrioes and representations of the jihad, Devji has argued that "the rhetorical sophistication with which bin Laden links the American president's usc of the word crusade to the globe's division into two enemy camps is quite remarkable, allowing him to define the war as onc of rcligion in the most logical of ways. "J" Dcvji is able: to demonstrate the thcological aspects of the war in a number of compelling ways, but he is on less certain ground when he suggests that this is more broad!)' interpreted as being a battle at the level of ideas rather than material practice. As he phrases it, "after all. hO\v else can the division of the globe into opposing camps be intrrprrtcd
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otherwise than as a metaphysical one?'"J-1 Elsewhere, the claim is made that the global aspirations of Islam arc mctaphyskal rather than geopolitiThere arc undoubtedly a series of representations at play here, but thcrc arc a lso concrete matcrial practices. Rathcr than a simple metaphysics or a crude unthcorctical geopolitics of practice, there is a continually intertwined and productive relation between them, a rc
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ro forge a particular community is her'C nor through belief, bur through suffering, and an appeal is made to compassion in the ct}·mological sense of suffering with or a longside someone. Bin Laden continued in this speech to move from the position of ¥ictim to responder, suggesting that: We do no t hear their \'OJCcs, yet :u soon as lhe vtct1m nses up and offers h1msdf on behalf of his rdigion, people are outragt:t repeat wh:uever rhe t)'rants want them to say.4 -
There is mort' to this cla im than simply that of unequa l re
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the Ottoman Empire following World War L The mourn ing for the loss of the Ottoman Empire is somewhat unusual, given its corruption and political weakness and the Turkish oppression of Arabs, but its importance to bin Laden lies in the fact that it was the sole remnant of the Caliphate, an Islamic Empire, and that this was replaced by Europe-an- Christianpower. Some therefore sec E924---the beginning of secular rule in Turkeyas the most signific.am date for the destruction of lslamjc political power. 12 Bin Laden parricularl)• singles out the Unjted Kingdom as "responsible for destroying the Caliphate system,"lJ and the 19l 6 S)•kcs-Picot agreement, b}' which France and Britain planned to divide up the spoils of Ottoman possessions in the Middle East fol lowing World War I, is another recurrent reference. Going even farther back, so too is the loss of Andalusia in southern Spain in the fifteenth century. Bin Laden has undoubtedly played a major role as an actor and a mouthpiece for a movement. But as some commrntators ha\•e pointed out, his role has become more: prriphcral and less important as time has passed. His death or capture would function as a propag.anda coup for the United States and a moment of certainly, but it would have much less impact on the mo\•ement itself. As Fisk puts it, "seeking to discover his whereabouts was akin to arresting thr world's nuclear scientists after the invention of the atom bomb: ai-Qacda now existed in the minds of thousands of Muslims.''H AI-Qacda has become more of an idea than an organization, a set of principles in a broader movement. Gerges suggests that it has moved from being "a skeleton of an organization ... to an idrologic.al label, a state of mind, and a mobilizational outreach program to incite attacks worldwide. " H De Waal and Abdd Salam make a similar point when they cla im that the "structural conditions exist for a protracted global insurgency," whether or not this is led by bin Laden and ai-Qaeda.14 Bin Laden is, of cours.ce, not alone as a throrist of fundamentalism. Two other prominent figures require: ana lysis. The first is al-Zawahiri, who as noted above, has plared an equally imporrant role in the movement. Two themes bear relation to bin Laden's writings. The first is his recognition of the importance of territorial control, either as a base: or ideally as a state. trrritorial control then acts as the foundation for a transnational or even global iihad.> AJ-Za wahiri has suggested that "armies achieve victor}' onlr when the infantry takes hold of land." 18 This is related to the idea of taking "the battle to the enemy's own soil. After long centuries of his taking the battle to our soil and after his hordes and armed forces occupied our lands in Chcchnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, and after centuries of his occupying our land while enjoying
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sccurit}' at home:." 59 The: second is the linkage: of diffC'rc:nt struggles. In his important text Knights tmder the Bmmer of the Prophet, he explicit!)' links Chechnya to the Caucuses more generally, and describes the region of the Caspian Sea through to Afghanistan as "a mujahid Islamic belt to the south of Russia,"' which will hdp opposc: the perceived RussianU.S. alliance against Islam in that area, which thc:n can bring in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmc:nistan, and Tajikistan.00 This thc:mc: has a much longer lineage. One exponent is Abdallah Azza m, whosc: 1984 text Defending tbc Land of the Muslims Is Each Man's Overriding Duty is widcl)' citc:d. Azzam dc:.clares that: Th1s dur)' sh3 1l not bpsc wid1 \'lcrory in .-\fgh3nist3n, and the iilmd \vlll obligarion umil all ocher l:!nds which former!)' rem3in 3n were Muslim come back ro us a nd reigns w1rhin rhern o nce lkforc us lie Bukham, U:banon, Chad, £rirrea, Som:Jh3, Philippines, Burm:1, South Yemm, Tashkenr, Andalusia ...61
And once again, the concentration on particular sites does not mean a neglect of the long-running issuc: of Palestinc:: "Our presence in Afghanistan toda}' ... docs not mean that wc: have forgottc:n Palestinc:. Palcstinc: is our beating hcarr."'bl. The sc.cond key theorist is Hassan ai-Turabi: a Sudanese religious leader who played an important role in the political system in the: 1990s before bdng imprisoned by President Omar ai-Bashir. Hc: has been described as "the region's most prolific theoretician" "} and has combined his theories with his political activitics. 64 As de \Vaa l and Abdcl Salam put it, '•if there is to be an Islamist Lenin, then it is Hassan al Turabi .''•s One of the most significant aspects of his work is that the analysis of the Caliphate puts some conceptual flesh onto the rhetorica l bonc:s. Like bin Laden, who was gready influenocd by Turabi in his time in Sudan, and the Hczbollah leadcr Sayyc:d Hassan Kasrallah, al-Turabi is an accomplished orator, able to speak to different audiences in different registers: When wriring in fng,lish, Turabi presents 3 liberal face:. This not just because he is wnring for a non-Muslim audience:, but also bcc3usc h1s umqu<" Ar-ab style is Vlrruall)' unrranslarable. \Vhen writing m Arable, Tumbi uses an mnov3tL\Ie me-thod , whw:h urih:ccs ver)' lew cit3tions from the Qur'an 3nd H:.1dirh, bur is enrhuscd throu ghout wirh Qur' 3nic rt"son3ncc and echo_ Many o f h1s mosr impormnt sentences arc slight rephr3ses of the Prophet 's words, apphed ro conrc:mporary comexrs ro gi\·e his words the: wirh con:sideroble creati\'lty. This IS of Qur'3nic 3urhoriry wrrhour necdmg ro e ire: specific sources and
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As ai-Mubar ak states, hownrer, t here is a lso a disjuncru rc between his words and his practices: "Turabi's tongue is progressive; his hands (where our focus of attcmion should be with a master trickster) arc authoritarYet c..,·cn al-Turabi struggled with the ian, ruthless, and even barbaric. of thr Scptrmber 1 ], 200 1, attacks.. As someone trained in internationallaw,b8 he signally failed to address the lrgal issues in rdation to these events/ 9 and in his 2002 text "The Phenomenon of Political Terrorjsm and the Valuation of the September Incident in America," hr is. equivocal. For dr Waal, this "apologia" can "onlr quarre l with the 1mmber of casualties inflictrd on Scptrmbrr 1 1, not with Usama 's right to conduct this modr of warfarr. ,.-o The Return o1 the Caliphate
Three key spatial formations-the Caliphate, the nrtwork, and thr bas('thus arise as issues requiring furthrr examinati on. In Islamic thought, a fundamenta l distinction is drawn between the dar al-Isiam as the land of Islam or " Islamic territory" and dar aJ-harb as the land of warfarc.- 1 Bin Laden has d ivided these as a region of fa ith and a region of infiddity.""l Thrsc arc the fundamental spatial d istinctions through religious determinations, although some suggest that t here can a compromise thir d division, a dar al-sufh, a land of treaty wbcre a deal has been struck,') or invoke a dar al-bijra, a land of migration, beyond areas of The role of jihad is sign ificant here. Its sense is. plural and disputed, deriving from a meaning of " to strive, exert oneself, or take extraordinary pains." As Firestone notes, "thcre arc, therefore, many kinds of iihad1 and most have nothing to do w ith warfare. " -s jihad is tbus dose to the idea of struggle, o r the German Kampf; indeed, H itler's Kampf is translated as. jihadi- "'mr jihad"-in Arabic.'• As. religious. war or struggle, it can be seen as a means of transforming tbc dar ai-1Jarb into dar a/-islam. Dar al-harb is a realm of war, harb, which is not legitimized by religion, but this realm is the place where the expansion of the ideas and rule of Islam is possible. Such ;ihad may be to recover lands pre\·iously lost, or to ensure that existing J\•fuslim go¥ernmcnts adbcrc to a particular line of religious politics. Jihad can therefore include fighting brtwecn Muslims, but rither way, jihad has been crucial to Islam ic territorial expansion."'"' For Arzam, only jihad can restore tbc rule of a Caliph over the umma.""ii If jihad is understood as "a politica l-military struggle, it provided the rationale for the Islamic imperium. " "'j Like the imperium of the Roman Empire, tbis is a determinant of politica l power and a spatia l extent.
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In Islamic thought, the rough oqui\ralent of the rule or empire-is the Caliphate. This is a complkated and important term, which I and political motivation in the speeches of bin Laden and recurs as an others. The British journalist Jonathan Freedland has suggest:c
These authors contend that one of the problems with bin Laden\ program is that he has "not clarified how he will translate a battlefield success into the establishment of the kbi/afa. i\·lorc general!)', we might contend that the ideal is hardly worked our in any detail, with a range of contradictions and promissory notes. One fundamental issue is the distinction bet\\•een an Islamic state and the Caliphate. At a strajghtforward the former would be an Islamic government for an existing nation-state, while the latter would have a supraabout with the crisis national extent. This is a distinction that in part in Islamic poljtical theology initiated by Mustafa Kcmal's ending of the Caliphate and the founding of modern Turkcy.&s The Hczb ut-Tahrir organization bclicves that a nation-state under Islamic rule is a contradiction and that the Caliphate is the only appropriate politbl system. The organization com·cned a major international conference in August 2007 in Jakarta to call for prccisd}' this. [n this argument, the modem Caliphate can be broadly associated with the one that operated in the medieval period, 86
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which would suggest a break with contemporary territorial divisions and potentially even from the very concept of territory. AI-Turabi has been one of the most significant thinkers here. He contends that " the phrase 'Islamic state' itse lf is a misnomer,"' because "the state' is only the political dimension of the colle-ctive endt'avor of Muslims. '' 8" He argues that "Islam docs not allow for anr limitt'd a llegiances t'ithcr social, ethnic, or n:rriwrial, " RR and that the "universal characteristics of an Islamic sute" derive from the Koran and the political practice of the Prophet Muhammad and thercfor·c constitute an "eternal model.,.,.. His view is that "nationalist values that dh•ide people on bases of color, gcograph)', or national interest . . . arc \'a loes fundamentally at odds with Islam. " 90 He therefore claims that the characteristics of this organization in its ideal form arc not nationalistic but rather an incorporation of the communit)' of believers, the smmra. 9 1 The mnmo is itself a signifkant concept. The community of Muslim believers has a priority more narrow!)' conceived national or regional identities, and the interests of the whole oun.vcigh those of the part. Tactical reasons may dictate a territorial affiliation, where an Islamic movement seeks control of a particular state, but this docs not restrict it stra.tegically.92 AI-Turabi therefore concedes that " there is an Islamk concept of a territorial state which is not coextensive with the whole umma,'' but insists this is for realistic reasons rather than nationalistic ones. We can sec this in practice in al-Turabi's Sudan as much as in the territorial aims of al-Qaeda alongside the Taliban in Some contend that a l·Qaeda in Mesopotamia is seeking something similar in contemporary Iraq. Qutb, on the other hand, declared at his trial that '' the: bonds of ideology and belief arc sturdier than those of patriotism, bar.cd on region, and this false distinction among Muslims on a regional basis is but one expression of crusading and Zionist imperialism that must be eradicated. There is therefore a crucial spatial clement to ideals of lslamic political rule. This may operate witbin existing territorial boundaries, seck to redraw them, or transcend them entirely into a more open r'Cgional or n·en global S}'Stcm. But even this last form is still a territorial definition of a sort, though one that refuses to accept boundaries. AI-Turabi, for instance, suggests in relation to the charge of expansionism: I think rhc-y undersrnnd th:u rhcse 1mag,innr)' lines wh1ch rhcr call borders h:J\'e, cspcc•ally in a plan· like Afric::t. been 1mposro upon dte pcopk. In rh.c Sudan we ha,•c no idea w har these borders arc because th ere are no narural barriers bcr>11ecn us and our neighbors, nor docs color, race, or language separate us. How can we give any legirimacy or sancriry m rhese borders whiCh they rhemseh•es do not
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The argument that Western models of division have been imposed o-.,·er more traditional understandings of the relationship political rule: and land in the Arab world is not uncommon. more zonal, accounts note that there were ping, nomadic, or fluid understandings ..... Yet much the same could made for the relation between place and politics in Europe and Norrh America in a not-dissimilar period, A shift from earlier understandings to a more rigid divis ion is a historical as wdl as geographical distinction. What is significant is the wa)' in which the Ottoma n Empire was divided. The borders were not drawn along the lines of interna l divisions, as were the Spanish colonies in South America, larer parts of the British a nd French possessions in Africa, or the Soviet Union. Rather, the: dh•isions and the newly created countries were products of another round of grea t-power politics and a renewed colonization. This-as w ith any drawing and redrawing of boundaries-brought together thost' who wished to remain apart a nd fragmen ted existing bonds. Issues concerning Syria and Lebanon, Iraq, and, of co urse, Israel/ Pa lestine, all date from this time. Dnji has a rgued that the indctc:rminacy of the concept of the Caliphate is more than simply rhetorical obfuscation. He contends: The cahphare is nOf a political \'ISion as much as a metaphysical caregor}'. Ir remains only an 1o:kal, With neither a dcscripnon or any concrete pl.m ro set ir up. And in fuct rhe caliphate's rule rhus far is to abandon rhc polrrical geogras.imply conceptual, allow1ng rhe phy of rhe Cold \Var. mack up o f national scares grouped into \'a rio us a llia nces, for a complerdy ck-cerrirona lized and e\·en anri-g.c=ogrophical space. smce the= calipharc= imagined by rhe jihad possesses ncirher center nor penphery ... After na\•ing been a dc:ad lener for well over half a as a living careg.ory. in cemury, rhe caliphate has suddenly no matrcr how meraph)'Sic:al an incarnorion.1<1
Dcvji undoubtedly raises some important qua lifications, and some of the more fa nciful imaginations arc difficult to sec translated into a political
actuality. Yet this is not to sar that some: dcmems a r'C not profound!)' geopolitical, actually rea lizable. He similarly suggests that the invocation of former Isla mic lands renders "its strictly geopolitical claims absurd,"' and that "'the iiluui's description of the Arabian Peninsula as the land of the two holy sanctuaries" similarly exemplifies the "same shlft from geopolitics to metaphysics... He is closer ro a more realistic appraisal when he notes thar the Ca liphin lvluslim lands."' ate "represents the future of the monotheist
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This is not, he suggests., " in t he: form of a political or even geographical order but by defining Islam's future: victory as a set of global relations outside the political language of state and citizenship." 100 But to argue that it breaks with Western models of state, citizenship. and inde.cd territory docs not deny it any political or spatial character or reduce it to the level of an ideal. Rather, its break with the Western political imaginary translates into a potential break with Western political practice thro ugh a series of different representations of s pace and concomitant spaces of representation. One of these spaces of representation is the understanding that Islam has of the particularities of local struggles. As many commenta tors have noted, the sites of the jihad in recent years have often been in more marginal locations. These have included Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Iraq, rather than more obvious sites such as Pa le-stine, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt. 101 Some other struggles in Asia have a lso been linked to the wider a ims of this loose mo\•cment. In former So\•ie•t central Asia, for example, the Islamic movement of Uzbd:Jstan seeks to O\'Crthrow the existing secular and pro-Western dictatorship and to unite various Isla mic peoples of the area together. This has extended to operations in Tajikistan and K>•rgyzstan. Pottenger has described its vision as a n "Islamic caliphate that extends from the Muslim region of Wcstem China on the east to the Black Sea on the wcst." ' 02 In southeast Asia, the Jemaah Islamiah organization has expressed an a im of a pan-Islamic state, bringing together the: world's most populous Islamic nation, lndonesia, with the neighboring states of Malaysia and the Philippines. There is dispute about the relationship betv.•ecn Jemaah lsla miah and a l-Qaeda, with some c.-tling it a subsidiary and o thers an affiliate. Undoubted ly responsible for the: 2002 Bali bombing. this organization certainly finds common purpose with ai-Qaeda in crucial respects.' 03 For Dcvji, the iibaJ is thus "located on the peripheries of the Muslim world geographica lly, politically, and rdigiously." 104 He suggests then that the: jihad i.s nor mm•ing from the: center to the periphery, but rather the: reverse. The Middle East therefore docs not function as a center in any obvious sense:, with ai-Zawah iri relocating from Egypt and bin Laden fmm Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan, via Sudan, and now probab1}' to Pakista n. Zawahiri noted that it was in Afghanistan that the muiahidin became acquainted with a global struggle that transcended their own national backgrounds. 105 Once again, Devji suggests that this means that the specificities arc unimportant: By moving bc(wecn Bosma nnd Afghanistan, Chcchn)'a and lrnq, tho= ;ihad displ.tys i[s fundamcmal mdiffcrcnce ro (hesc rermorics r.uho=r
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than consolidating into a single= Mushm gc=ogrnphy. h ends by dc=-tc=rrirorializ.ing Islam alcogerhec,. since ic is nor one= country o r another rhat 1s impon:anr, bm insread Islam itsdf as a globa l emiry.'00
But this is once more overdrawn. Each of these sites had a significance, both at tht' time and as a catalyst and inspiration for future: struggb. As Kohlmann has suggested, part of the point of working in Bosnia was to t'Stablish a fonvard base for ocher actions, including those against the United States. 10- After the Dayton Agrct'mt'nt, which ended that conflict, most jihadists ldt, but some remained because they had married local rcsidmts. •OJ In addition, Dcvj i's claim falls into the trap of assuming that global movemt'nts arc by their nature dctcrritoria lizcd. This is not necessarily the case. Rather, they open up possibilities within ex isting territorial configurations, challenge straightforward understandings of territory, and excet'd the static limits of nation-state boundaries. It is entirely possible for Abu Musab to declare, as he d id in 2004, that " I am global, and no land is my countr(' at the same time' that he was leading the struggle of in Mesopotamia. A letter sent by al-Qacda to ai-Zarqawi made this strategy clear: The first stage: expel rhc= Americans fro m Iraq. T he= second stage: establish a n Islamic aurho ri ry or amirarc=, rhc=n d c=.,·dop it and suppon it until it the le"el o f a ca li phare-
Thus, to understand al-Qacda's operations, we need to understand the disrincti\•e relation betwc:c:n its ne,t work organization and the essential base. The former tends to invite under-standings of a global operation, while the latter demonstrates the territorial aspect of its workings . The Network and the Base
Several of the characterizations of ai-Qacda by U.S. politicia ns and the military ha\'C stressed its nodal structure. The: NatiorUI! Strategy for Combating Tefforism suggests that: The ai-Q.uda nerwo rk is a mulrinacional enterprise with operatio ns in more rhan countri es. Irs camps in Afghanistan s.ancruary and irs bank accounrs served as a rrusr fund for rc:rrorism. 111
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In similar terms, the later Natiouai MilitaJ
Terrorism argues that: T he: c:nc:my is a transnational movc:mC'nt of e-xtremist orgamzarions, nc:rworks, and indl\·iduals--a nd thC'ir srnlC' and non-statC' supporlC'rswhich in common thC'y e-xploit Islam and usC' terrorism for idC'ological C'nds. ThC' :\1 Qa'ida M.ovc:mC'm tAQAMJ, compnsC'd of Qa'ida a nd affihatC'd extremists, is the: most dangc:mus prc:SC'm nunifC'srarion of such C'Xtremism . CC'rrain othC'r ' 'iolent c:xrrc:mconrin uing threar."l ll ist groups also posC' a serious
What is revealing about these characterizations is, once again, the linkage of rhc dissimilar. Over 60 countries arc suggested to be linked, thus opening up the further poss ibility of a range of responsive operations. However tenuous some of its claims of association arc, they work effectively and in different ways. AJl groups that utilize-or exploit -Islam and do not fir within a stare monopoly of violence arc characterized as the enemy. AI-Qacda is diffuse enough on its own, but the Nati01ral Militar)' Strategic Plan for the \Var OPI Terrorism broadens this still further into the AI Qa'ida Associated Mo\•cmcnt (AQAM). affiliating other groups to a network. It is for this reason that Jason Burke's charact erization of a "ncnvork of networks" is so apr.' 1) In addition, this plan associates the supporters-state and nonstatc- with the mo\•ement. These operations a rc made possible, the NatioPiaJ Strategy for Combating Terrorism contends, by the extent and the limitations of global ization: The: C'nnrormtc:nr tC'rrorm:s' str-:.tC'giC's rake: shape:. As
:1
chc: boundanC's w1rhin which rc:suJr of frC'C'r, more oprn borders
th1s unwittingl)· prO\•ides accC'SS to ha\•c:ns, cap:.1 l>iliries., and other support m rerronsts. Rur access is nor rnough. Terrorists must M\'C' a physical base from wh1ch ro Whc:thC'r through in.1bilit)', or inrC'nt, smrC's the:still offer phys ical (C'.g., safe: houSC's, craming grounds) and reliable:- comrnun icanon and financial nc:rworksj-(hat terrorists ncC'd to plan. train, and conduct thC'ir opc:ratmns. OncC' C'nrrc:nchOO in a safC' opcnuing C'ft\'lronmC'nr, rhe can begin ro soltdify and c:xp:md. ThC' tC'rrorisr scrucmrc:, membership, and sC'Curiry dC'tC'rminC' in capabihriC's :md .. .' 14
On the one hand, then, al-Qacda and militant ]slam arc positioned more generally as multinational nct\vorks that arc diffuse in space, but on the other hand, thqr arc placed in particular locales-the up to sixt)' countrtes alluded
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ro can bc targeted. The fir"St a llows a wide-ranging stratcg)' of international financial controls, border reinforcement, and global opcnrions.115 Much effort has been expende-d on prc\'enting ai-Qaeda from using "blood" or "conflict" diamoncls, although it is rumored to have most of its assets in gold, thus rendering this tactic only marginally ·effC'-etivc. ' 16 ThC' sec-ond strategy allows for concentration oo particular sitC's. "' TogethC'r, the)' lead to a policing of flows and Sp<"cific targcting of As Appadurai has suggested, "because the C'ncmy ,vas named as a global terrorist itself linkC'd by shadowy mechanisms to nameless other such networks with tC'ntacles throughout the world, many states WC'rC' able to idmtif}' with such naming of their own dissidents, antistate acri1r·ists. and \'iolent minorities. This was a name with a powerful global constintcncy." The meaning of the term "al-Qaeda" has been widely discussed. Man}' have highlighted the ambiguity between its sense of "base" as a territorial support and the "database" of networkC'-d For Johns and as well as meaning '"the base' (for jihad or radical action )," it may also mean "exemplar)' modd." 120 AI-Zawahiri has explicitly linked these suggesting that "Qaedat aJ-jihad !the base of jihad-i.e. al Qaeda] remains a base [qaeda] for jihad." 12 1 \Vhat is worth dwelling on is the foundation of thC' mo\'C'ment. hs origins in the resistance to the Soviets in Afghanistan is well known, and the linkages to wars in Bosnia and Chcchnya arc increasing!)' being recognized. The camps in Afghanistan- in places like Khost, and Zawwhar KUi Al Badr, ncar the Pakistani border-and in Pakistan itself certainly acted as a node Ln a developing network. Many reports have emergC'd of the transnational makC'up of those in the camps. In the report of one obsen·er, thcy indudcd "'Arabs) Pakistanis, Afghanis, Bengalis) Indonesians, Jt..falaysians, Turks, and AfricanAmericans." ' 22 In 1987, in Afghanistan, Russian forocs attacked a camp ncar Kho&t dtat had been established the previous year. Those present in the camp were notable. Bin Laden was one, but orhcrs included those involved in the Riyadh attack in 1995, a person who was killed in Bosnia in 1992. and another who would surface in Chechnya . For Abou Zahab and Roy, "thi& battle could to an cxtC'nt be viewe-d as thC' which saw the foundation of ai-Qacda. " olJ VI/hat is interesting bc)•ond the concatenation of forces is the namc of the camp. While many of the camps had names such as Beit al-Shuhadaa, Beit a i-Ans.ar, and Bcit ai-Salaamthc houses of martyrs, companions, and peacem -this camp was called Masada, which is generally translated as the "lion's den," and is somerimes seen as a reference to Osama himself, whose na me also means
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"lion.'' But the name ''i\•1asada" has another resonan<:e, which is that it is Latiniz.arion of the Hebrew word "Mctzada,'' fortress. The famous fortress of Masada in contemporary Israel was a site of the mart)'rdom of the Zealots in the Jewish-Roman war of 72 CE. 111 The idea that bin Laden would pick a Jewish site seems unusual, unless we sec it as part of his questionable assertion that " the people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who arc the inhrritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the revocn 1991 and 1996, was crucial in developing the network and providing it with a more cohcrenr theorrtical underpinning. Obviously, the territorial basis at this time was >'try strong until bin Laden was cxpdlrd in 1996. 1r For a report by the Century Foundation, the key to understanding its impact is to what it calls "the concentric circles of ;ihadism." h suggests that the inner circk of a l-Qaeda numbers in the hundreds. If this is broadened to a i-Qarda-rclatrd groups, it would include several tens of thousands: if it includes those who "identify with the iihadist cause or some dements of its idcologr," that would bring in another number ranging from tens to a few hundred million. But in its outer circle, it is tlu· entire Islamic world. l l:l Purring this another way, it suggests that only '"an extremely small number (tenths of 1 percent) of Muslims arc iihadists ... a lthough a growing number may be sympathetic to one or more aspects of the iihadist agenda such as the establishment of new governments. " 129 Thus, the relation between the network and the base is central to understanding its operations. The much-discussed notion of a state sponsor of terrorism is only part of the equa tion.uo Many states ar c unable to choose whether they arc supporting terrorists or not. \'{fhile some commentators have suggested that the base clement may be less significant, this opinion is not widely shared. Procyshcn, for example, has suggested that the network strucrure works in opposition to a territorial stmcture, 1' 1 but the analysis suggests that they a r'C often intcrrwincd, and as chaprcr 3 will show, the importance of the support of the Tali ban regime in Afghanistan was crucial, as is its ability to exploit other places such as. Pakistan. This is the notion of harboring, discussed in part in chapter 1. The Natwnol Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism makes it dear that this works in a number of registers; One: of the: mos1 Importa nt rc:sourcc:s ro c:xtrc:mists is safe: ha,•c:n. Safe: ha\'c:ns provide: the: c:nc:my with rdati\'C: frc:edom ro plan, org,anizc:,
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train, resr, and conduct operarions. Safe ha\•ens can be physical or no n-phystcaL Tcrrorisrs benefit from physical safe haven when slates grant them access to territory, or rhey g,J.in access ro ungoverned, ill-govern«!, or under-go\•emed space: within st ..m:s rhar lack c:fic:cnvc: control over their own rerriror)'. Terrorists sometimes concc:::tl themsc:lYc:s in remote: hideouts, wnn mimmal contact with authoriric:s and limite
The distinction between the physical and nonphysical is revealing, as is the separation between rural areas, seen as remote, and urban ones. But what is missing here is an understanding of just how serious the challenge might be. [n Gunaratna's words, al-Qaeda was distincth•e because it was "the first terrorist group to control a state-the lslamic Emirate of Afghanistan. " 133 But the destruction of the bases, the physical clements of support, in Afghanistan and dse\\o'here, havc pushed the organization to rely .less and less on this, and work more with the virtual. the decentcred, and the network. This is an issue raised by Benjamin and Simon: A sahenr quesrion is wherher ai-Qac:da wall make the: leap from bricks-and-morLlr statehood ro varrual starc=hood. In AfghaniSI:.an 31-Qaeda WJ.S. m rruth, a st:ne. It conuollc:d ternrory, maintained an army and waged war, forge:'Stml of law. The de: facto soverc=tgnt)' ir en joyed in Afghanastan offered great ad\'antages: a rerritonal base, training f3cilities, and a secure headquorrc=rs. Bur gi.,·en the pombiliry that rhe Unired Stares Somalia, or U:banon what ir did in Afghanistan, would do in h:nards than rc:-<:st3bhshmg camps and v1nuaJ holds trammg facilities where: rhey willanmct rhe terminol gutdancc: sensors
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o f Amc:rican bombs. Vinualiry has its own ad11anragc:s. A d1spers.:-d group is harder ro loc:Jte and :mack . LU
Appadurai is therefore not q uite right to suggest that the September 11 , 2001, a nacks were "a war undertaken by a new type of agt'ncy, a n agen<:y neither intt'rested in establishing a state nor in opposing any particular sta te, nor in the relations between states at a iL This was a war against America, but it was a war against tht' idea that states arc tht' o nly game in town. "Us But while ProC)•shen and Appadur ai may have somewhat exaggerated the earlier situation. this has the pott'ntial to bt' the outcome of the operations. Appadurai rais-es an important question of bounda ries in relation to terror, suggesting that: Terrorists blur the line berwec:n mihtar)' a nd civilian space and create uncertainty about the very boundanes within whtch we t::tke ci11il sociefy robe sovt'rc:ign. Terror is a kind of mc:tastasis o f w:H; war withour spatial o r temporal bounds. Terror divorces war fro m the idc:a of rhe narion. 1.1o
The extent to which this is true is, of course, debata ble. a nd the same kinds of questions might be asked of state-led responses in the "war on terror. •· Some of these issues will be further t'Xamine.d in subsequent chapters, particularly concerning the interrelation of military and civiJian targets. And the "'war on terror" is increasingly seen without limits of time and space- the "global wa r o n terror" or ..the long war." For the critics associated with the Reto rt project, a range of spatial scales need to be taken into account. "Islamism is multifo m1, then, and operates at many le.,·els- the global tlmma, the: territoria lly defined nationsta te, the urban neighborhood, the kin group, or the: tribe. This in part explains its appeal, its reach, and its astonishing politica l dynamism. ''' 37 Perhaps only a recognition of the interrelation of these spatial senses c.m trul}' grasp what is at stake. Neither wholly global o r local, nor straightforwardly territorial, and certa inly not entirely detc:rritorializcd. What is significant then. beyond the particu lar rdation of the net\....ork and the base, is a range: of spatiaJ imaginaries and practices and their particular interrelations. For Devji, this has led to a range of new spatial sites. "The ruin, the cave, a nd the battlefield as sites of holy war and martyrdom have b}' their vc:ry currenC)' become: the a r'Cnas of a globaJ [slam, displacing in this respect the shrine, tomb and hair city of past. "I J.J WhiJc their argument is general, Abdel Sa lam and de Waal's suggestion that "it is probable that no theorization of this group can capture its historical spccificit)', is particular!}' the case spatia lly.
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SUite SovereJgnty and Space1S of Exception
The que-stion of the camp invites further attention. The d)•namic between terror, the state, and territory is particularly crucia l here. To what extent can the terrorist training camp be understood as a ''space of exception," the term imroduccd into conremporary discussions b)' the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agambcn? Agamben's anal}•sis of the camp, by which he means the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, has alrcad}' proved a model for analysis of some of the spatial issues in thc "war on terror." Most of the work using his idcas, particularly in his book Homo has focused on tvm particular sites: Guantanamo Bar and Abu Ghraib. 1• 1 In the first, the United States believed that thc ambiguous geographical status of the naval base---either in U.S. sovereign territory or in that of anothcr state--would translate into a legal grar arc-a. Thus, the United State-s believed it could operate there outside both U.S. and international law. 142 The situation in Abu Ghraib is rather different, but Agamben's ideas ha\'e been used to make sense of the legal geographies of the atrocities carried out by U.S. soldiers and prh·ate contractors in the prison. His work can equally be brought to bear on the scandals around CIA prisons in Eastern European countries and the notion of "extra.ordinary rendition. " 14 ' In each of these specific places, what is at stake is how the relation benvocn sovereign power and territor)' can become more intensified in particular sites. This is what Agamben calls the "space of exception," developing the ana lysis of the "state of exoeption"' by the German jurist Carl Schmitt. 144 A "state of exception" is an extraordinary legal moment, made possible by a number of state constitutions, where the normal rule of law is suspended. This is usually a state of emergency declared in the face of a national catastrophe such as Y.ridesprcad civil disorder, natural disaster, or an attack from another state. ln the current constitution of France, fo r example, Article: 16 states that the President of the Republic may take all necessary mcasuJ·es "when the institutions of the Republic, the independence: of the nation, the integrity of its territor)', or the execution of its international commitments are seriously and immediately threatened and the: regular functioning of the constitutional public powers is interrupted. "••s Article 16 has been used only once, by Charles de Gaulle during the war in Algeria, from April 23 to 29, 1961. However, Agamben claims that Western democracies have tended to brpass the: actual declaration of a "statt' of exception" through a more general and cffectivt' extension of their powers. He suggests that we have seen the
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generalization of the paradigm of security as the normal technique of gm·ernment.'" 4 " The extraordinary fM'Wers granted to Bush on September 14, 2001, and the of the USA PATRJOT Act, as discussed in chapter 1, would serve as potent examples. Yet these have of parallels at other times of supposed often, in a fact, that it is difficult to sec just how exceptional these situations arc. It is imporrant ro just how useful the idea of a "'state of exception" actually is. French Fifth Republic constitution was born out of "emergency": de Gaulle took power in 1958 on the express basis that he be granted six months of emergency powers while proposing a constitution to replace that of the Fourth Republic (a constitution he had opposed since its inception In Schmitt's analysis, it is the sovereign that on the exception, " 14 3 and this is his key definition of sovereignt}'· [t is the sovereign who rules law must be suspended. Agamben, when the standard operation of Schmitt's ideas but suggesting that this has been more extensively gcncraliud, argues that the temporary suspension can often become permanent: Tbe camp IS lire splice which is opened wlum the state of f'xceptioll bt."gins to become the rule. In the camp, the sr;are of cxceprion, w hjch was essentially a tempo.r;l.r)' of ordering [ordinamentoj on the basas o f a factual arrangement, which o rdering.
of d.:anger, is now given :.1 permanent spatial such nevenhdess outside rhe normal
This is an analysis that he particularly applies to the concentration and extermination camps of Nazi Germany, and paradigmatically Auschwitz. uo German Weimar Constitution was dfoctivcly suspended in 1934 with the passing of the Enabling Act- a law to deal with the "'Emergency of the People and the ReiciJ"-allowing Hitler not onlr to pass laws directly, but also to break with the constitution. The argument is then made that the Nazi camps were the spatia l extension of this legal usurpaused extensively tion. Yer Article 48 of rhe \'(fdmar Constitution had before Hider, so in some respects, Hider was continuing and extending previous state practice rather than radically breaking with it.' s1 Indeed, Neoclcous notes that "'exception" is perhaps a misleading term, because the declaration of states of emergency is often, paradoxicallr. rather commonplace. Instead, he makes a compelling argument for stressing the notion of "emergency," noting that the extraordinary powers claimed arc strategically inherent in the operations of political power, only to emerge when tacticall>• useful. m
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One thing that is crucial in the Nazi camps is their conccrn with thc management of life and death itself, which Agambcn, fo.llowing Michel Foucault, c.alls "biopolitics." Agambcn thcrcforc claims that rhc camp is "the ptuc, absolutc, and impassable biopolitkal space (insofar as it is founded solely on thc state of exception).'' It thus appt".ars "as the hidden paradigm of the political space of modernity. "•U The question of biopolitics and its rdation ro politic.al space is a crucial issue, While biopolitics is essemial in the anal ysis of the "war on terror," there can sometimes be a tendency to follow Foucault in seeing too straightforward a shift from a supposcdlr earlier "territorial politics" to a contemporary The analysis herr, while focusing on the territorial politics of thr "war on trrror" sees rhis as part of a more complementary anal>•sis. m The question of "humanitarian intervention" and the management of life and death in camps-cdugcc, internmrnt, or training-have sign ificant territorial clements. Other questions analyzed in this book-the spatial izcd issue of contagion and contamination, for inst.ancc-havc significant biopolitical dements. The territorial and thc biopolitical exist, and must therefore be analyzed, together. More specifically, we should ask if Ag.ambc:n's failure to provide a coherent account of the state demonstrates a more signifi'Cant weakness in accounting for the relation of sovereignty to territory. •.10 This is because while the camp may be his fundamental cxamplc, as Agambcn himself notes, it is not the only possible "'space of excoeption, '' •rThe issues he raises about the relationship bct>vcen sovereign power and space can potentially be used more broad ly in an anal)•sis of territorial so\•ereignty and issues, particularly in terms of the relationship trrritorr. What is crucial to rcmcmbc-r is that Agambcn's point is both historically focused and geograph ically bounded. His important claim concerning the relation of sovereign power to its location can be broadened, as he suggests, but this is only possible if we introduoc both historical and geographical spccificit)' into any extension to othrr spaces. Al:so, it is crucial to interrogate the particular configuration of soverC"ign power in each casr. In addition, we must remember that Agambcn's argumrnts arc about a particular kind of camp that he finds significant, and that there is a risk that hr m·ercmpha:siz.es the exceptional nature of it.•ls It is essential to rcxogniu that the Nazis appropriated an earlier model of the c.amp from colonial practice and used it in at least two distinct ways: thC' concentration camps, which were used as administrative tools to deal with domestic opponents and those deemed medically degenerate, and the later eA"terminarion C'amps. It is the first of these that provides a modd for contemporarr analrses, not the second. The crucial thing, as Mcz:zandra points out, is that these camps drny the "right to mobility.
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Edkins, for has. shown how Agambcn 's. can be usdul in understanding faminc-rclid camps and the camps set up by the North Atfamic Organization (NATO) during the Kosovo conflict in Nlaccdonia.• .o "Humanitarian spaces" such as these, and those deployed in conflicts in Iraq, Rwa nda, and Bosnia an interesting to throrists of political Humanitarian spacesvariously coded as "safe havens," "areas,'' or "zones''-are set up as a response to events such as genocide, refugees, famine, or war, and attempt to institutionalize a state of protection in more than a merely transitory way. Although they arc unlikely to be permanent, their temporary nature can be quite long-term, because they a rc designed to be in place until the situation is and the suspension of the nom1 be ended. Agamben contends that the camp appears when the balance between the ordering of the state and its loca lization-that is, between soverdgnty and tcrritory- "enters a period of permanent crisis and the state decides to undertake the management of the biological life of the nation directly as its own \Vhat we have in humanitarian spaces of exception is an intervention from beyond, where the international communit}' take-s the role of the sta te away from it while prescn'ing its territorial extent. When a state is exercising the ''monopoly of legitimate physical within its territory, grave human rights abuses may result. Sim ilarly, when a state is unable to do this because of the existence of other dements, such as under a civil war or in the case of a "failed state,"' protection of the people may be equally impossible. Genocide and refugees thus produce rather different situations. One is due to particular state practices., the other to the collapse of state structures.t6J In the first case of human rights abuses, the state's territorial intcgrit}' is sustained and indeed makes the repression possible, while in the second case of inabilit)• to rule, the state is clearl}' not in effective control of its territory. In this way, then, Agam ben's description of the logic of the camp as a particular instance of a "space of exception" is productive in the way humanitarian spaces operate both within the existing state (thus allowing territorial preservation) and as a limit to the sovereign power of the state (thus limiting the extent of its power and its territorial soverdgnty). \Vhat is important to underline is that the humanitarian establishment of a particular space is itsdf a so\·ereign act. The United Nations or NATO makes a sovereign decision concerning the spatial extent of the monopoly of legitimate violence. It decides the "spac,e of exception,"' and manage-s the biological lives of the people it seeks to enclose. Indeed, as Agambcn has noted, the way humanitarian organizations conoci\•e of life
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means that they ''maimain a secret solidarity with the: \•ery powers thc:r ought to fight." IM par::Jdo:\ical srams of camp as 3 space o f muS£ be considered. camp is a piece o f (errimry placed ourside no rma l jund1cal bur it IS ne\•err.hclcss nor simply :m exrem31space. Whar is excluded in camp is, according ro rhc etymological of the term (ex-capereJ, take11 for capruredl outside, through irs own exdus10n. 1r.l
Terrorist training camps, o r more broadly, the spaces in which the)' operate, demonstrate a rather different problem. Whereas Aga mbcn's paradigma tic example: demonstrates an intens ifkation of sovereign power and humanitarian safe a reas impose an international presence as a putativcl)' neutral sovereign, these camps operate in nominally sovereign space, due to either the tacit consent or ineffective control of the sovereign power. The absence of sovC'rcigmy in particular places can therefore a lso been sccn as an exception. In fac t, given that there is no longer anrthing ver}' .. with the generalization of the exceptional about "states of phmomC'na to the point where thC' standard operation of law is conCC'rnc:d with C'mergenq•, it is perhaps the absC'nce of soverdgnty over territory itself that is thC' break w ith the norm. YC'•t rnthC'r than being cx-rraterritoria l spaces like Guantanamo, these: arC' inrraterritorial spaces. These places therefore demonstrate the suspension of sovereign control through absence rather than its intensification through exC'cutive decision. ThC' obvious example' of this is, of course, AfgJ1anistan, but it can be extended to a number of in Africa and the greater J\•liddle East. What these spaces illustrate is that the sovereig nt)•/tcrritory relationship has broken down. At times, this is created through the ume<)listic imposition or maintenance of fixed territorial containers for sovereign power. Yet at other times, these camps operate: within the borders of supposed!)' strong states within Europe or North America. This is a point Derrida made eloquently: As for smres thm .. ha rbor" rerrorist nerworks. ir is diffu:uJ( to identify rhem as such. The Unitro .Srares and Europe, london and Berlin. :1re J.lso pl.1ces o f rramin g or formarion a nd information for all the o f the world. No geograph)', no '"terrirori:1l" derermmation, is rhus perrinem an)' longer for locaring the seat of rhcs.c new rcchnolog1es of transforma(ion o r aggrrssion.... The rclarionship eanft. terra, remtory and terror has changed, :1nd it IS necessary to know t h.ar this 1s because of rhor is, because of JU
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ThC' point about thC' genC"raliz.ation of sanctuaries is usdul, bm thC' rdation be-tween territory and terror is somewhat overdra'A'll, and the link to technosciC'nCC' potentially misleading. It is problematic be-cause, with the exception of new te-chnologies that ha¥e helped communications, the material supports for terrorist networks arc not especial!)' new or modern . Some training camps Op<"ratc within Western cities and arc closer to much oldC'r idC'as of safe houses, or the idC'a of a cell. The idC'as con\·cyed by the word "cell" is particularly interesting. with thC' multiple rC'sonancC's of a prison, a place of monastic isolation, and an clement of a larger organism. Much U.S. policy-including, notably, the PATRlOT Act-has been predkatC'd on the number of terror cells operating within the contincntal UnitC'd State's, but generally thcse have not acmall}' been discovercd. 160nce again, there is a carefully constructed operation of threat. In Donald Rumsfdd's words to the U.S. Armed Forces in May 2001, "wc may not know precisely who our adversarics may be or precisel y what challenges they will posc, but we do know that challenges to freedom arc unending. Your task is to defend }'Our nation against thc unknown, the uncertain, the unseen, and thc unexpected." 161 As Devji comments: arc these= unknown, unseen, unc:xpc:'Cted, and even, for the momc:m, non--ex istent adversaries? They arc enemies wh.o inhabit the of the posr-Cold era. To idetni(y rhcm wirh l\·lushms or Islam mtglu be comfornng because It allows du: da ngers of thas new world to be loc:J iizcd castigated Ln a single name, bur it ts also shon-sightcd and dangerous, since rhe iilMd onl)' ina ugurarcs thts new world of d:J ngcrs b)· pro,•iding an cx:tmple of what else ma)' come to
These strategies therefore link to thosc constructions of the post-Cold War world dis.cusscd in chaptC'r l. While for some rime after September 11, 2001, there was a fe-eling that ai-Qaeda was in disarray, more recently it has experienced a resurgence. A numb<:r of factors contribute to this. One is that the U.S. invasion of Iraq radicalized a whole generation of new re-cruits; another is that this invasion has dep leted U.S. forces fTom Afghanistan, and turned its focus dsewhere. But thC' rc
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rangc: of sc-miconnected groups now function as conduits for these- ideas and principles. Thus, imagined geographies of aJ-Qaeda as a "terrorist network" that blurs the boundaries between outside and inside only partial!)' grasp the natme of its construction as a real and imagined opponent. The territorial issues tend to be underplayed, not merely in terms of the territorial base-s in which they operate, but also in terms of the wider issues of tc:rritorial control b)' nonstare organizations. They should therefore caution us against seeing al-Qaeda in nonrerritorial terms or as indicative of some wider detcrritorialization. Political geographers ha¥e thus perhaps been too willing to suggest a generalized model of Agambcn 's "space of exception.'' In utilizing a model, it is always essential to provide an inrerrogation of the particularities of the specific situation and to question whcthc:r the model of a concentration of SO\'crcign power is always appropriate. If we arc to usC' Agambcn 's insights concern ing the relation of force to sire and of power oveT space to understand terrorist training camps or the territorial strategies of Islamism more generally, we must recognize that places arc exploited when there is an absence or weakness of SO\'ercign power rather than an intensification of such power. Jvluch has been made, therefore, of the way in which al-Qaeda has exploited the ungoverned or so-called undcrgO\•erncd spaces of the world, those places where tcrrirorial soverc:ignry is linle morc: than a myth.•-u AI-Qaeda's invo.lvcmenr in Yc:men and Afghanistan was tied to civil wars, and the situation in Sudan and Somalia of fractional politics or sc-.cession opened up spaces that could be exploited. As Agnew notes, "works across state boundaries while exploiting the lack of territorial sovcrc:ignty exercised by some of its host states (such as Pakistan). " This is the trope of rhc "weak'' or "failed" state, discussed in chapter 3.
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CHAPTER THREE
Rubble Reduced to Dust Targeting Weak States
This chapter looks in more detail at the impact of the move to target states that "harbor"' terrorist groups. Drawing on arguments made Ln the previous chapter, it shows that these arc states where the supposedly im •iolable relation between sovereignty and territory has broken dovm. They thercb)' expose the sovt"rcign fiction on which the United Nations is constructed, namely, that every state is in control of its own territory and therefore has territorial sovereignty within its bounda ries and equal sm·ereignt}' outside them. These hne be-en described as "weak"' or "failed'' states- terms whose invocation L5 often used as a prelude to intervention of some kind-a further compromise of territorial sm•ercignty. Gh·cn the attempt to preserve a monopoly of state power, these states arc socn as challenges to the e.:dsting international system in two main ways: they threaten the structure of international law and they provide oppornmitics for nonstate actors to base and to mobilize. They show that not aJJ stat es control their territory, and that nonstatc actors somctimes c.an. The second provides for a paradoxical response. \Vhile the ideal of a sovereign state in complete control of its territory is aspired to, a state that fails to control its own territory can find its sm•ereignty as a whole challenged. Thus, the two challenges arc related: the failure of a state to live up to certain imposed responsibilities and obligations fmther unravels the relation between territory and sovereignty. In recent years, powerful states ha\'e claimed that the traditional right to noninterference in domestic affairs should be limited. of populations was used to justify international intervention Ln Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor. and was indfcctivcl}' discussed in relation to Rwanda. Following the 1991 Gulf \Var, Allied forces established no-fly zones in the north and south of Iraq, ostensibly to protect civilian populations. Other
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interventions, such as those in Somalia in the early 1990s or Sierra Leone at the end of the have been understood in this way, as "humanitarian intervention." U.S., British, and other forces fre.quen dy undertook intervention missions, and sometimes the United Nations sanctioned these actions. Thus, the principle of inter\'rntion in the sovereign affairs {and thrrdore the territory) of independent states has inm::asingl)' become an accepted pan of inrernational relations- nor simply a normal pan, but one that is argued for and justifird by several high-level panels and reports for the United Nations. Yet these interventions were not simply bocause of a desire to protrct ci\'ilian populations. Often there were widrr issues a t stake, with a frar of instability in the wider region or the world in general. This was because states that were deemed to have collapsed were perceived "as thrrats to international S«urity in the broadest sense of the word-as breeding grounds for disease, refugee flows, arms traffidcing, transnational crime, environmenta l destruction, regional instability and other problems."' If states arc usually understood as power conraincrs, these can only be leaky ones, where the absences within can lead to a spread of danger outside. A state that is not in full control of its territory can lead to impacts beyond those boundarks. We can :sec this exportation of problems from Sierra Leone to Liberia and the Ivory Coast, and now the re•·ersc; the relation between events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi; Afghanistan and Pakistan; and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.2 These arc therefore the kinds of places that Robert Kaplan anal)•zed as part of his ''coming anarchy." How to deal with these kinds of problems \\o'as one of the key issues in the post-Cold War world, particularly for the Clinton adminimation . One option was to try to enclose the problem, transferrLng the containment method from the Cold Wa r. A method that had been conceived as a way of preventing the fu rther extension of communism was now potentially a method "to ha lt the spread of anarchy. '"J Yet as chapter 1 showed, many commentators suggested this kind of thinking was redundant, that there needed to be a suc.ccssor idea to containment. The proposed solution was that of integration: incorporation into a set of shared rules and values. Thus, while states that arc seen as "weak," "failed," or "collapsed" may initially be targeted to deal with an immediate problem, the longer term solution is seen as integrating them into-or in rarer cases back into---global society. Since 2001, these arguments ha..,·c been extended to a number of other states that ha..,.e been portrayed as unstable and therefore da ngcrous. While Afghanistan was certainly portrayed in that way before the 2001
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invasion, it has cominuc.d to be described in that way, as has neighboring Pakistan. Iraq was seen as a danger for other reasons, before the invasion, bur the collapse of effective wuraliz.cd territorial control after the invasion has created something rather different. States increasingly usc similar arguments to deal with their own concerns. Aside from the regional claims of India, Russia, and China, there arc plenty of othcr cxamples. In Cyprus, there have been claims that the north is acting as a base for terrorists, particularly Chcchens. Nonh Cyprus is constructed as a lawless space because it is not rccogniz.cd except by Turkey. and maps produccd in the south a ll ha \•e "'arca under Turkish occupation" marked, instead of any other form of annotation. The key is whose interests might be servcd by such stories, although gi••cn the proximity of Cyprus to the Levant and its 2004 membership in thc European Union, it is not surprising to find that the U.S. Department of State notes that "the United States is working closdy with C)•prus in the 'war on terror.' A Mutual Lcgal Assistance Treaty, which has in force since September 18, 2002, facilitates bilateral cooperation. "4 Similar claims were made by the Unitc.d States that the Marxis t group FARC in Colombia had rcceh•cd training in ai-Qacda camps, although these were later Other states that ha,re come under simila r pressure from the Unitcd States and its allies include Sudan and Yemen, while Lebanon's 2006 crisis was for precisely this reason. Simjlarly, it is unsurprising that Somalia and the Horn of Africa more generally have become a key focus. \Vhile these kinds of states had intervention previously for humanitaria n relief and violations of human rights, in the conte:-.1: of the "war on terror, " the justifications for intervention within nominal state territory arc broadened. The two key instances arc the pursuit of weapons of mass dcstm<:rion and allowing terrorist groups to operate within the territory. It is important then to recognize that the "war on terror" is not a radical break from previous practice-in key aspc-ets, it i& a continuation, at the very least in the logic of inten·cnrion itself. The kind of states where intervention has occurred is sign ificant. States such as Iraq, Ira n, S}rria, Libya, and North Korea ha\'e been the focus of attention for their pmsuit of weapons of mass destruction. Other state&including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon. Yemen , Sudan, and Somaliaha..,·c been seen as allowing nonstate actors to operate within their territory. In the language of contemporary internationa l relations, these arc "strong" and "weak" states-i n this case, the former arc where a considerable part of the state's resources arc diverted to the building up of weapons arsenals; the latter arc where the absence of effective territorial control in wholc or part of the states enables alternative concentrations
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of power. Ignatieff has described these lamr states as ha..·ing an ''inability to maintain a monopol)• of the internal means of violence.''" Iraq, and before it, Serbia, were rather different: states that were centra lly controlled though contending against separatist movements (the Kurds or the Kosovars), but thereby failing to protect the rights of the people, and more importantly, c hallenging U.S. hegemony.- While "strong " states can be treated as com•cntional enemies, "weak" states req uire rather different Yet even this listing demonstrates the difficulty of drawing such lines. Iraq may have been a "strong'' state in some respects before the overthrow of the Baathist regime in 2003, but in other respects, it:s provision of services made it exccptiona ll)• weak. Its repression of the ci•·ilian population indicated a strong state a pparatus, but large parts of the countr)', notably the Kurdish north, were outside its control. Since 2003, the weakness of the state government has enabled a splintering of political authority and territorial control. North Kore
eignt)• is not 11ecessarily predicoted and defined b)• the strict tmd fixed territorial boundaries of ir1diuidual sfotes. " ' It is essentia l to rc.cognizc that the international legal term of territorial integrity requires both territorial preservation or inviolability and territorial sovcreignt}', though a ll too often the international community invokes it onlr to mean the former. This is despite the importance of territoriaJ control even when borders arc preserved and the possibility of nonstate actors using that territory for particula r purposes. Thus the argument is made that that today wea k or failing states arc often as much of a threat as strong or rogue states. The Natio11ai Sea1rit)' Strategy of the U11ited States of America makes this clear: "America is now threatened less by conquering states than we arc by failing ones. \V.lc arc menaced less by fleets and armies than by catastro phic technologies in the hands of the embittered few. " 10 This is a theme elaborated in the U.S. military and defense stratcg)' documents: T here: exists an ·' arc of Lnsrobilit)'" snerching from the H emisphere:, t hro ugh Afnca and the Ensr and extending to As1a. grounds for rhrc::ns T here: a re areas m t his arc char S(:fVe as
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to our interesTS. \V1thin areas rogue pro111o:k sancruaq• to rerrorisrs, prorecring mem from and arrack. Orher adversanes ad\•amage of ungo\•erned space and under-governed territories from which rhey prepare plans, train forces and Llunch anacks. These ungoverned are::.s often coincide wirh locarions of ilhcir acti111ries; such coincidence opponuniric:s for hosrilc: coahrions of elements ideologiCal exrrem1sts. 11 The absence of c:ffecti\•e go\•c:rno nce m many ports of rhe world creates for tc:rronsts, criminals, and msurgents. :Mony stares are unable, in some: cases unwilhng, to exerc1sc: effecti\'e control O\'er their rc:rritory or frontiers, thus le-.111ing are-.1.s open ro hostile exploitation. Our experience in me: war on rc:rrorism poinrs ro the need ro reorient our mlhtar)' capabilities ro conrc:nd with such irregular challenges more effc:ctl\'d)•. 1l
Several political science commentators ha\'C de\•dopcd these themes. One of the most sustainc<J set of anal)•scs has been offered by Robert I. Rotbcrg, who has directc
Failed states thus arc unable to "project power'' cffcctivC'ly and may collapse entirely. These states ..C'xhibit a vacuum of authority;• they a rc "black holes into which failed politics have fallen. He describes Somalia as
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"a merC' hollow geographical exprC'ssion---dc:void of national government lif not of gm·crnance) ....- For Phil Cerny, such states arc '"gray zones," which can be similarly understood as "geographical areas and social contexts where the ruiC' of law docs not run." 1K What is revealing is the stress on the geographical, even as the spatial monopoly of violence is precisely in question. The question of "'territorial control" is one of the axes of the "' typology of state health " proposed by one of Ro rbcrg's collaborators; rhc o ther is " provision of public services."' This gi.,·c:s four kinds of states-strong, weak, fragmented, and failed.• Menkhaus similar]}' shows how the territorial aspect is crucial. Some states exhibit what he calls " territorial collapse.'' where thcr have lost c"Dntrol of some terrain and have left the others fai l to have e-ffective control even where: they arc present ( ..collapse of governing ca pacity ") . Some sta tes sha re both characteristics. Other states might have cffectl\'C control. but from nonstate organizations_,the rise of sub-sta te politics.zo What is pa rticular]}' significa nt in his ana lysis is the sepa ration of territorial failure: and ineffective sovereignty, even if they arc effecti\•cly intcrlinked. 21 Rotberg therefore contends that "'understanding the dynamics of nationsta te fa ilure" and "strengthening weak nation-states in the developing world has consc.quently assumc<J new urgency" in the "war on terror."22 This is to prevent their becoming failed states, or collapsing entirely. The Century Foundatio n's report De{eati11g the ]ihadists makes ver)' similar suggcstions. 2J [n their obsequious ongoing program of work on behalf of the Association of Amc:rican Geographers, Cutter, Richardson, and Wilbanks suggest that of the " priority rese""
There are therefore tv.•o key a rguments made by the United States, its allies, and complicit political scientists. These states may be a problem for what happens within their territory, but also for how the}' may affect their neighbors. or those further afield. The)' arc "catalysts, havC'ns, a nd incubators of other threats. '' 25 On this logic, states under threat emanating from such places claim tht:)' arc justified in ta king action within or against them. Of cow·sc, the human tragedy is that the occupants of these areas become victims from both sides. Cerny suggests that the " territorial and authorita tive boundaries" of such targeted states "wJll cffecti\•d y become
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more fluid," even though "of course, legal sovereignt}' is not fom1allr threatened, state borders still appear as real lines on the map, and guarantees of diplomatic re.cognition and of membcrship in certain international institutions remain. " lo \Ve have here a clear instance of how territorial integrity is split apart, in that there is a call for the preservation of existing territorial settlements but an insistence on wholly contingent sovereignqr. The stress on territorial preservation is enforced most strongl)' at the very time territorial SO\'ereignty is disrupted. Territorial sovereignty is challenged b)' both nonstate actors and by intervention, but while territorial preservation is e.qually cha llcngcd by the first, it is fully reinforced by the sccond. In this context, it is worth rccalling that a lmost all thc groups on the: U.S. Department of Statc's list of terrorist organizations arc sclfdeternlination mo\•ements, 2 ' a linkage that is pursued in chapter 5. The claim of the strategic importance and security danger of weak states is common within both the official U.S. security, ddense, military, and strategy documents, as wdl as in more popular accounts of the new rules in the '"'global war on terror." In the Bush expansion of Jefferson's "empire of liberty".l.ll- another tcmporallsparial/political marker-there is inherently no limit. As Gaddis de-scribes this logic, thc United States "can no longer rcspcct the: sm·crcignty of m1y statc that harbors terrorists; it must preempt such threats wherever they appear; it will extend democracy cvcf}'\•Vhcre. Alain Finkiclkraut has described this as the " idealism of democratic contagion. " 30 The substantive focus of this. chapter is on four such sites in thc "war on terror." The is perhaps the: most obvious: Afghanistan. This is followed b)' examinations of Pakistan, Lebanon, and Somalia. Each of thesc states faced a choicc: Cooperat e with the Unitcd States or be hddl accountable, and thus targeted, for the actions of nonstate actors operating from Terrorism within rour territory. As thc Natio11ai Strategy for suggests, the a im of the United States is to "den}' further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by ensuring other states accept their re-sponsibilities to tal::c action against these international th reats within thcir sovereign territory.',3 1 In each of these places, the complete- or partial absem:e of sm•ereign power has been rc:scripted as a global danger, justifying intcrvc:ntion. V:'hile the " ln unanitarian spaces " established in places likc norrhcrn Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda sought to prescrve thc state's nominal territorial cxtent }' C:l fundamentally challenged its territorial so•lcreignty; the existence of te-rrorist training camps is seen as a failure- of a state's dut}' to act in particular ways. While territo ria l extent might be prc:scn•cd in theory. a state that cannot dfcctivcl)' control its own territOr}' also cannot sccurt' its borders. When thc sovereignty/territor)'
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relation breaks down, exposing one of thC' fundamC'ntal structural fictions of the international legal system, intervention is frequently nvift to follow. ThC' absence of sovereign control within a state can lead ro instabi lity ourside' its borders, both in tem1s of immediate' neighbors but also potC'ntially farther afield. Afghanistan: Unseadng the Tallban
This was something that the United Sta tes and its allies were slow to realiz.c: in relation to Afghanistan. The role of the United States, particularly former National Security Advisor Brzezinski, in fomenting a nti-Soviet feeling in thC' 1970s was noted in chapter 1, but the other great powC'rs have intervened in this region many timC'S over the centuries. In the late twentieth century, it became one of the last battlegrounds of the Cold War following the So\'tet invasion. The Soviet Union was re luctant to send troops from its own Asian republics, fearing that t hey would sympathize more with the Afghans than with Moscow, so thc)r sent forces from Russia and the European Soviet republics. The Soviet Union had its own problems with and other minorities, partly complicated by the way Stalin had drawn the borders of the republics in centra l Asia to ensure that rherC' were minorities in each republic and often to separate' major cities from c:ach other through physical o r political geography.n This tactic had benefits in pre¥enting signifi<:ant challengC'S to Moscow, but it a lso has had lasting implications. One of these is the link betv,recn opposition to Russia in Che"hnya and fighters from Afghanistan.n Throughout the 1980s, the United States armed the mujahidin, seeing a victOr}' in the SoviC't withdrawal in 1989. The Soviet retreat ldt a vacuum in the state, however, which was filled with a long civil war where: global and regional powers continued to intervene. The Taliban emerged as a major power in 1996 with Pakistani support, unifying Is lamic forces in the coumrr and capturing KabuL Russia a nd Iran armed the anriTaliban forces, while the UnitC'd State's continued to give support to the muiahidin and succC'Ssor groups after the Soviet withdra wal. Other powen; backed anti-Taliban forces, including the centra l A&ian republics of the former Sovic:t Union, India, and Turkey. U.S. interests in stability in the country were soon trumped by a concern over international terrorism. These powers were therefore continu Lng to usc Afghanistan as a surRussia was particula rly concerned that the Ta li ban could spread its influence bC}'ond "the old frontiers of the former Soviet empire. " Js While there was undoubtedly an clement of paranoia in this, which trades on exactly the same fears that led to the Soviet invasion in 1979, the
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Ta liban did have a loose affiliation with fore ign fighte rs. So while it is generally acknowledged that the Taliban itself d id not have a foreign policy beyond its links to Pakistan, nor was it planning fo reign interventions because it wanted to sort out itr. internal politics first, J.6 Abou Zahab a nd Roy note that they were bound to foreign \'olunteers in two ways. First, they used such \'olunteers- themsclvcs often a remnant of anti-Soviet m11;ahidi11- in their own second, they "provided space within their territor)• fo r tra ining camps for foreign volunteers." r These volunteers had links to conflicts elsewhere across the world, including Cht'-ehnya and Bo.snia.J1 While the United States had launched cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan in 1998, ir ne\'er planned a more concerted ass
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Afghanistan and its provinces
Nonetheless, the war in Afghanistan was not the war of a "new nature" that French president Jacques Chirac had suggested it would lx-. Rather, the means of dealing with a supposedly deterritorialized opponent was surprising old-fashioned: launch a ir strikes to soften them up and then try to conquer territory. CIA operatives and a great deal of money were used, bur ultimately the aim was to unseat the existi ng regime and replace it with one mme a mena ble w U.S. interests."' As Rogers no ted, there were rclativcl>• few areas in Afghanistan where the Taliban were concentrated: Some= of the= uwol\'c=d arc= hone)'Comlxd wid1 undc=rground irriganon runnds-not mapped, no t visible= ro but known ro provide= shdrc=r and rransir ro Tali ban forcc=s rh.1.t pc:opk. arc=, in an)' case=, widdy dispc:rsc=d. These= linc=s.. :Jrc= fluid intermingled with farms and \'lllagc=s, .s,o that any kind of bombing is likd)' to cause= ci111lian casu:J inesY
In addition, the operations of a l-Qaeda did not map conveniently onto territorial boundaries. The borde-r with Pakistan, in pa rticular, was porous.
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Legally, the United States was fairly well covered; politically, it was surrounded by allies in deed or in principle. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1368 was initiated by the French on September 12, 2001. The resolution declared that the Sccurit)• Council was prepared "to take all necessary steps to respond to the terrorist attacks. "n While this fell short of an explicit authorization for war, both this resolution and subsequent ones reaffirmed "'the inherent right of indi\'idual or collc:cri..·c sclf-ddense." Resolution B73, invoking Chapter VU of the requires all states to police their own territories and ensure that they do not function as "safe ha\•ens," a nd to .. prevent the commission of terrorist acts. '' 4Y Byers argues this "adopted language that C{)Uid be argued to constitute and almost unlimited mandate to usc forcc.'' 1D Rcsolurion 1377, passed six weeks later, noted that many states would require assistance to live up to their requirements under 1373.5 1 All of the abovenoted resolutions were phrased in general terms rather than relating to explicit states. Resolution 13 78, by contrast, was a reflection ofthe s ituarion in Afghanistan and madc clear how the Se<:urity Council saw the position. It supported "international efforts to root out terrorism," and condemned "the Taliban for allowing Afghanistan to be used as a base for the export of terrorism by the ai-Qacda network and other terrorist groups and for prm·iding safe ha..·cn w Usama Bin Laden, ai-Qacda and others associated with them, and in this context supponing the efforts of the Afghan people to replace the Taliban regime. " H In addition to U.N. support, NATO invoked Article 5 of its charter for the first time, declaring an attack on one was an attack on all. J\·luch of this is unsurprising. In the wake of the attacks in the United States, few states were likely to oppose a response. or, as importantly, wanted to be socn as supporting the Taliban and ai-Qaeda. 13 Significantly, as Heisbourg notes. "the Security Council's interpretation of Article 51 officially and for the first time made the U.N. responsive to threats from nonstate Bm despite what was going on within Afghanistan at that time, Resolution 1378 reaffirmed the Security Council's .. strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and national unit)' of Afghanistan,"H a position that was reinforced in 1383, 1386, and subsequent resolutions.J• The Bonn Agreement on the new Afghan government, passed on December 5, 2001, also stresses the "territorial integrity"' of the state.s- Afghanistan, despite all its problems, must remain as a state within its existing territory, with the: rights and responsibilities that come with this. This is important to underline. It was what Afghanistan was doing-or allowing to be done-in its own territor)'
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that was as the problem. For the nco-cons Frum a nd Perle, it was simple math: Plane fares, box cutters, petry cash: $ 1OO,()(){f. Rccruitmg., training., and protecting thousands oi suicide: bombt-rs: millions. Acquiring ideological and tc:rnmrial bases of your own: priceless.
As Chri stopher Greenwood, a lawyer who later provided advice on the invasion of Iraq, suggested, though the Ta liban regime itself was no t responsible for t he a ttacks 011 September 11, it "'had undoubtedly violated internationa l law in permitting AI-Qa'ida to from its territory" a nd had therefore "'violated the general duty o f a stare under international law not to allow its territor}' to be used as a base for attacks on other states. "' 19 This argument hinges on U.N. General Assembly which defines aggression, a nd therefore, for Resolution 3314 Greenwood. provides a justification under international law. There is a clear ambiguity hownet; fo r the passage in the Resolution in q uestion censors: T he action of a Srate in a llowing irs tc:rmory, which it has placed at the dispos.:tl of another Stare, to be by tha t other Stntc: for pcrpc:rraring an act of agg,rc:ssion against a t hird Smre ... [orl the sending by or o n behalf of a State o f anned bands, gro ups, irregulars or mercen.tric:s., which caST>' our acts o f anned force ag;J.mst another State o f such grovity as to amount to the acts listed abo\'e, or its substantial iawol\'emcnt
The question, of course, is to what ex-:tent al-Qaccb can be understood "another State," or if it is more accur ately described as "am1ed bands, groups, irregulars, or mercenaries" whethc:r they arc Sl'nt "'by or on behalf of a State." The United States demanded that the Taliban shut down terrorist training camps and surrender bin Laden immediately. Although the Taliban did offer some initial concessions, saying that bin Laden could potentially be handed to an Islamic country, this was not good enough for the United States. Indeed, the United States refused to either provide evidence against bin Laden or to submit a forma l request for his extradition. This was in part bc.cause previous diplomatic negotiations, such as the visit of the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to Afgha nistan in 1998 and the cruise missile attacks of later that had fa iled."' Misra suggests that at this rime, it was significa nt that "although the regime and the: Afghan state were unacceptable to the larger world, the latter did not denounc·e its spatial sovereignty or the sanctity of Afghanistan's territoriality. "02
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Abou Zahab and Roy have argued that the: r"Cfusal of the: Taliban to cooperate: fully with the U.S. meant that "Mullah Omar literally sacrificed his regime to protect bin Laden." The)' se-c: this as his acting "for the sake of international solidarit}•," malcing the suggestion that it demonstrated a broader than territorial affinity.• 3 This is too straightforward. The idea of .. harboring" dfoctivcly made the: Taliban equivalent to ai-Qaeda in U.S. eyes. The ide-a of making no distinction ben.veen them demonstrates a particular process of incorporation. In this case, it is guilt through proximity, intentional and geographical. One of the key argummts made:, as chapters l and 2 outlined, was that the absence of effective sovereign power in states like Afghanistan left a vacuum that nonstatc actors could filt This is problematic in that camps were often established in places where the Taliban did have effective control, rather than those that were occupied by other forces. At best, the Taliban were able to control 85 to 90 percent of Afghanistan before 200l.•4 The Taliban were able to c-apture and retain control of large parts of territory through the cho·il war of the 1990s, but it ne\'C:r gained effective sovereignty over the whole country. This was a product of the period following the Soviet withdrawal, where: factiona l groups, tribes. and militar)' units occupied and controlled different parts of the country. And before the Taliban brought that much under unified rule. for sustained periods some parts of the count£)' were running more "states" than the central government. As this chapter will go on to discuss, the: same was true for Somalia. Yc:t while: the Taliban were on ly officially recognized b)' Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, there was a reality on the ground that obligated the: United Nations and aid agencies ro work with it. 05 But a similar argument about the: lack of territorial control could be made for Afghanistan following the overthrow of the Taliban. Today, President Hamid Karzai [known by his detractors as the "mayor of Kabul'") is nor able: to exercise power much beyond the capital. and the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, in particular, is far from secure. In part, this is because Afghanistan has never fo rmally recognized the border. though Pakistan accepted the British-drawn Durand Line as its boundary upon its independence, partly because of the ethnic groups that live on both sides of the: line: and partly due: to its contemporary political situation, especially in relation to lndia. 06 There is an ongoing situation where: the feuding factions within Afghanistan allow the same klnd of "safe havens" that allowed to operate before. The power of the individual warlords makes this a continual possibi lity. This was recogni:z.ed as a problem by Bush early on: " I've talked to many countries
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that arC' interested in making sure that the post-opennions Afghanistan is one that is stable, and one that doesn't become ret again a haven for terrorist criminals ....- Yet leaving Afghanistan ha lf-finis hed, a situation that was exacerbated by the UnitC'd States shifting its attention to Iraq in 2003, bas increased the chanct's of a ret'mt'rgence of the proble-m in that location .&8 Tht' differenct' is that before. these camps Wt'rt' effectively operating with at least the tacit consC'nt of thC' Taliban, t'mboldened by the lack of official recognition they had and obliged by complex relations of interdependence, whereas now, the central control of Afghanistan is so weak that no territoria l awmntability is possible in largt' parts of the country. A report in latt' 2007 cl aimed that m•cr ha lf the C{)Untry was under Taliban control.69 Just as with Iraq, as chapter 4 will argut', the Unitt'd States and its allies sought to produce a new and functioning state out of the chaos of a destroyed one, without addressing any of the structural or "constitutional" difficulties it faced. The term "constitutional" here docs not refer to a written document, or c..,·en the procC'ss of its production as a political entity, but the material makeup of the state-at base, its territorial extent and the people within it. There arc complex negotiations around the ethnic makeup of tl1e country that arc being both dcferrt'd and activdy produced through that neglect. As Johnson and Leslie phr ast' it, this was a process of "imagining a state" : If me mrernanonal communit)' Imagined a peace agreement, so roo it imogmed a state; born what it was (a terra mdli11s on whiCh the)' could SC( to work from scr.Jtch) and what it should become (a liberal demcxraq). The text ot the Bonn agreemem sets ouc the e\'entual gools of the tro ns it1on ... The reahry is rhat Afghamslan 1s far from all those thmgs and they cannot be wished into being over a penod of two ond a half years. Nor is the coun[r)' a blank n.vas on w hich (he outs1de world con paint the colors of its cbo1cc, but a lerritory staked out by powerful players who their feer in the pas( and rheir eyes ro the future .711
The ongoing NATO deployment in Afghanistan is producing numerous casualtiC's of both civilians and soldiers. U.S. air strikes havC' incrC'ased the opposition of the population to the troop deployment. In addition, the: drug trade out of Afghanistan is flourishing, again predsdy because there: is a vacuum of authority in large parts of the countJ)'· Yet Johnson and Leslie' note that the heroin trade is not Afghanistan's problem but the West's. If production stopped in Afghanistan, unlike!}' as that might seem, but just as it previously stopped in Turkey, Pakistan; and Iran, it wouJd relocate to another "v.•
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s upply. Similar arguments could be made for the production of those with grievances agaimt the West, and their location. Pakistan and the Question of Relocation
The immediate impact of the U.S. r"<'sponse to the e\'ents of September 11,2001, was felt almost as strongly in Pakistan as in Afghanistan.-! The choice of "you are either with us or aga inst us" was exactly that offered to Pakistan br Colin Powell." J It put President Pervez Musharraf in a difficult position. The longstanding suggestion in Pakistan is mar a gm•emment needs the supports of thc three "As": Allah, the Army, and America ."4 So on the one hand. Musharra f craved recognition for his militaq • takeover two years before, and he obviously did not want to be targeted by the United States. He also wanted to ensure that he was not outmancuvercd by longstanding enemr lndia."s Both India and Pakistan wanted to cnsure ther were seen to be on the side of the United States. with all the benefits. that that would bring, and India quickJ y uti lized the rhetoric of Bush to characterize Pakistan's actions in Kashmir and India.'" But on the other hand, :.01usharraf had to take account of domestic sensibilities-in particular, those of Muslim and Pashtun groups-and thc dcep links between his security scn •ices (the Interserviccs Intelligence [lSI]) and the Taliban regime..,... Pakistan was the last country to terminate diplomatic rela tions with the Taliban (the UAE and Saudi Arabia did this within two weeks of September 11 ). Unsurprisingly, M usharraf sought to balance these conflicting demands in his response: at times explicitly supporting me United States while offering concessions to those closer to home, and at other times taking the opposite: approacb. The initial choices faced were stark. Powell had issued Busb's ultimatum, but Richard Armitage of the U.S. State Departm ent put it e\'en more stark!}'· Musharraf recounts that he was warned that unless Pakistan cooperated. it "shou ld be: prepared to be: bombed bark inro the Stone Age.'"-s The Un ited States had seven demands. These j ncl uded such obvious steps as condemning the terrorist acts tdemand 5); stopping ai-Qaeda operatives and am1s shipments at the border and ending all logistical support for bin and tbe Taliban, including fl1d shipments (demands 1 and 6); providing intelligence information (demand 4); and the key de
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..../
I
?
\
I NDIA
Indian Ocean
Pakistan's federal structure
of "territorial access to U.S. and allicd military intelligence a nd other personnel to conduct operations against al Qacda'' (demand 3), including naval and air bases and borders. Pakistan granted a ll these concessions that same day but stressed its "substantial conces.sions in allowing usc of its territory. " ll> Among the benefits it re.('ei\re,d in retum was a dramatic incrcasc in a id. Musharraf therefore effectively abandoned the Taliban but sought to endear himself to his country more generally by attempting to rdocus attention on Kashmir and threatening to usc his nuclear against India if ne.cessary. In part, he justificd his actions br appcaling lO Pakistan's s.clf-prcsenration: "Pakistan is regarded as a fort of Islam. If this fort is damagcd, Islam will be damaged." 81 He thcrcfore had w play a careful ba lancing act bctwccn appeasing the United States and bowing to Indian pressure
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by appearing and cracking down on militants, but at thC' time offering some concessions. Various militants were freed. some jihadist.s WC'TC' nm pursuC'd. and the madrassas largely allowed m operU.S. pressure was kss visible. In what Ron Susk1nd as bdorr.J1 has c
This was raised by dirrctor of C1A, in a visit to Pakistan on 1, 2001. 14 pressure on lt.·t usharraf was thus enormous. A moment was his January 12, 2002 address to nation, hC' the of "soil," "'land,'' and ..territory" to Pakistan. For Abou Zahab and Roy, this constituted an attempt to distance himself from pan-Islamism and former President Zia ul-Haq's policies of Islamization, to stress the imporr.ance of Pa kistan as a nation-state as wdl as an Islamic state. He portrayed Afghanista n as a forrign country and saw Pakistan as "a territorial nation-state', not an ideologic
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Often thC' manc:u\·ering has been more concerned with Islamabad's own control of the remote Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which lie thC' Nonh-\Vest frontier Province and Balucbisran in western Pakistan, than anything directly tied to Bush's "war on terror" agenda. These areas only allowed the Pakistani army to enter in 2000, and the aim is to integrate them into the North-West Frontier Provincc.Y2 Pakistan's own territorial politics thus play a central roiC'. Following the defeat of the Taliban, these issues became more stark because it is widely accepted that Pakistan was the immediate refuge for many and Tali ban foJ"Ccs. As Gunaratna has suggested, it effectively merged its forces. w ith the Taliban and relocated to the Afghan-Pakistan border. where it "is. preparing to wage a protracted guerrilla campaign that might last a decade. '193 While j hangvi-dcscribcd as the government tried to blame the group "the Pakistani wing"' of was only pard}' successful"' Pakistan therefore continues to function as both a base and a focus in the "war on terror." KJcvcmann therefore describes it as. " the cradle: of terror ":1>s AJ Qaido mi litants who had iniriall)' found a safe lu\•en m the tribal areas ond loter mo\•ed to Azad Kashmir, Punjab and Kamc hj wou ld not ho\'C been oblc to do so Without rhe connivance o f the lSI.'"
More generally, there: have been extensive debates. about the long-term stability and sustainability of the country. Some have seen Pakistan as a "failed others have d irectly challenged this construction.98 In summer 2007, anention turned back ro Pakistan, with a U.S. National lntd ligence Estimate' suggesting that a i-Qac:da had established itself in a dominant position within the Federally Administered Tribal Arc:as.!>9 These arc not the only tribal they ex ist in the North-\'
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out, and acrion soon followed. But widespread reports indicate that tbc United States had long been launching Predator raids in the tribal areas for some time, with Pakistan often claiming responsi bility as a protccti,:c measure. Ground forces made it harder to deny U.S. im•olvemcnt. The Taliban bavc tbcmsdves attacked Pakistani targets, breaking a ten-month truce in the border r"Cgion, which many contend gave tbc chance to rebuild their forces. Musharraf himself inflamed tensions with his actions against groups within Pakistan, notablr in the assault on tbe Red Mosque in Islamabad. The fragile balance he had attempted to keep since 2001 unraveled. Ironically, just as he took much st ricter action. Musharraf came under more pressure from the United States while at the samt' timt' facing unprecedented opposition at home, including v.ridcspread protests and suicide bombs. The idea of a state of cmcrgcnq• was floated , and martial law was dt"clarcd, in pa rt to show the United States just how precarious his rule was. Two previous prime ministt'rsl Bcnazi r Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. returned anticipating power-s haring deals: Bhutto was assassinated sbord}· afterwards. Musba rraf a brupt!)' pulled out of a Pakistani-Afghan peace summit or jirga. onlr to attend its dosing ccrt'mony after a rebuke from Secretary of Sta te Condolcczza Rice. In late 2007, 1\•lusharra f was reelected witb dubious legitimacy. rcmm·ing bis uniform and becoming a civilian president, a lthough be remained in office for less than a year. While Musharraf was an equivocal supporter of the "war on terror," his removal has created a nightmare scenario for the United States: a n unstable. possibly Islamic-influenced state with a strong military and nuclear weapons. So for all his flaws, tbc United States has long recognized they were bt-ttcr o ff with Musharraf in place.l 0 1 Pa kistan was not alone in being seen as a place wbcre a i-Qacda or allied forces would rcloc<Jtc in the future. Minitcr suggested that " like a cancer, a l Qacda would have to metastasize." auJ But this means those prosecuting tbc wa r can suggest that things that a rc quite different arc actually the same:. Indeed, one of the characteristics of tbc "'war on terror" is that man}' different groups, often with contradictory aims, arc Jumped together indiscriminately. In speeches in the early winter of 2005, Bush continually invoked a series of locations in tbe "war on terror": "from the streets of Western cities to the mountains of Afghanistan, to the tribal regions of Pakistan, to the islands of Southeast Asia a nd to tbc Horn of Africa. " 103 Geopolitical metaphors a bound, including the Brookings Institution's "crescent of crisis" 1114 and Tony Blair's "'arc of extremism now stretching across tbc M iddle East. "tor Mt'anwhile, Busb a nd his allies insisted that Iraq remained the kc)', both as the central front in the U.S.
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..war on terror" and in the tenorists' "war against humanity,"' the latter now supposedly justifying the firsr.•o.. Others, including Obama, have suggested that the concentration on Iraq has deflected rcsourccs and attention from Afghanistan. Nonetheless. othcr sites arc continually found. Actions ha\'e rakcn place in a numbcr of locations. Yemen has becn continua lly highlighted as a special proble-m and U.S. imcn•ention has regularly taken place thcre since 2001 alongside the Yemen gm•ernmcnt's attempts to address the problems. 10 - As Benjamin and Simon note, "the government's writ at the city limits of Sanaa, leaving large tracts available for secure resettle-ment." '00 Yemcn has as a unified country only since 1990, and it fought a war in 1994 to prcscro.·c the union against the wishes of many in the south. Bin Laden ronsidcred Yemcn as a more pcrmancnt base, a lthough it has been Jong uscd for operations .•n, Minitcr a meeting between Bush a nd Yemeni president Abdullah Salah where, through a st"rics of threats, Bush made it clear that Ycn1cn had to acquiesce to U.S. demands to operate within their territory.' 10 Thc military and economic a id that Yemen receives from the United States, along with the ending of its past support from Iraq, means that it is closely allied to efforts in the region. Collaboration with Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Sudan in fighting terrorism i1> a further Several have been fought bcrwccn Yemeni security forces and Islamists, with the Yemeni government supported by U.S. special forces based in Djibouti. The United States has a lso made cxtensi\'e usc of Predator Highrs, including a Hellfire raid on suspected in late 1002.
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States of SUdan and the histOf'lc Nortl\fSouth dloolng line
Sudan was a focus for ai-Qacda operatives in the 1990s, with bin Laden spending several years there. The net'h'ork of ai-Qaeda operations was actually created here,' 12 and the government's links to the religious leader Hassan a l Turabi put them in close contact with [ran.' n A number of different groups operated there, including HczboiJah, lslamic J ihad, Hamas, a nd other Pale-stinian groups, and it bad links to groups or dissidents in a range of other northern African and Arabian countries. ' '4
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Sud.an was me new.::sr addinon Srare Dc:parrmem's list of srare sponsors of terrorism. The counrr>' was so designated in 19 93 because e\'er)' group m rhe IslamiC world in the open on Sudanese sotl-from Palesrini.:J.n lsi:Jmic jihad to rhe radical Shiite group Hezbollah and from rhe F:gypria n ai-Ganuat aJ-Isbminoa to rhe rovtng mtemanonal killer _,\lnJ NidaL 11 S
Barbara Bodine, forme rly State Department acting director for counterterrori!im and then country director for Horn of Africa affairs, described it as a "Holiday Inn for Terrorists ... ,,, As Timothy Carney, the last U.S. ambassador to Sudan, who left in 1997, notes: The Sudan ininally figured on the U.S. list of sure sponsors of terrorir created rerrorisr groups or designated t3 rgets for ism n(){ terronsr acrion, bur rather lx-cause n afforded sancrun ry, g;:we facilities, and offered :1 rroining \'enue to a brood range of E.1.srem nnd netgh boring rerronst orga niz:mon s." 11'
In 1996, when bin Laden was expelled from Sudan, an offer was made to extradite him to the Unite-d States. f<"aring lack of evidence, Clinton turned this offe-r down, late-r suggesting that this was the biggest fa ilure of his Its pharmaceutical factory was targeted in 1998, but since 2001, Presidem Omar al Bashir has managed to cooperate successfully with the United States and has not bccn thc focus of attack. Minitcr attributes this in part to the change of gm·crnment from Clinton to but it has as much to do \Vith Sudanese actions. As de \'(faal and Abdcl Salam note, the stakes were high: "Khartoum knew that Washington had both motive and evidence to put it in the same category as Afghanistan and Iraq. The Sudanese government needed to act fast, which it did. " 120 U.S. special forces were deployed in 2004 to hunt dO\vn Saudis using the Jebel Kurush mountain area as a base. AI Turabi was even imprisoned 2004 and 2005. It is thus something of an anomaly. 11 1 Nonetheless, Sudan has faced numerous challenges of its own during this period, with the fragi le peace in the South and the ongoing crisis in Darfur. Indeed, as Byers notes, "in July 2.004, reports surfaced that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had ordered his officials to begin planning for an arme-d inren•enrion in Darfur, until Se-cre-tary of State Powell deemed the idea 'prematurc."' 121 As Prunier and Gissclquist suggest: The Sudan as define-d by irs presem borders is an arbitrary consrrucr. Sud.anese tcrmo ri.tliry cannot be defined b>· its pre-colonial h1srory, by culrure, by language, or even by irs colonial htstor>'· As 3 result of the
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Sudan's culrural hererogmcuy and dte arnbiguoll!> namre o f a poslOrroman policy, iris a connngenr stare. rhm is, a stare char was created in error_ Ill
U.S. obstruction of international intervention in the Darfur genocide for so long is in part the benefit Sudan has gained for its support. Also, the United States worries about the state collapse that it fears couJd follow such inter\'ention, so it has. reason to wish to avoid this. Thus, there arc other sites that could rcoei.,·e more rxtcnsivc attention, such as the Philippines, where the United States srnt counter-terrorism advisors in late 2001 thr to help in figlu with Abu Sa)•)•af, 1ZA Colombia, and Nrpal. ln United States. has been extcnsi..,·cly invoh•ed in support to governments in central Asia, including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzs.tan. 125 The United States has madr somr oprrarions public: In Norrh Africa, we are wor&::mg with our parrners ro counrer in rho:- emergence ai-Qaeda's expansion inro the of "al-Qacda in rhe Islamic Maghreb,. llus g.roup has claimed responsibiliry for recenr lerrorisr bombmgs in Algeria, including rhe Aprilll and July I I anacks ag.:tinsr ci\• ilia ns in i\Jg.iers.' 16
The Struggle over Lebanon
In many ways, it is unsurprising that Lebanon is included as a site in the "war on trrror" because the struggle for external influence in the countr)' is longstanding. 12" It has long been usc:d as a base or location for surrogate forc·es-Syrian, Israeli, Pa lestinian, Iran ian, U.S ., and others. Once again, it is, difficult to provide a simple beginning to the events, but the Valrntine's Day massacre of former prime ministc:r Rafik Hariri in 2005 shifted the constellation of forces.m: Lebanon was not doemed able to invrstigate the murder of Hariri itself, a nd the U.N. Securit)' Council has passed se.,·eral r'Csolutions concerning this (esprdally 1595 and 1757). 129 Initially, the crimes were sc:cn as "acts of terrorism." Next, Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter was deemed app licable:, and now an internationa l court is bdng set up, an action usually reserved for ethnic cleansing and genocide. This bombing was swiftly blamrd on S)'ria, and as a resuJt the diplomatic pressure it was alread)' under increased. It is notable that this assassination brought a condemnation of Syria that generally has not accompanied Israel's exrcutions.U 0 And this contrasts st arkly with the lack of interrogation of the crimes committed by both sides in the "summer war" of 2006. u'
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In 2004, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1559, demanding a withdrawal of Syrian troops from the region. Perceiving that getting the: S}rrians out of Lebanon would deal a substantial blow to the Bashar a !-Assad regime in Damascus, the United States were determined to work on a number of fronts.' ' 1 In his 2005 State of the Union address, Bush noted that "Syria still allows its territory and parts of Lebanon to be used by terrorists who seck to destroy every chance: of in the: rcgion." 111 Tactics included inciremem and encouragement within Lebanon, particularly in the naming of the anti-S)rrian opposition "the Cedar Revolurion"'l-l to link it to movements elsewhere, as wel l as the covert support of Kurdish rkments in Syria itself. Syrian inAurncr was portrayed as the: key dement prevc:nting Lebanese unity, political ami territorial, with the pro-Western "Gucci"' prorcsts receiving much more Western attention than pro-Syrian drmonstrations. Syrian troops lxgan to withdraw in spring 2005, whi.ch Bush and Blair both hailed as part of wider change within tbe region. It was also notable that actions of "forcig11'' actors in Lebanon drew widesprrad criticism at the time, in spite of the fact that the history a nd current practice of the United States is filled with both covert and overt interference. Indeed, the United States criticiz.cs Iran for interfering in Iraq, which they themselves occup)'· As Glass noted in relation to tbis strategy, "whether American SU<'ceeds or fa ils, Lebanon will pay.'' I IS Remm·ing Syria from Lebanon was part of the process. However, the radical group Hezbollah remained . T his group, backed by [ran and S)•ria, had established a strong foothold in southern Lebanon, took credit for the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, and had pledged to continue to act as an armed force until Israel was no longer a threat. In 2001, the United States named Hezbollah as a tnrorist organization whosc assets needed to be targeted by new financial controls . Hariri rejected this, claiming that it was a political party a nd that its resistance to Israel was justified as anti-imperialist warfare.' 34 The 2006 war betv.•ren Hczbollah and Israel demonstrated how U.S. rhetoric and practice could be: adopted by one of irs allies. lsrac:l effcctivelr acted in the same manner as the United States in Afghanistan, responding to a nonstate group b}· attacking the state that "harbors" them. In its tactics of air strikes and the t.arge"ting of infrastructure, it parallels Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosm•o. Indeed, the links may go beyond mere: parallels, with allegations of U.S. complicity in Israeli actions, in large part as a trial run for a possible: future U.S. attack on At least, it seemed indisputable that Israel had planned fo r an assault and was simply waiting for appropriate provocation-something that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted to the \'(finograd Commission looking into that wa r.' ' 1 Trnsions had bren rising through the late
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spring and early surnmerY9 Sayycd Hassan NasraJiah of Hezbollah has claimed that "there was a war plan and a big militarr decision taken b)' the United States and Israel. If they did not implement it on July 12, the)' would have implemented it in August, September, or October. "UD Yet Israeli actions here a lso parallel its longstanding actions in Palestine. Indeed, while the attack on Lebanon r(:(ICived more attcntion in the me.dia-and is the focus here-it was Gaza that was the first target in late June 2006, with the destruction of its power plam, sonic booms, and other tactics of state terror. l11e 2008- 2009 war on Gaza continued these actions. On the one hand, Israel expects the Palestinian Authorit)' to be a ""partner for peace." to act as an cffe-etivc check on terrorism cmanaring from within their territory; on the other hand, it continually emascuJatcs it through punishment responses that destroy its infrastructure, target its leaders. and further alienate its This was replayed in their attitude to the Lebanese government, which was unable to proje-et its power throughout the entire state, lea\•ing a vacuum that Hezbollah was able to fill . As a consequence, ir bad to endure the destruction of whatever sma ll gains it was able to make.•.u As Roy says of Afghanistan, the: rubble was "pounded into finer dust." IH Just as Yasser Arafat was supposed to control the fighters of Hamas while imprisoned in his compound in Ramallah, tl1e Lebanese government was supposed to rein in Hezbollah wh ile Israel was bombing its cities, destroying its roads and bridges, blockading it by sea, targeting its armed forces, and rendering its airport unusable. The casualtics on each side arc scriptcd by the Israeli state in such a way as to parallel the U.S. security of the homeland and the: "global ,.,.ar on terror" abroad. The killing and capture of Israeli soldiers was sa:n as an attack on the body of the nation, and because thcre is national service fo r the Israeli Ocfence Force (IDF) and males under fifty arc require-d to do a month of reser\'c service a year., the distinction bctwa:n soldicr and civilian is blurred. The Katyusha rockcts sent b)' Hczbollah into northern Israel were of course attacks of terror; a dcparture from prc\'ious practice, where their usc had ba:n calibrated car'Cfully to avoid accusations of ci\dlian attack.•.u On the other hand, the IDF droppcd leaflets warning people to leave southern Lebanon when the bombardment was taking place. Those who remained were deemcd to be complkit, guilty by geographical location, ignoring, of course, the destruction of the transport infrastructure that mar have allowed them to lcavc had it bocn intact. This was an old tactic. Fisk noted this in relation to earlier im·asions, calling it an "'ugly obsession with 'terrorists,' which reduced an}'Ont:-alt)''Oite-in dte war zone to the: level of an animal. " In addition, given the longstanding problems of thc "right of return" for Palestinians, many people
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arc understandably reluctant to a bandon their homes to the Israeli arm)'· In the 2006 actions, as much as the earlier incursions Lnto Lebanon, we see a replaying of the danger of we-<1k stares: in its most successful war in 1967, Israel was able to defeat thrcr countries' conventional armies in six days; now, however, it cannot "eradicate" a terrorist organization on its border. Thus, unable to rid itsdf of Hezbollah, Is rael destroys much of southern Lebanon. Even when Israel declares a uni lateral withdrawal, s uch as Lebanon in 2000 or Gaz.a in 2005, it never quite finishes the job. Rather than allow a nominally or putativelr independent neighboring entity the fu ll r ights and responsibilities of statehood, ir continually undermines that basis, while then bemoaning its capacity to live up to implied obligations. A cycle ensues: the failure supposedly legitimates the challenge, which takes away any possibility of transcending the problem . In the case of Gaza, the years of what Roy calls "dc-de..,elopmenr" 14& and the ina bility of irs citizens to have acccr.s to the West Bank or [srad, let alone comrol its own borders, territorial sea, or a irspace, render any charade of " territorial sovereignty" transparent.••- T he declaration of Gaza as a "hostiJc territory" in September 2007 is only a recent illustration of these moves-one that allowed Israel to sidestep intemationaJ legal requirements for an occupied territory a nd was a prelude to the war. With Lebanon, there is the d isputed Shebaa Farms a rea, occupied in 1967 and forn1all}' annexed in 1981, bordering on the Golan Heights seized from S}•ria at the same time. Shebaa is a village in Lebanon, and this neighboring region of 100 square miles (about 2 percent of Leba non's size) conta ins a number of farms and, more importan tly, key water resources. Norton calls this usc of Shebaa by Hezbollah "'a clever prete).'t to continue paramilitary operations against lsrad,'' 148 which underestimates the imbalance of power in the region. T he key issue is not that Israel is occupying the area, which is undisputed, but whether it previously belonged to Syria or Lebanon . U it belongs to Lebanon- as the Lebanese government and Syria claim-Israel has not fu lly withdrawn from Lebanese territory and is thus in bre-ach of U.N. Se.curity Counci l Resolutio n 425, a position cla imed by Hezbollah to a llow a continuation of its military operations, despite Resolution 1559. 149 Hit is Syrian, o r is thought of as cffecth•dy Syrian--as the United Nations and Israel claim- then its starus can be reserved for negotiations betv.•een Syria and lsrael, deferring a solution indefinitdy. •ro The status of Lebanon itself, slic.cd from Syria br French colonists as a compromise for Syrian independence, has a lways been disputed, something the United States is trying to get Syria to recognize by, for example, establishing an embassy in Beirut.
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The territorial dimc:nsion is dear. As wdl as demonstrating the undermining of the territorial sovereignty of Lebanon and what little: is held by Palestine, the lsradi process is also one of consolidation of the territorial gains of the 1967 war; the 1948-49 gains long having been largely accepted by the international communit)'.'s' One of the reasons for this is that in 1948, Palestinians fled or were forcib ly removed from their homes, implicit!}' ceding the land, though ever since they have campaigned for a "right of rerum,'' In 1967, dte}' largely remained in place:, thus gi.,·ing Israel a very large occupied population. It is for this reason, above all dsc, that t 948 is the significant date for the Pa lestinians-the date of a/ Nakba, "the catastrophe "-whereas even for left-wing Israelis, the ke>' moment is 1967.'52 Understand ing that it could not gain effective control of all the "occupied territories" or "administrative zones," not e.,·en with the settler program, Israel's "security barrier" or "separation wall'" (a 26-foot-high wa ll in places, made of barbed wire or electrified in others) is both incorporating land and cutting communities off from each other as never bcfore.m Yet as Weizma n has noted, what they arc doing, in effect, is creating "different degrees of occupation," separating Palestinian from Palestinian, rather than separating Israel from Palc:srine.' 54 In this, they arc clearly in breach of Resolution 242, which stresses ..the: inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war'' and requires Israel to withdraw from "territories occupied in the recent conflict. "LI .I This is an important and contested resolution, but in stressing the "recent conflict," it is dfcctivdy sa}•ing that the 1949 Green Line should be the basis for the territorial settlement and that the 1948 gains arc accepted. Yet Israel s.ccs the lack of a definite article in the phrase: "from territories occupied '' to lea.,·e an ambiguity as to whether this is some or all of them, 156 thus using a supposed textual imprecision to avoid political resolution. ThC"rc is further ambiguity in that the: resolution stresses the need for .. rc:stxct for a nd acknowlcdgc:mc:nt of the sm·ereignty, territoria l integrity, and political independence of ever}' State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized lxnmdaries fre.c from threats or acts of force." As in the later phrase affirming these guarantees for "every State in the: arC"a,,. th is hinges on the question of statehood. If Palestine: is not deemed to be a state, then its " territorial integrity and political independence" can be continually deferred, yet without those dements, statehood can be denied. But aside from any cla ims a bout the illegitimacy of thes.c actions, they arc rendering a status of "facts on the: ground," which
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in thC' inrernational commun ity, notably including the United States, sccm willing to as the basis for negotiations. Indeed, the 2006 U.S. National Sec11rity Strategy portrayed the withdrawal of Israeli forces "from the Gaza strip and the northC'rn West Bank [as] creating the prospect for transforming Israeli-Pa lestinian relations and underscoring tbe need for the Pa lestinian Authority to stand up (sic] an effective, respon11"' Y« as Roy nores: s ible Under the terms o f dist'ngagement, Israel's occuJ)"ation is :tssured. Gaz:tns will be cont ained and scaled wirhin the dectrified borders of the Strap, whde \Vest llankers, the1r lands dismembered by rclemless lsraeh settlemem, w1ll be p<:nned into fragmcnred spaces, isobted behind and between walls and barners. 111
U.N. Security Council 1559 has a range of territorial issues concerning Lebanon. It first reiterates the Security Council's ..strong support for the territorial integrit)', SO\'ereigncy, a nd political independence within its internationally recognized borders.'' a nd then states three ke)' issues: NotiTJg the dctermi nario n of Lcb:mon
to
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non-leoont'SC forces from Lcba no n,
Gravely concerned .u the continued presence of armed milirias in Lebanon, which prc\•cm the Lebanese Go\'ernment from cxercismg its full sovereignry over all Lebanese territory, Reaffirming the importance of tht' extens io n of rhe conts-ol of rhe Government o f Leba non over all Lebanese tcrritor)·. 1s9
The issue is therefore thC' effective control o f tbe Lebanese govcrnmcnr over its entire territory, its territoriaJ integrity, in ooth the sense of preservation of "internationally recognized borders" a nd its territorial sovereignt}\ an ability to have tl1c monopoly of force within tl1cm. Thus tbe Security Council "reaffirms its caiJ for the strict respe.ct of the sm•neignty, territorial intC'grity, unity, a nd political o f Lebanon under the sole and exclusive authoricy of the Government of Lebanon through out Lebanon," calling for aJI foreign forces to ·withdraw; the "disbanding and disarmament of all a nd non-Lebanese militias "; and "supports the extension of tbe controJ of the Government of Lebanon m·er a ll territory. '' In the face of the exposure of its sovereign fiction-that all states arc in effect ive control of their territories-the United Nations simpl)' stresses that fiction more forcefully.
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ThC'sc demands arc a lmost exacdy the same as Israel's in the 1982. campaign: No PLO or other Palesrini:m military prcsc:nce in Leb:mon-guerrill.ts would hove to surrender th en arms bur could lea\'e for nnorher counrry if they wished 2. No Palestinian (i.e., no PLO conrrol of the camps l in Lebanon J. All Palrsrinions in Lebanon would ha,•e robe under l eoonesc government ourhonry· 4. The Lebonese army would be deployed rhroughour Leba non. 1" 0 I.
In 2006, the United States and the United Kingdom prevented an immediate ceasC'-fire to a llow Israel timC' to complete its action, with Israel apparentl y in formi ng the Unite-d States that it needed 35 days-half the time actions in Ko:sovo had taken. 1" 1 Bush and Bla ir used the ideal of Lebanese territorial sovereignty as a sine qua 110n of a settlement: "Lebanon's democratic government must be empowered to exercise sole authority over its territor)'... The United States and the United Kingdom blocked attempts a t a su bsta ntive U.N. resolution (passing only holding Resolution 1697}, until August 1 1, 2006, when the Security Council passC'd Resolution 1701. This resolution is uncritical and undemanding of Israel, requiring only that it cease ..offensive milita ry occupations," leaving Op<"n the possibility of their aggrC'ssion being declared as " defensive, .. which Israel had claimed a ll a long. It repC'ats many of the formulations of 1559, notably "its strong support ... for the territorial inrcgrit)', SO\'ercignty, and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized borders, as co ntemplate
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Resolution 1701 auempts to enable Lebanon "ro extend its aurhorit)' o••er its territory, through its own .l egitimate armed forces, such that there will be no weapons without the consent of the Governmeru of Lebanon and no authorit)' other than that of the Government of Lebanon." Tbe contradiction is, of course, that an external force (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNlFIL) is needed to create the conditions fo r this: territorial integrity needs to be violated to create and preserve it. Yet again, despite a ll signs to the contra£)', territoria l iotegrity in the sense of preservation is stressed bqond a ll reason. Nasrallah appeared to concede a great deal when he agree<J with the proposa l of the Lebanese gm·ernment and suggested that " the deployment of the Lebanese Arm)' will help preserve sovereignty and independence," for Lebanon,'"" )'ct o ne rear later, he suggested that this attempt at national territorial sovcrcigntr had failed.'·- These arc not inconsistent. Mahmoud Qumati of Hezbollah suggrsted tltat until Israel withdraws from Lebanesr territory (the Shrbaa farms) and the Lebanese state is fully capable of protecting its territory, Hczbollah must still opcrate. 1"i As Achcar has noted, 1701 is biased, with UNIFIL deployed onJ}' on one side of the border, and says "not a single word about the protection of Lebanese territor}' against the repeated aggression by Israel, an oocupy ing power in Lebanon for eighNasrallah has posed it as a question io these terms: teen yc.ars. Look at the yardsnck that the internationa l community Habclla h, Lebanon, and the Palestini:J.ns an Palestine Jrc forb1dden to have modest WeApons ro defend themscl\'es, their counrr)', a nd their homci:J.nd. Tl1is is deemed a vio lation of laws and SO\'crcignty, and should rhcrcforc be eliminated, m sp1rc o f rheu having said that our land, country, security, J nd sovereignty a re threatened .... If Israel is threatened, it is Jlrighr for it to hJ';e nuclear weapons in \'lolation o f all internarional I:J.ws and con\'cnrio ns .... Bur the Palestinians, who arc bcmg si:J.ughtcred m Palestine t\'ery dJy arc not threatened; the Lebanese, whose la nd Israel has inndcd and mighr invade again one of these dJys, arc nor threatened, J nd have no righr to own
The straightforwa rd depiction of Hezbollah as a terrorist orgaoization is to underestimate its integration into the society. Remembering Benjamin and Simon's depiction of a l-Qaeda in Afghanistan as a state, we could make a similar case for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, wb ich undertook projects of social welfare, including hospitals and schools, as well as collecting income for the prorecrion of tbc population and providing dcan drinking wateL Hezbollah controls a region within Lebanon, territorr within a territoq•, giving it effective so\•ercignt)•. One area of Beirut is
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known as "Dahiyet Hizbullah- the suburb of Hiz.bullah." •-· Even Bush described it as a "state within a state ," 1"1 Indeed, following the 2006 war, Hcz.bollah distributed about $300 million in a id in the form of dollar bills, allegedly originating from Iran. 17] In addition, Hczbollah is widely believed to be the only force within Lebanon that is able to stand up to Israel. 1\"asrallah describes Hezbollah as a "'popular resistance movement"1 7• and notes what it docs beyond its militarr role: If we come roan area w nerc there is no hospital, the state is Indifferent toR! and we build ;1 hospnnl there. In an area whc:rc rhc:re is no school, we build a school. In an a ren where the road is not paved, we pave the road. The)' soy: Oh, you arc: ha,·ing a smtc Within the srJ.rc. Well, make: me: undersmnd. You arc: the smtc: )'OU don't to libc:rJ.rc tnc land; you don't want to free rhe pnsoners; you don't wo nt to protect us from being killed or or protect us from landings; )'OU don't want to cure us; )'OU don't wont to feed us, and )' OU don't wo nt to reach us. You on!)• want taxes from me. What kind of stare: is that? That the pc:oplc arc silent about such a sure is itself a m1radc. People should not remain silent about such a smrc:.... \X1e arc not an alternatl\'e to rhe sutc, but where the sr.are IS :J bscnt we must be presc:nr-we must do so b)' humanitarian, moral, and patriotic crircna, and not b)' sccunan and J>"J.rri:wn critcna. 1"
As he suggests, Hczbollah thus contrasts starkly with the Lebanese government's tre-atment of the PaJestini ans in their refugee: camps, something that compares unfavorably even to their treatment in other countries of the PaJcstinian diaspora. Yet Lebanon refuses to grant the estimated 400,000 Pale-stinians citizenship bcc<Jusc they arc largely Sunni and this would destabiliz.c the demographics of the country and the sectarian basis upon which its democratic distribution is esr.abJished. The refugee raise a complicated set of territorial and sovereignty issues, which came to a head in 2007. Since the 1948-49 exodus, and espc.cialtr since the expulsion of PaJcstinian leadership from Jordan in the late t 960s and carl)' 1970s, Le-banon has hosted a number of Palestinian rcfugcc:s. Disperse-d across the coumry to prevent coordination of activity, the refugee camps had fixed borders, so population increases from the 100,000 that originally fled in 1948-49 have led to more and more overcrowding. Verticality became a solution, turning the area into a larger volume. Unemployment was extensive, travel was restricted, and conditions frequently were appalling. In 1982, Phalangist Christian fo rces allied to the Israelis our a massacre in the Shatila camp and the neighboring area of Sabra in West Beirut while the IDF were surrounding the area.
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For the Lcbancril' gO\•crnmcnt, these camps have long been a problem because they arc effective!)' out of their territorial control. lnitially this of the was by the terms of a 1969 compromise in the Cairo Arab League saring that Lebanese forces were not permitted to enter the camps, although this has long been abrogated. n They arc therefore pockets of what is perceived as an ex'ternal problem within their state. This was initially the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with the "Fakhani Republic," until lsracl invaded in 1982; now it is ln 2007, these longstanding problems erupted. The spark for this fighting was the army trying to arrest people suspected of a bank robbery in Tripoli. Lebanese forces attempted to enter the outskirts of the Nahr ai-Bared refugee camp in the north of the coumry, and ended up fighting with the Fatah a l Isla m group. There were rumors that 150 to 200 armed men were im·olvcd, Jed by Shaker a l Abssi in the camps. Initiall}' unable to enter the camp proper. they launched an aeria l bombardmcm that resulted in a number of military, militia, and civilian casualties. Fatah ails lam responded with attacks on Lebanese army positions. The fighting, which began on M.a)' 20, 2007, and lasted until early September, was the '''orst internal violence since the end of the civil war. For the Lebanese government, the existence of armed mj litias in these camps puts the camps in breach of the Taif Accords and U.N. Sccurit}' Council resolurions. The Lebanese government required that people lca\'e the camps or face destructive consequences: further guilt by geography. The internal tcmporar}' cease-fires were quickly broken, allowing few to escape and preventing much aid from reaching the camps. The PLO eventually allowed the Lebanese armr to take up positions within the camps, lcading to their fina l m·crthrow. Yet this produced sympathy for the group across the camps in Lebanon and the linkage of other struggles to this one, particularly in the revulsion against the mode of assault. One c}'ewitncss said, "We have never experienced violence like this. Not even the Israelis behaved like thi.s .... Lebanese military was perceived to be struggling, given that of their 4-0,000 men, 15,000 arc required to secure the border with Israel and 8,000 to secure the border with Syria from arms smuggling, and this. is unlikely to be the end of tensions. Bush continually lent his support to the Lcbancst" government: "Extremists that arc uying to topple that young democracy need to be reined in. '' 1"'9 The United States also sent planeloads of arms and ordered the freezing of assets of any group undermining the Lebanese government. Indee-d, it likely that the Lebanese government was operating in this W3}' at least partly to prevent either Israel or, less like l}', the United States intervening instead. The U.S. State Department suggested that "it woltld appear
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that the Lebanese security forces are working in a legitimate manner to prO\ride a secure, stable environment for the Lebanese people in the ....rake of provocations and attacks b>• violent extremists." 110 Simi larly. the U.N. SccUI'it)• Council, at the time under US. leadership, interpreted these incidents as "an unacceptable attack on Lebanon's stabilit}', secur ity, and sovercignt)•.'' They "reaffirmed their strong support for the sm•ercignty, territorial integrity, unity, a nd political independence of Lebanon within its imernationall}' rccogniz.e
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as the actions of HC'Zoollah in Lebanon and Palestinian groups. As a consequence, it presmrcd Lebanon not to freeze Hezbollah's assets, despite the U.S. re.qucsl. 18 - Its opposition to the attacks on Afghanistan came to a head when Blair visited Damascus in October 2001, when Bashar ai-Assad condemned both this assault and the "daily terrorism,. of Israel. Although Syria voted for Resolution 144 L on Iraq, this was simpl}' an attempt ro prc\'ent an arrack. It then criticized the mo\'C to war and apparently provided military equipment to The rcfmal to support the 2003 war on Iraq thus frames the context. Reports in the Gtmrdion in 2003 suggested that Rumsfcld's plans for Syria were vetoed by the White Housc.' 90 As Tariq Ali noted, "since U.S. forces arc now in no position ro mount a second im.•asion, the ob\•ious route to toppling the government in Syria was to create a pressure point in Lebanon, where Western powers can maneuver freely." 191 And yet the Israeli attacks on Lebanon hardly weakened Syria-or, more importantly, Iran-all the time that Hezbollah was able to resist. This sums to have been realized by the Israeli inquiry into the war. 191 In late 2007, in parr as a consequence of his compromised position, there were unconfirmed rumors that Ehud Olmert offered to return the Golan Heights as part of a peace deal with Syria; yet just as peace was being discussed, there was a mobilization on the border from both sides. 19l Through the summer of 2007, there were persistent rumors of war brewing, especially following the air strikes, but many saw this merely as Olmert attempting to divert attention from political and pen;onal problems. However, a challenge to S)•ria long predates 2003 and the invasion of Iraq. One key marker was a 1996 report written by David Wurmser and cosigned by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, among other k.:y figures of the Bush administration, written for the incoming government of Benjamin Nctan)•ahu urging Israel to "shape its strategic environment ... b}· wea kening, containing and even rolling back Syria. Netan}•ahu's election came just as talks betwcrn Israel and Syria had been making progress and shortly after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. 19.s In a section entitled "Securing the Northern Border,"' the text Syna challenges Israel on Lebanese soiL An cffecrive npproach, and one with whtch Amencan lsicl can symp.1tfuzc, would lx if Israel seized thc srrarcgic ininari,·c along irs northern borders by engaging Hizball:!h, Syna, nnd Iran, ns t.he principal agcnrs of aggrcssion in Ldxmon, including b>·: • stnkmg S>•na's drug-monc:)' and caunrerfciring in frastructure an Lebanon, all of which focwc:s on R:m Qanan .
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• paraiJdmg Syna's bc:h:lVior by c:srablishing the: prc:croc:m t:h:Jt Syrian rc:rritory is not immune: ro arracks c:manating from Lebanon b)' Israeli proxy lorcc:s. • srriking Syri:Jn mi litary mrgers in l.ebanon, and should rh:Jt prove: insufficient, strikitJg at st!ll!<'t targets itJ Syria proper. lsmd c-.m mkc: this opporrunny ro remind the: world of the narure of the Synan regime_ .. Syria's regime supporrs the rcrrorist groups and finanin lebanon and on irs sotl. Indeed, the S}•rian-colltro lled Bt•kJW Valley in Lcbano11 has bl!conu! for te"or what liM S1licotJ Valley Jras become for computers _ .. Ga\'Cn rhe of the regime in Damascus, It is both n:JturaJ and moml rh:Jt Israel t he slQ£an '"comprd:lcnsi\'C: peace.. and move to contain S>•na, dr.twmg :Jrtenuon ro its weapons of mass destruction for peace.. deals on the Golan Heights. 1116 prQ£ram, and rejectmg
We find a number of rcvca.ling claims here. Striking is the inverse legitimacy. Syria is acting in this way, which is abhorrent, so Israel is justified in acting in the same wa}'. Equally. while Syria can be condemned for its occupation of Lebanon, Israd is justified in doing so-its troops did not withdraw until four years after this advice, and not until it saw another change of government-because of the threat. Nonetheless. it should usc or "comain'' Syria. And it should continue its its presence to occupation of the Golan Heights, and b}' implication the Shebaa Farms, rather than surrender them. Over a decade after this document, the wider "war on terror'" undoubtedly has had implications for the U.S. treatment of the- Lebanese crisis. The- principle of holding weak states accountable for actions emanating from within their territories is well established; figures such positions in were in office, and thus the United States was able to characterize Israel as essentially undertaking the same kind of reactive military action they had done, an indiscriminate aerial assauJt de-signed to punish, rather than something more specific that might cost greater numlxrs of thc:ir own troops. lsrac:l is, of course, no stranger to this, either in the occupied territories or in Lebanon. Lebanon was attacked from the air many times, particularly in 1993, 1996, and 1999. In addition, United States-led actions in the- "war on terror'' may actually c:rase differences between feuding groups, thus helping to produce the connections of "global Islamism" that arc usuaiJy assumed, problematical!}', already to exist. One example was the support given by Ayman ai-Zawahiri to the Lebanese, despite Hezbollah being Shi'a, and backed
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by Shi'a Iran and Shi'a-led (though Sunni majority) Syria, while the leaders of ai-Qae.da arc Sunni. Perhaps, given Bush's conHation of Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan as " three fronts of the global war on terror,"' 97 this was not surprising. As Rogers noted, increasingly "the Long War against Islamofascism is no\v thC' construct, w ith tha t tc:rm embracing everything from the Taliban, Hezbollah, and Hamas through C'Ven to the Tehran regime-all of them subsumed imo a single enemy.""' Somalia: The " Perfect Storm''
In 2002, ma ny expcctC'd that Somalia would be thC' targC't after Afghanistan. 199 The U.S. Natio11al Security Strategy and commc:nts from members of the Bush administration certainly suggested as much / 00 Assistant Secretary of State fo r African Affairs Walter Kansteiner had dcclarC'd that the Unitt.d Statrs had three policy goals related to Somalia: • Removing the terronst ducat extant m Somalia .md e nsuring agai nst .Somalia's usc as a terrorist base• • Prevenring developments in .Somalia from mrcatcning regional pC'ace and stabi lity; and • Overcoming the long-term governance challen,ges due terronsts exploit to make Somalia a base_:!DI
Somalia certainly fit a number of criteria for U.S. imervcntion . It was often held up as the archetypica l "'failed" or "collapsed" state, with an absence of effective central government power and a fragmen ta tion of trrritorial authorit}'. "nlis had been the: casC' since the ci\•il war in the latt 1980s and the unrecogn ized secession of Somalialand in 1991. T he war's trmpora l proximity to the invasion of Kuwait mrant that the world's errs, at that time, were elsewhere. The modem Somali state came together with its existing borders onl)' with its decolonization in 1960. ]t is often hdd up as an example of one of thr few relatively concenrrated nations in the conrinrnt, It is unusually culturally a nd linguistically homogeneo us, bur its people arc spread far beyond simply the Somali state. It was the amalgamation of British and Italian in the area, though large parts of the Somali population rrmained outside these borders. French Sornaliland became the French Territory of Afars and Issas, which was then rrnamcd as the indepcndrnt sta tr of Djibouti. Other Somali areas became part of Ethiopia and Krnya.Nl The Somali flag has a st a r with fh·e poinrs. representing the Ita lian, British, French, Ethiopian, and Kenya n clrments. In addition, we should guard against suggesting that having a common culture, language,
100
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I0
r.r
'-
Gulf a/Aden
.4---tl wn•uu
.,__
SCM4UI.A,.I!t
·,
• H•gt!'Sl
ETHIOPIA
/
--.... ---- .... SO MALIA
India n
0
lllc
Somalia and secessionist claims
and rdigion to coherence. There arc dlffcrcnocs even within the 99 percent of the Somali population that sees itself as Islamic.w For Clarke and Gosc:ndc, "Somalia is a culmral nation. bur it was ne\·cr a single coherent territory. "roc Therefore, only two of the points on rhc flag represent parts of thC' official state, and of those, one wishes to break away-namely, Somaliland to the north of the country, who.sc nominal bordC'rs arc those of the former
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British territory. Somaliland is gene-ralJy recognized to be a ''iable state, although it lacks recognition. It has a historicaJ background and is certa inly more effective than Soma lia itsdf. ln Rotberg's words, it "has a strong go\'e-rnment (by local standards) and projects security. It has a legal framework, co.llccts taxes, a nd provides sen·ices that approximate reasonable lcvds of good governance."10s As Rotbcrg notes, giving Somaliland recognition would be bad for Somalia's own attempts a t a strong gO\Iernment, but potentially useful fo r the United Other parts of the country have declared varying degrees of autonom}' rather than full independence, nota bly including Puntland in the northeast, which s-c:cs itself as a federa l state awaiting a coherent central authority but is itsdf in dispute with Soma liland abour its borders.wSomalia thus has SO't'ereignty only as a legal fiction, but it has been implicated in previous attacks on the United States. with the 1998 embasS}' bombings there, a lthough no Somalis were act ually involvC'd in thC' attack.m Bin Laden himsdf had spent ti me in Somalia, but it was his deputy, ai-Zawahiri, who was more closely invoJved in the The Soma li Islamist organization a llt:ihaad allslaami was blacklisted b)' the United States on September 26, 200 1.m Bases had operated in the country, in particular in the Ras Kamboni camp in the coasta l a rC'a ncar the Kenya n border: Shay claims that this was a significant location/ ' ' bur Menkha us considers that it was a fo rmer camp of little contemporary significance and that Sha)''s cla ims "arc based on information that is outdated and inaccurate. " 212 Its geographical location in the Horn of Africa, bordC'ring on Kenya, Ethiopia, and Dj ibouti and with coasclines to the Indian Ocean a nd the Gulf of Aden, that it strategica lly important in the greater M idd le East. 213 Somalia was linked to global events, even if it may seem very isolated. In the words of Mcnkhaus. it appC'arc:d to be a "pcrfe.ct storm " for an Islamic radica l: A oomplerdy sr:uc, where tcrrorisrs CJ.rt prr:sumably operare in a safe hnvt'n lxyond rhl' rt':!c h o f rule of lnw_ Jt possesses :.1 lo ng, unpatrollc-d coasthnc and llurtd reds o f unmonimrt'd ;ursrnps, faciliuring untrncked mm·emenr of foreign 11had1srs and 1ll1cit business uansnctions.1 14
But these factors need to be seen in relation to what ha ppened when the attention of the world did come back onto SomaJia in 1993. Perceiving that there was both a vacuum of a uthority and a lnuna nitarian di saster. internationa l opinion moved to support an intervcmion. Yet as Marchal notes, this probably had more to do with the attempts at that time to find c-onsensus for international action a nd to cJoak this test case with
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the biC'ssing of the UnitC'd Nations. The victims themsdvC"S, on this logic, were a secondary conc:ern.2' 1 Peter Woodward argues that it was significanrly the fir st case of the United Nations, under a Chapter VO resolution, engaging in peacemaking rather than peaceke·eping.z16 The infamous "Black Hawk Down" incident of 199 3 in tht" Somali capital of Mogadishu has givt"n support to tht" continuing U.S. rductanoc to intt"n't"ne directly in the country. Soon after this debacle", which kiiiC'd eighteen U.S. sen·icemen and over a thousand Somalis, Clinton withdrew U.S. .forces from the country, and this shaped U.S. foreign interventions unti l 2001. TI1e failure of Rwanda, the e-quivocation ova Bosnia, and the tactics of at"rial bombardmt"nt employed against [rag and St"rbia have a ll been anributed to the post-Mogadishu reluctance to commit ground troops. As former U.S. Assistant St"-eretar)' of Statt" Richard Holbrooke rt"marked on Somalia, ..The scars from that disaster would deeply affect our Bosnia policy. " 2 1' Both bin Ladt"n and Susan Rice (fom1er assistant secretary of state for Africa) ha\•e claimed that the 199 3 attacks on the United States were linked to ai-Qaeda.m Interesting ly, Rice was the author of Presidential Decision Directive 25, which drew lessons from the Somalia problems and was crucial in the U.S. decision not to intervene in Rwanda.m The linkage between "Black Hawk Down" and ai-Qaeda has become widcl>• accepted, but we should be skeptical of this assumption, realizing that bin Laden is trying to take credit, Rice is looking to place blame, and Somalis themselves den}' these connoctions.120 As H iro points out, in linklng a whole range of events to bin Laden, "'America has unwittingly consolidated his iconic status among wide swathes of the public in the Arab and Muslim World. " !.!.• Rather, as chaptC'r 2 suggested, a l-Qaeda is les.s an organization than a framewo rk of ideas, and although the chronology is these attacks certainly fit a pattern of chaiJengLng U.S. action in Muslim lands. This is one of the ways bin Ladm reads the situation, seeing the achievement of an easy victory over the United StatC"S. Yet as de Waal and Abdd Salam note, in 2001 political Islam was snuggling in the Horn of Africa, but the cont1ict in Iraq has reinvigorated it: "a new militant Islam has been brought to life by the war.'' 221 So until 2006, it was perhap-s not surprising how little actually happened in Somalia. With no stable or cffecti\•e government to negotiate with, the United States rdied on their own reports on activities in the area. There were rumors of Special Forces operating Ln the country, P3 Orion aircraft based in Oman flew reconnaissance missions, and there were extensive coastal patrols. but they showed relatively little, especially concerning putative ai-Qaeda bases.m As Menkhaus
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In reality, Somali.l has rurnr-d out robe less rhan ideal as a 53fe haven for AJ Qaeda, parr.icularl)• in compamon wuh mher opnons. FLrst, terrorist cells and bases are much more exposed to intern.uional counterin zones of state collapse. Violations o f stare rovc:rc:1gnty terrorist by a U.S. Special Forces operation a re Jess problemar.ic (or might even go undetected) where a cenrrnl gm•ernmmt either does not exist or 1s unable to extend Its :J.Urhority ro si!'Ctions of the counrry.ll4
ln addition, Somalia lacks \'(festcrn targcts and tourists and as a rrsult, fo rcign terrorists arr grncrally more conspicuous.w In othrr words, the nature of Somalia's particular politiC3 l situation a nd gcographical fragmentation dictate the kinds of interventions that can and cannot take place. It is imponant to remember that the a bsence of state authority docs not me.tn that there is no pol itical and lcgal organization.m The operation of U.S. Special Forces dsewherc occurs with either the tacit support of the go\•ernmcnt or its ritual condemnation. This allows the United States a freedom that it would not nocess.arlly have clscwhcre. In addition, the United States is a ble to utiliz-e a range of militias a nd warlords to hunt terrorists on its behalf, in much the same way that it did in Afghanista n, but in a way that would be imposs ible in a stronger state. On the o ther hand, cxplicit U.S. action would likely rccruit more forces for al-Qaeda and act as fu rther confirmation for U.S. imperialism.uThus, the argument is made that the \'acuums of authority in a weak state arc actually more hclpful to nonstate actors than a fu lly collapsed statc. "Terrorist networks, like mafias, appear to tlourish where states arc governed badlr, rather than not a t all. "UJI Drawing on a description of Liberia between 1997 and 2003, Mcnkhaus suggests that Somalia may become a "'paper state." Th is is a statc that would "'attract foreign a id, embassies, and the other lucrativc tra ppings of sovereignt}', but which would not become functional enough to thrC3ten the illicit activities fro m which the elite profiteers .. . [a nd] the c.tpacity to control illicit activities within its borders. " 219 Ac.cordlingly, this kind of sta te may not be a particularly "safe haven.,. Just as it was in the 1998 bombings in East Africa, Somalia is more: likely to be a tempora r)' base, a passage o r "transit zone'" fo r short-term operations. It is therefore not so much what is in Somalia but what might pass through it that should concern the United Statc-s.l.lo What all this mcansl of course, is that rebuilding Somalia as a state may be counterproductive to a strategy of preventing terrorism. A sta te that has a of territor ial control would also be a ble to permit things that the absence of state a utho rity makes much harder. It is thus in the strategic interests of the United States for Somalia no t to achieve political coherence
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and stability, especially if that would happen through an Islamic gm•crnmcnt. As Democratic presidential candidate [and future vice president) Senator Joseph Biden revealingly put it. the Department of Defense docs not want to deal with nation-building: "'T ht]• think it's cheaper to just go back in and empty the swamp again if }'Oll have to. " B ' Nonetheless, one of the problems of weak states, in this understanding of secur ity, is that neighboring states may end up destabili:z.cd as a result of the movement of refugees and other problems. The wider regional issues were parricularly e.,·ident in the 2002 attacks in Kenra. Rotberg has suggested a regional approach. which bears the hallmarks of t he mindset of imperial disdain: The battle ag3inst terror in the 11ulnemble countries aloqg Red Sea 3nd the Indian Ocean is best prosecuted from a holistic region3l is tra nsnation31 and respcc£S no boundaries. In pcrspecrh•e. The any e\·ent, none oflrhel intern3tion:J.II3nd or SC3 borders presen£S an effective barriu to infilrmrors. Drug.> and 3nns smugglers and C3ttle and sheep rustkrs can cross 3lmosl 3nywh.ere m wi ll. t\ h1stor>' of interpcnerracion, long decades of evasion, triba l or wurior domin3non of fronrier remere from nacion31 capit3ls, adherence to custom3ry enrrepreneunal obhg;.m ons, 3nd t h.e absence of robust security connngenrs beyond major cities make region:1l measures 3nd coopcrarlon necessary, urgent, and probably msuffic1cnt.u 1
1\oknkhaus more hclpfullr disassocia tes three forms of trouble in Somalia, suggesting that they arc ''three inter-related but distinct crises: (1) the prorractc:d collapse of central gm·cmment; (2) protracted armed conflict; and {3) lawlessness. '"l.ll He suggests that the United States and its allies need to find a wa}r to reinforce a strong central government while simultaneously reinforcing security across the country, thus taking away an opportunity for terrorists to exploit the insecurity of transition.Ll 4 One of the key tactics was regional. Tbc Combined Joint Task ForceHorn of Africa (CJTF-HOM was established in late 2002 to deal with issues in the area. As West notes, the aim was "to confront terrorists directly, to help the nations of the region identify a nd capture terrorists, and to help host nations control their ungo\•cmc:d spaces, especially borders and coasdines."m One of irs key tactics has been the process of national and regional integration, tying the peripheral regions more tightly to the capital through infrastructure and economic investmcnt.m The Transitional Federal Government for Soma lia was established in exile in Kenya, and then mo\•ed to Baidoa, Somalia, in 2004. Around the same time, the Council of Islamic Courts gained a strong base in Mogadishu, defeating the warlords-some of whom werc allcgedl)' fundC'd b)' the
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United States.U- This created a stability rllat had been unusual for some time, but one which came under an Islamic banner. The Islamic Courts and the government therefore conrrolled different parts of Somalia 's territory, and tllough there were initial hopes of working they did not materialize:. In December 2006, Ethiopian foroes invaded in aid of the unpopular gm•cmment and against the Islamic Courts, forcing some lslamists to rctreat to an area in the where the United States then launched AC-130 gunship raids early in 2007. Further air strikes across the countr}' As well as targeting individuals it saw as responsible continued in fo r the 1998 embassy bombings, the: Unitrd Statrs was also trying to prrvent the Islamic Courts from conrrolling rile state and to strengthen the nominal Somali go.,·crnment. The United States linked the Islamic Courts and while the: Unitrd States was claiming to be movement to intrrvcning in order to create stability in thr region, there was arguably much more stability when the Islamic Courts were opcrating. 140 Ethiopia's military action is, in itself, not new, given pw.·ious inmlvement in the civil war, and its war over the Ogadan border in J977-78, but the tying of its str ategy to the United States adds a separate dimension. In the Cold War, the United States and the Sovkt Union had both supported each s ide, at different timc:s.241 Now, in the words of a former ambassador to Ethiopia during the Clinton administration, "The United States sees Ethiopia as one of its most important African partners in the battle against terrorism. n:z.n The U.S. relation to Ethiopia is not entirely surprising. Along with Eritrea, it was one of the tv.•o African states to have joined the ''coalition of the willing'' for Iraq (sec map on p. 115).1 4 J It is also a countr}' with Christian leadership and a narrow Christian majority. The usc of Christian troops to act as surrogates for the United States in Somalia and the indiscriminate mode of assault by the United States itself will, of course, further strengthen opposition forc.es. Shinn had suggested in advance of the attack that the United States needed to be careful not to be drawn into events in Somalia that served Ethiopian interc:sts.u " Ethiopia has certain!)' attempted to usc the area to its own benefit and to exploit the context of the "'war on terror." On May 20, 2002, for instance, Somalia complained to the United Nations about Ethiopian incursions to little cffect.141 While Arab states wanted Somalia as a counterbalance Muslim state to the: strongl)r Christian state of Ethiopia, Ethiopia was more in fa\•or of a weaker state that it could manipulate to its advantage, although it has concerns about its own security. 2' " As Prime Minister Mclrs Zcnawi stated: "We don't look at this as us joining the U.S. on
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the war on terrorism, we sec it as the U.S. finally joining us because we've been victims for many ye<1rs. " 1.r In 2004, de \Vaal and Abdd Salam were able to suggest "the ' war on terror' is not Africa's war. Instead the American confrontation with a l Qai'da is bdng oc.casionally fought in Africa, but not br Africans and not for Afrk
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barriers to economic coopcration.m These a rc both problems in terms of the dispute m·er borders and the difticuJt nature of seeking nationstate solutions within the spatial conraincr of colonial decisions. Like the United States, and like the new Somali constitution, the commission was unwilling to consider the importance of political geography. "The '&end"
Both Lebanon and Soma lia also fit the wider strategy of Condolcczza Rice's a im of a "new Middle East," 2·'" o r Blair's idea l of a n "arc of moderation and re-eonciliation. In more general terms, Bush and his colleagues attempted to sec disparate events as a "trend.'' Ambitiously, in 2005 Bush suggested that events in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan. Palestine. Eg}'pt. and Saudi Arabia shared a similar logic: "The trend is clear: Freedom is on the march. "ll' Condolcczza Rice madt' simila r claims. As Benjamin and Simon suggest, the "most re\•caling aspt'-Ct of this sta tement is the way that it imposes a singular meaning on independent, largely coincidental events, all of which carr)' a mbiguous implications for the inhabitants of the countries where they took place. "'!..1 9 There is a related logic at play here to the usc of the tem1s "with '' and "like " as analyz<"d in chapter 1, where a process of comparison and integration feeds foreign policy goals. Bush s imilar!)' linked the U.K. airplane plot of August 2006 with Hezbollah, suggesting that they wish to "take over countries like Afghanistan and Iraq so they can establish safe ha\'ens from which to attack fre·e nations." 1w We do not need to sign up to Newt Gingrich's vision of a .. third world war'' 2 " ' ro recognize the intnlinkagcs of the responses. As Blurnemha l reports, the aim in Lebanon was beyond the immediate situation: As explai ned to me by se\·eral sutc department officials, Rice is enuanced by a new "'domino thror)·:" lsnd's attacks w1ll demolish H1zbulla ll! the Lebanese blame Hiz.bulb h and destroy its influence; and the backlash will extend to Hamas, which will collapse. From the admimstrarion's point of 111ew, [his is a proxy war with !ran (and S}•ria) th.u will inexplicably help rurn around lmq.m
It was a lso revealing that the intervention in Iraq made both Britain and the United States unable to act as honest brokers in any meditation in the Israel-Lebanon conflict; cqua lly1 it rook away their ability to act as pt"
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advocated tbc causc of what he calls libe-ra l imcrvcntionism in his series of valedictory foreign polic}' spoeches.1 "" Nor has it prc\·entcd his being namcd as the new envoy for the Quartct on the Midd le East (United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia). What is generally not recognized is the interlinkagc of humanitarian intrn•cnrion to these kinds of intervention. Generally thc point being made by thr United States and its allies is the same as was made regarding Afghanistan and (as chapter 4 wiJI show) Iraq: what goes on jor is be-lieved to go on) in their territories is of wider concern, be it the harboring of terrorists or the pursuit of wrapons of mass destruction. In the 9/11 Commission Report, the scope is broadened still further. It thus cxce<"ds its initial bricf and moves into the realm of strategic ad.,·ice. This is perhaps unsurprising givrn that the commission's executive director, Phillip Zdikow, earlier had rewritten the 2.002 National Sea1rit)' Strategy from an original dlra ft by Richard Haass on Condolcczza Rice ·s instrucrions. 265 Th·c rrport identifies several places where the commission thinks terrorists would be likclr to locate, on the dubious premise of asking "American and foreign government officials and military officers on the front lines fighting terrorists today" the question, "If you were a terrorist leader today, where wou ld )'Oll locate your base?" The answrrs feed American prejudices and strategies at the same time: • Western Pakistan and rhe Pakistan-Afghanist:m border region • Southern or 'X1esrcm Afghamsran • The Arabian peninsula, espcciall)' Saudi :\rabia :.1 nd Yemen, J.nd rhc nearb}' Horn of ,-\fnca, mduding Somaha and cxtmding southwest into Kenya • Southeast Asta, from T hall:md to the southern Phthppines to Indonesia • \Vest Africa, including N1gena :Jnd Mali • European cities with expatriate Muslim communities, especially cit1e:> in central and Eastern Europe where SC'Ctlrlt)' forces and border controls arc less
On one level, these places arc not entirely many of those areas arc pcrcei't·cd as having fallen outside the world economy. They arc precisdr the places identified b}' the likes of Kaplan and Barnett. But what is striking about this list is that the majority of places arc not individual states but substatc regions, or broader geopolitical theaters. Afghanistan and Iraq have therefore been somewhat unusua l in the broadcr war, as events in Pakistan, Lebanon, and Somalia have borne out. As the 9111 Commission Report contends:
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In r:he posr-9/11 world, th re:ns are defined more by r:he f.aulr lines within societies r:han by r:hc: rerritonal boundaries bc:rwr-c:n rhem. From terrorism ro globa l diSC":Jse or en,-ironmental degradation, rhe challenges have become transnanonal rother than imc:rnation.1.l. That is rhe defining quahry of world politiCS. in r:hc: rwent)•-firsr cenrury ... In rhe twentieth century, !>tr:lt'egjsts focusc:d on rhe world's r,reat mdusrrial heard.ands. In the twenry-lirst, the Focus. is m rhe oppome direction, mward remote rc:gjons and states. The United St.1tes has had to find ways to extend its reach, suaining the limits oi its mftuence. 167
The fracturing of the rda tionship between territory a nd sovereignty thus provides a profound challenge. Such a Jack of territorial control is nor merely of concern for the state itself, but for regional stability, a nd, potentiallr. for global secur ity. Yet the forced continuation of unsusta inable territorial the problem. In this, we sec me reason why ttrrimrial integrity is such an important issue in international politics, but particularly in the context of the ''war on terror." Territorial integrit}' is not being asserted simply b}' dominant powers in terms of their own sc.curity, but because of the destabilizing nature of sec.cssionist or other territorial cla ims more generally, and beca use of the dangers of a state not controlling its territory. Territorial control is claimed to be important because a stare that is not fully in control of irs territor)' is defined as a lawless zone that can be a .. brccdlng ground" for nonstatc power. As well as Lebanon a nd Somalia. it is dear that both Afghanistan and Iraq, after the invasion and oYerthrow of the Ta liban a nd Baathist what their SO\'erregimes, respc.ctivclr, arc in this category. And yet, it eign governments were perceived to be allowing \vimin their state territor}' that provided the justification for me violation of territoria l sovereignty. Thus, Dorff's argument that the "ungovernable state and the bad government state were simpl}· two variations on this same underlying is wonh considering. The ai-Qaeda/Taliban nexus was dfecrivdr dc.alr with as a statc problem, as V!ras Saddam Hussci.n in Iraq.
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CHAPTER FOUR
Iraq Destruction and Reconstitution
Constructing Threat
Although Lraq had been diswsscd as a strategic priority early in the George \V. Bush administration, pressure had bocn intensifying since September 11, 2001. The internal debates in the admjnistration have been noted in previous chapters, but this event was undoubtedly enough to shift rhe balance from the cautious Powell to the advocates of inttn•cntion such as Rumsfcld and Wolfowitz.• Ln 2002, claiming to have dealt with Afghanistan, the Bush administration n1rned its sights to Iraq: from the putari,·c net\vork to a more identifiable and geographically locatable target. The dates arc significant: Bush gave a speech to the United Nations on 12,2002, timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the New York and \Xfashington, D.C.. attacks; Congress passed a resolution on the usc of military force Oil October 11; and the U.S. midterm elections were held oo November 5. llu·ec days later. the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, gh·ing Saddam a final cham:c to disarm.1 The notion of targeting is usefully explored in Samuel Weber's book Targets of Opportunif)t! sho·ws how the word "target" originally mcaot "shield" and therefore has dcvdopcd from its original defensive meaning to something more offc-nsh·e. For Weber; the attack on Jraq makes sense as a ''target of ---an assault that takes its justification from an ultimately unconnected series of events. As Rumsfdd apparently said irnmc:diatd)' following September 11. 2001. Iraq offered better targets than Later, following the destruction of what little: had been left standing in the Afghan civil war, he quipped to rcponers th.-t the United States was not nmning out of targets. but Afghanistan Iraq the most appropriate
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could be TC"prcsented as a sufficient threat to nocd de-aling with, but it 'hras a lso sufficiently weak to allow a quick The justification fo r action against Iraq was based on a number of conflicting and contentious daims- Sadda m's trea m1ent of civilian populations; the harboring of terrorists or links with them; the:- thrc:-at to its ndghbors; and the pursuit of weapons of mass destructio n. This was both a confuSt"d, and intentiona lly confusing, rationa le. Wh ile the question of weapons of mass destruction grabbed thC' headlines, the o thC'r reasons were, all at stake:-, according to \Volfow itz, even though the weapons issue was privileged " for reasons that have a lor to do with the U.S. gm•ernment bureaucracy. "• Wolfo witz himself had long a rgued against the lmdcniable humanitarian violations of Saddam's regime" a nd St"emed persona lly convinced o f the link bt"tween Saddam a nd a i-Qaeda. 8 Iraq, personified by Saddam, became:- a target. As Bush put it in a speec h in early 2003: rhc= gravc=sr danger in rht' war on ruror, me: da nger facmg Amc:rica and rhc: world, is outlaw rc=gimc:s rhar St't'k .and posst'Ss nuclear, chc=mical, a nd biological Wt':lpons. These regimes could usc= such wc=apons for blackmail, rerror, a nd mass murdt'r. T ht'y could also givt' or seJJ rhost' Wt'apons ro rc:-rronsr alllt'S, who would usc: rhc:m wirhom the: lt'asr hesirari on.Y
A number of issues a rise in this speech. The ""outlaw rC"gimes,. a rc unspecified, yet Iraq is undoubtc:-d ly intended. Bush's declara tion of such regimes as "'outla w " is unila tera l, without a ny basis in international law. 10 There is a lso a repeat of the: supposed linkage in the shift from tc:-rro rist organizations to regimes, o r states. But it is the two conditionaJs- "'thcse regimes could ... they could ... "- built on what turned o ut to be an erroneous predicate: (tha t Iraq possessed or was cloSt" to possessing such weapo ns) that make the ca usal logic so suspe-ct. Bush contin ued: l\ly point is. our presC'nce m Ehc= world is mo re rhan jusr our might; but our mighr is nc:cdc:d in the: world right now to make: t he world a mort' pc:aceful place. The: wa r on rc:rror is. nor confin ed suictl)• to the al-Qaedn thnt we're chasmg. T he war o n rerror extends beyond invoh•t'S jus r a shadowy tC'rronsr ncrwork_ The: wa r on H ussein because of tht' nature: of Sadda m Hussein, rhe hi5tor)' o f Saddam H usst'm and hts willingn c=ss 10 rerrori:lce htmsdf. S.addam H ussein has rerrorized his own people. Ht"s rerro ri:zc:-d hts own neighborhood. H e: is a dn ngt'r nor only ro coun tries m rhe region, but as I t'xplained la5t night:, because of ai-Qaeda connc:ct tons, bc:ca ust' o f hts
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h1srory. h.:"'s a dJ.ng.:"r ro the Amencan people. And we\·e gar ro deal with him. We've gor to deal wuh him bdore it IS roo lare. 11
Just as in Afghanistan. there •.vas an attempt to tic the global security issues to the bas:is of the internal actions: of the regimes they aimed to deposcrolmtcr-terrorism as humanitarian intervention. In addition, by the beginning of thc war, Saddam was clcarly not in control of aU of Iraq's territory, nor could he guarantee the needs of its population. Wbar these arguments necessarily conflatc is an external thre-at and intcmal actions. While a right to self-preservation in the face of a forthcoming attack is legitimated lmdcr international lav.; and can-in tightly circumscribed ways-aUow the ..,·iolation of anothcr statc's territorial integrity, this is not the case for interna l actions. What we find is an attempt to usc the internal actions of the regime as a partial justification for intervention, while at the same time denying this is the casc. 12 The claims of tht' United Statt's go further than this. In fact, tht"y claim a right to prcempt that is, to take action bdorc threats. materialize. Legal ad ..·icc to the U.S. Congress laid this suggesting that Iraq could nor be prt'scntcd as an "immint'nt thre-at'' that would justify pr('('mprion except on two bases: possession of weapons of mass. destruction and links. to tcrrorist groups that might usc tht'm against the Unitcd States. It suggcstt"d that tl1is ncccssarily related to the National Security Strategy question of whether prt'cmption "ought to be r('('ast in light of thc realities of WMD, rogue states, and terrorism/' 13 British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith noted that "this is: not a doctrine which, in my opinion, exists or is recognised in international law. " 14 As well as being illegal, it is also potentially counterproductive, in that states that may find themselves potential U.S. targets arc likdy to want the same capacity to retaliate in ad,·ancc as the Un ited States currently has. North Korea's and Ira n's rush to acquire some measure of nuclear power is arguablr more of a negotiating strategy than realistic aspirations of a long-term nuclear fumre. It is notable that John Bolton removed a U.N. call for " nuclear weapons States to reaffirm their commitment to Negative xcurity Assurances'' from the 2005 Wo rld Summit outcome document. This meam that the United States reserves the right to first-strike a non-nuclear power, even outside the initial restrictions to this policy. For Bolton, tbC' document was flawed because it "'emphasize-s when the true thrC'at to intC'mational security stems from prolifcration." ;s The key issue is that-as North KorC'a has shown---<:ountrics with nuclear capacit}' arc dealt with in a d ifft'rc-nt way than those who arcmerely seeking it, thus creating the incenti\'C to go after the weapons in
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the first placr. 1b But it is dear from the sccurity strategies put forward by the U.S. administration that they have anticipated this, and that one of their a ims is to prevent other states gaining that capacit)' ro defend themselves from a U.S. precmpti..,·c attack, lest the United States lose its power of deterrence. In addition, one of their conoerns is that they will usc them not simply fo r defense but for their own preemption. This raises some crucial issues concerning the doctrine of self-dcfmsc, which bccomcs much more complicated in the "war on terror.'",- Selfdefense was part of the justification for the Afghanistan action, and this was effectively by the Security Council and NATO. But there was a dd1nite danger that it would be classed as retaliation because of the time lag betwcen the cvents. The United Statcs was, of course, no stranger to retaliation, as Kjssinger's remarks discussed in chapter 1 show. \X'ith Iraq, it was prcempth·e self-dcfense in that it was committed prior to any aggressive act. There ar c temporal issues here that differ from the common notion of self-defense, which implies some coincidencc in time between the action and the response. Deterrence, on the other hand, which sccks to prevent a possible future through a logic of rational expectation, is deemed to be inadequate. Prccmption (that is, dcaling with a threat bcfore it emerges) is a forcrd incorporation of rogue clements into acceptable structures. Containment, which can be understood as the spatial equi....alent of the temporal notion of deterrence, is replaced with integration. Preemption is the neccssarr temporal dement of strategies of integration. Thus on March 19,2003, the United States and its "coalition of the willing" launched an aerial and ground assault on Iraq. Aside from the United States, this putative alliance included a number of Central American countries, many of which had been invaded or bombed by the United States in the past (Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Domjnican Republic, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama); many European countries, with notable exceptions such as France and Germany; the African states of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, and Rwanda; the 1\·t uslim countries of Kuwait, Albania, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and Australia and japan; and a host of small countries from the Pacific, including Singapore, South Korea, the Philippines, and Micronesia. Other states, including many Muslim ones, provided more covcrt logistical support. '1 It is worth taking a step back here and look at the history of the country. Modem Iraq is the a rtificia l construction of a country out of three provinces of the Ottoman Empire that found themselves under British and French mandate following World War B.aghdad and Basra were brought together in 1921 as British mandates, whereas the French mandate Mosul. with a largely Kurdish population, was a later addition in
alltion of ...._ .. ,e ,., nmlflg"
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1925. In return. France recc: ived o il concessions and a larger share of Syria, from which it created Lebanon. All this was without regard fo r contemporaneous ideals of self-determination, and yet today there is considered an invio.lability concerning this territorial settlement. All states arc in some sense artificial; the problem is those states that fa il to build on that initial framework. As Anderson and Stansfield note. "Iraq has maintainc:d its territorial intc:grity as a state. What it has never succeeded in bc:coming is a nation. " 20 Indeed, the idea of protecting the territorial imcgrity of Iraq was an explicit war aim, proclaimed in the Azores Summit Statement on March 16, 2003, by Bush, British Prime i\·linister Tony Blair, and Spanish Prime M inister Jose l\•tarfa Aznar: We em•1sage a unified Iraq with irs cerritonal integrity respected. All the Iraqi people--its nch mix of Sunm a nd Shiite .-\rabs, !Kurds, Turko· men, Ass)•rians, and all ochers.-should enjoy freedom., prosperit)', and equaJit>' in a united country. We Will support the Iraqi people's aspirations for a represenroti\•e government that upholds human righrs and rhe rule of law as cornerstones of democracy.l 1
Similarly, on February 26, 2003, bdorc the war, Bush promised that "we will provide security against those who try to spread chaos, or settle scores, o r threaten the territorial integrity of lrag." 22 and Blair's speech in the House of Commons on March l S, 2003, called for a U.N. resolution subsequent to the conflict (and its expected victory) that "should protect totally the territorial integrity of Iraq. " B [n the "U.S, and Coalition Objectives" presented to Bush and the National Security Council on March 4, 2003, by Douglas Feith. the fi rst line stated that "Iraq's territorial integrity is maintained and the quality of life in Iraq is impro"cd \'isibly. " 24 The notion of territorial intc:grity is a mainstay of U.N . Se.curity Council resolutions, so it is unsur prising that the unanimous Resolution 1441 reaffir med the "the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial intc:grity of Iraq, Kuwait. and the neighboring States."l.l The tension implicit in such declarations was noted explicitly b)' Senator John Cherrr of Australia on i\•1arch 19, 2003: "A fine wa}' to commit to the territorial integrity of a nation is by invading it. That is what we arc doing. Wle arc in breach of 1441."26 Why has this been so little remarked upon? One of the reasons is the profound ambiguity about how territorial imcgrity is to be undcr1>tood. It is clear that Bush, Blair, and others understand it as territorial preservation, the maintenance of the territorial status quo. This is conceived as almost an absolute because of the perceived dangers to stability of secession or fragmentation. Yet territoria l intc:grity
IR AQ
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SYRI A
"
t
llllrme1res
SAU 0 1 ARA B IA 200
Iraq and Its provinces
docs not mean simp!}' the preservation of territorial extent but also the sovereignty ·within it. The two meanings of the temr-that borders arc fixed and tcorritory should not bern seized or secession cncouragcd, and within its own borders, within its territory, a state is sovereign-arc central to an understanding of this conflict and the "war on terror'' generally. Territorial sovereign!}' is now held to be contingent, for humanitarian reasons. b)' the harboring of terrorists, or the production of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq could not be hdd to be sovereign within its territor)' prccisdy bt'C'
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of tnritorial integrity to sec why there is such tension in the: contemporary understanding of the concept. This tension relates to the: question of the: geographical impasse highlighted by the disjunction betwee-n Bush's rhetoric and his actions, in that think ing beyond a so\•c:rcign sense of territory is perhaps tilt' limit cast' of the "war on tt'rror, '' bec.auSt' tht' status of a tnritory such as Iraq is precisely the key thing not to be questioned. On the one hand, then, Cherry is correct bec.auSt' the: U.N. definition of aggression, following General Assembly Rc:solurion 33 l4 in 1974, would seem to predudt' the actions takt'n by the United States and its ..coalition of the: willing"' in tht' spring of 2003. Th is rt'solurion d('('lart's that ''the territory of a State shall not be \•iolated by being the object, e\'t'n temporarily, of military oc.cuparion or of orber measures of forct' taken by another State in contraventi on of the Charter. "'l" Assuming legitimiz.ation was sought under the U.N. Charter, tht' justification for the United States and Unitt'd Kingdom would, in this instance, be self-defense or the enforcing of other aspc.cts of Resolution 1441. As Sands has shown, however, Iraq's tersuch a lega l defense is untt'nable.n On the other hand, ritorial integrity in the sense of the sanctity and preservation of its t'xisting boundaries is indeed seemingly inviolable. Iraq's neighbors, for understandable reasons, hm•t' supported the rt
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was curtailed; the spatial extent of its sovereignty was limited. This was a sovereignty that from 1991 on, and more especiaiJy since 2001, was held to be contingent, for humanitarian re-asons, on the harboring of terrorists, or the production of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq therefore provides a particularly significant case in which to examine this territorial targeting, the assumed territorial preservation, and the limitations on territorial sovereignty. After the first Gulf \Var, Colin Powell declared that " it would not contribute to the stabilit)' we want in the Middle East to have Iraq fragmented into separate Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurd political entities, "J .< and a White House policy paper said that "in 110 wa-y should we associate omselves with the 60-ycuJr-old rebellion i11lmq or oppose lraq:S legitimate attempts to s11ppress it. " lt. This was one of the main reasons why the march to Baghdad had been halted in 1991, and why uprisings in the north and south had gone unsupported. For Project for a New American Century (PKAC) mainsta}'S Lawrence Kaplan and William Kristol, though, this was a risk worth taking in 2003: We na\'e long ngo passed rhc: threshold whe-re the prospr:cr of, n lrnq is a grc:mr:r evil th..'ln [he perstsrence of Saddam Hussem. Th.ar m ight be worse withour him is of course a possibthry. Bur gi\•cn rh.e slatus quo m Ir-aq, ir is difficult ro imagi nc how. .fT
Drawing on some of the predictive work of Jvlarr on political factions in lraq, 38 they expect that there will be few problems, but suggest that a federal system is the The problem is, of course, among other things, where the boundaries of such federal di1o·isions would be drawn, Yet the consequences arc readily apparent. As Stansfield phrases it, ''\'(fhen the regime was removed, Iraqi society shattered in pieces. " .w Of course, any di\rision of Iraq is more complicated than a tripartite division betv.rccn Kurds, Shi'a, and Sunni would suggest. Tne crudest maps of ethnic grouping demonstrate that even the borders for a fcdcra J solution would be d ifficult to draw, and mor'C subdc mappings demonstrate that a strictly rnajoritarian divide-where more than 50 percent of a region is of a single ethnic group-is inadequate to the issues. Beyond the distribution of populations, the geographies of Iraq mitigate against a straightforward solution. The disparity in oil reserves is widely r'Ccognized, but we should note in addition that the admjnistrative arc-as arc in the center and the ports arc to the tnc fertile land is l>c"tween the Tigris and the Euphrates (the o riginal meaning of the term "Mesopotamia" means "between tne rivers"}; the south has marshland, and there a rc mountains
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to north and desert to west; federal regions would have in common with neighbors than the other parts of federation; and full redrawing of boundarindependence would likely lead to calls for in region. This would open up issues for Kurdish nationa lism, and in particular claims in the a noma l)' of grcatpolitics that is Kuwait; 4' and Saudi Arabia. Numerous issues a lso arose following the 2005 election in Iraq, concerning relations of Shi'a to lran and Saudi Arabia and the fact that Sunnis did not in large numbers. this, the stress that dominant powers have put on Iraq's territorial integrity-understood as unsurprising. As al-Zarqawi of ai-Qaeda in put it: In a general sense Iraq is a politjcal mosaic, a coum:ry where t he ethnic groups are mJXW together a nd where there exist s1dc by side va rious confessions and sects with. man)' and complex differences, which o nly a srrongl>• centralized power and a might)' lc;Jder h;Jve been able: to go\•ern from the rime of Z•rad Ibn Abihi to Saddam. D1fficulr choices arc on the hortz.on for t h.c fururc.
The remainder of this chapter critically examines the of Iraq since Bush proclaimed on Ma}' 1, 2003, that "major combat operations in Iraq have '" 4J In looking at the "securing and reconstructing" of the country that Bush claimed would follow. it critkall}' analyzes the political process and the transfer of a ud10rity from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA} to the Enterim Go"erning CounciJ (IGC) the Transitional Administrative Law. and then to a new government focus of the chapter is on the proces.s and Iraqi elections. The document of its constitution1 looking particularly at the tcnitorial issues. This examines the \vay that the extent of Iraq was assumed and therefore Through the prooess of continued occupation and governmental delays, and through the creation of a "'failed" sta te in place of a "rogue" one. the has possible and has therefore the ve-ry thing that it claimed stability in first place. The of authority from the CPA to interim illustrates the problematic rendering of state just as the refusal to engage w ith the territorial mcnt and of political masks important political e.,·asions.
The Polttles of Reconstruction
In February 2.003 1 General Jay Gardner was appointed as head of Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance [ORHA), a di•lision of
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the U.S. Department of Defense, with the brid of managing the civilian needs of Iraq after the invasion a nd expected quick victory. The remit of reconstruction and assistance demonstrated that the United Stares was not expecting to Yet very swihl}' after that declared victory, with less than a month in Iraq, t he CPA replaced the ORHA, and Paul Bremer took control on May 12. This was ostcnsi blr due to the lack of political progress and the widespread chaos and looting of museums and ancient The United States decided that widespread privari:z.arion, including the energ)', heavy industry, and media sectors, was necessary. As Ba rber notes, "The choioc betv.•een a public or a private economr is perhaps the most important democratic choice a people ca n make, and by making that choice for rhe lraqis, the Americans effectively stole from them a marker of their so\•crcignty. " -16 T hC' purpose of the CPA was to prepare Iraq for self-sovereignty, implying that it was ckarlr not ready to immediately ta ke over and tha t some sort of nation-building was nccded.r The U.K. ambassador to the United States, Christopher i\k)•er, described the attitude of the Pentagon, and pa rtiClllarly Wolfowin,. as not to bring "perfect democracy but start with a fairly rough and read)• version that would be the basis from wh ich you could move on to higher things.... Two key problems have undenujned such a n approach: the failure's of the CPA and the chai.IC"nge to U.S. and U.K. forces. For Parenti, they arc straightforwardlr linked, in that "the CPA, a policy wonk's Disneyla nd at the center of hell, rests on a base of brutal and diffimlt mmtary labor. "fll The CPA was housed in Saddam's old Palace of the Republic, now called the Green Zone. This is a heavily fortified complex, removed both spariall)' and po.lirically from t he "outside" of Iraq.so Tbis led, inevitably, to a certain detachment, with U.K. enVO}' Jeremy Grccnstock suggesting that potential of the period immediately after the war had been "dissipated in poor policy and narrow-minded execution.".l 1 In a more the: U.S. govcmmenr naive, or perhaps patent!)' dishonest, listed 100 ways, in ten categories, that the situation in Iraq had improved 100 days after the end of major combat operations.51 The challenge has bccn described variously resistance, insurgC"ncy, or terrorism. The favorable label, from a U.S. perspective, was "pro-Saddam militias with support from Islamic organizations associated with AI-Qaeda " lJ because this enabled a number of key moves: to dclcgitimizc rcsistam:e by la beling it as pro-Saddam and therefore reactionary, to further suggest a link between Saddam and a i-Qaeda, and to enable a branding of Iraq as tbc central front in the "'war on terror. " 14 In reconstructing Iraq politically, the United Sta tes and United Kingdom were in an awkward position, as their occupation was bound b)'
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the Hague Convention, notably tbe clause that they must "take all the measures in [their] power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." H On several occasions, CPA officials invoked a sovereign exccCption to this ..s 6 British Inrcmariona l Development Secretary Clare Short, a critic of the war in the first placcC, finally resigned on May 12, 2003, explicitly citing the limits to rbe powers of the: occupying forces and their obligations under international law. Shorr argued that under the Hague and Geneva {1949) Convent ionr., humanitarian needs, tbe keeping of order, and the running of civil administration a llowed the occupation to administer, but that it was "not entitled to make major economic, and constitutional changes/' and that only the U.N. Security Council was able to do this ..s· Earlier, on March 26, 2003, Goldsmith had advised Blair in almost the same wa}'·.ls On May 22, Resolution 14B3 precisclr tl1is restriction on "all states concerned."'.!" On July 13, 2003, the IGC was established, which was welcomed by the United Nations as "broadly representative" and "as an important step towards the forma tion by the people of Iraq of an internationall}' recognized, reprcsentati\•e government that will exercise the sovereignty of lraq.'' 60 Parenti was more critical, saying that this body of former exiles and other distinguished figures was far less effective: During trs first year the IGC was known mosrly for irs dupliciry, vacillarion, macrion, nmidiry, and interminable deadlock over small and irrelevant decis ions.... :\tore= concrete rns ks---like wrinqg a nc=w consrirunon, go\•ernmc-m msrirutions, and rc-vi\•mg the economy tor just pri\•atiSing everyrhmg]- were left ro the CPA and l:uc-r the U.S. £mbassy.61
Interestingly, when the Govern ing Council was announced, it could not agree on an accepted version of the Iraqi Aag to ha¥e behind it. As Bremer recalls, "'in the end, there was no flag. Just a map of a unified Iraq. " ii! This is an attempted performanoc of Iraqi unity through a cartographic representation. This construction of a •liable political process was a key issue bc.cause it was decided that a new constitution was needed for the building of the new polit)'. a lbeit within an existing territorial frame. And yet, the question of who would frame the constitution was an instan<:e of the problem of founding. On the one hand, the constitution was designed to allow for the dcction of a representative government, but it needed to be written by someone. Grand Ayatollah Ali ai-Sistani was central to ensuring that tbe framers were ele>Cted, rather than se lected, issuing a fatwa in
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the summer of 2003, which in Feldman's words was "'pure democratic theory, with nary a rdc:rcncc to Islamic legal texts ... designed to appeal not only to religiously observant Shi'is but to all This view was shared by munerous international lawyers, and transitional arrangements were therefore put in place. Initially this was under the CPA with tbe Transitional Administration Law (TAL), eventually leading to Bremer's transfer in June 2004 to the interim govC'mmenr, which would pave tbe way for elections to constitute Iraq. The tC'nsion was created because Sistani did not want so\•ereignty transferred to an unclected government, but thr Unitrd Statrs was committed to transfer of sovereignty before a practical date for drctions, due in part to the Novembrr 2004 U.S. presidential The view from the official "Historic Review of CPA Accomplishments," a seemingly unsdf-consciousl}' congratulator)' document, is that the CPA had provided Iraq with "four foundational pillars for their soverrignty: Security, Essential Services. Economy, Governancr. Iraq was now a "fully sovereign nation;• and the CPA had "achieved its primar)' goal," and now it ceaSC'd to exist. In the more forthright assessment of one provincial governor, however: The Unired Srares s.howcd cerrainl}·, and perhaps arrogance mo, abour Iraqis and their rc:1ction to occup:nion, and, in me1r frusrration with existing s.«uriry structures such as rhe Unired Nat10ns, simply ignored the accumulation of pracrical c=xpcric:ncc gamed by such org;mis:ltions. in similar \'cnrurc=s. If ir c:mnor be: proved rh:l[ th1s atmosphC're of miscakul:uion, rivalry, and dissent c:xacC'rbared CPA's pracrical difficulties, rhe empirical c:\'idc:ncc for t he charge remains strong. 6 t
In pan, of course, the: CPA recognized its own unpopularity and sought botb the quasi-legitimacy of the IGC and their role in drafting the TAL.bA CPA poll, leaked in M.ay 2004, suggested that "92 per cent of those surveyed saw the coalition forces as occupiers, and 55 per cent believed tbC:)' would frd safer if tho!iC' forces left immediately. As Etherington notrs, "the: consent of ordinary Iraqis'' had made its operations possible, and thi.s wa.s not as stable: as the CPA migbt have hoped.•9 In Feldman's terms, the United States propping up an illegitimate government could lead to tbe "worst-c-ase scenario fo r the Americ-an occupation of Iraq: Vietnam, but in Lcbanon."" 0 Bremer therefore hurriedly handed over sovereignty symbolically in a two-paragraph letter to an Iraqi judgC' and ldt the scene by hdicoptrr and C-130. Just how sovereign the new Iraq was is illustrated in Bu.sh 's comment on the new Iraqi prime minister: "Whoe\rer it is, I want to be sure that he won't start playing to the gallery by attacking the Coalition
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right raking office . . . lts to lca••e the day after
got to be certain new PM won't ask As the CPA stated:
Drafttd and :1grC'C'd [on] by Iraqi le:1ders, the TAL is Supreme law of lr:1q during me rranSI[ion:J I period. The TAL provides for Iraq's firsTe,rer democratic elections robe hdd no larer than end January 2005, and for rhe drafnng of a permanenr consriturio n by OC'Cember 2005 . Under che TAL, rhe system of governmenr in Iraq will be republican, fede-ral, democranc, and plurahsric. Federalism will be based on geograph)', h1sror)'. and scpa r.uion of powers, and nor o n erhniciry or sccr.'2
of January 2005 la rgely by Sunni Arabs an overall turnout of mrer ha lf registered in Iraq. Shi'as won fracrionallr than an overall majorit}', with the Kurdish alliance in second place. In total, then, the Shi'as and Kurds hdd 221 of 275 se.ats and would dominate the constitutional charged with producing a draft, although fifteen Sunnis were coopted onto the panel of 7 J to strive for a constitution that could be truly representative. These categories of Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurd arc not unproblematic. Sunni, for instance, is not an category, given that they do not necessary self-identify in that way. In addition, the majority of Kurds arc adherents of Sunni Islam, bur "Sunni'' is often now used as shonhand for Sunni Arab.-• The disbanding of the Ba'ath Party and association of Sunnis with Saddam's regime have caused problems in asserting an identit)'.''4 Indeed, they have problems with the suggestion of discrete Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurdish particularly in way these arc presented. of Arab Amr Moussa, for example, declared: I do not belu::\'e in rhis division between Shi'a and Sunni and 1\•tuslims and Chriswms and .'\Tabs and Kurds.... I don't bu}· rhis and I find in th1s a true recipe for chaos and perhaps :1 C:Jt:utrophe m Iraq and around
There is certainly a danger of sed ng ethnic and religious affiliation as relevant political categories. This raises genuine concerns about the notion of representation, and as Brown the"Sunni committee .. . to be called the representatives of those boycotting January elections... Some Islamic groups have tried to minimize diffcrcl1ces, with tfle slogan "Not Sunni, not Shi'i-Islamic unit}•!" but as Feldman notes, "the implicit assumption ofthcse messages was that Sunni and Shi'i were the default identities to which people would probably have recourse, and that universalizing Islamic identity should use.d to find common ground bct\ot,·ecn them. "'':'"7
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Equally, there is a dangeT of sedng these groups as a unity, each seeking similar outcomes. The Kurds, for example, both under the de facto sovereign[}' before the invasion and subsequerltl)•, a r"C divided into two main factions, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Sheikh Massoud Barz.ani, and the PatriotJc Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Jed by Jalal Talabani. Both have political differences (and indecd fought a civil v.'CIIr until 1998) and geopolitical strengths; Turkey favo rs former and Iran the latter as negotiating partners gi,•cn their dominance in the northeast and southwest sectors of the region,'B even though both states have launched assaults on the Kurdish region of Iraq since the U.S.-Ied im'CIIsion. Under TAL Article 61, the National Assembly was charged with writing a draft of the constitution by August 15. 2005, to be pur to a referendum on October 15. T he constitution needed to pass two hurdles: it had to win an o¥erall majorit)' in Iraq and not be rejected by three or more governorates by two-thirds majorities. Although in the final outcome, the rejc.ction ist governorates were Sunni, this was originally a veto concession for the Kurds. If accepted, the process would lead to December 15 elections, with a new fu ll government to assume office by the end of the )'Car; if rejected, those elections would be for a new National Assembly, which would be asked to redraft a constiturion, setting the political process back a year. Tbe August 15 dc-
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Concerns were raised about the lack of rccognirion of Iraq's "Arab identity," and yet the constitution works c-autiously round this, declaring that Iraq is ''parr of the Islamic world and its Arab people arc part of the Arab nation."&! It thus recognizes the separation and lack of a wholesale identit}' of tht' country. The question of scalt' thus works both ways: dm'>'11 to subnational art'
The United States also tried to underplay its own involvement, suggesting that democraC}' was "'difficult and often slow, but lt'
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Norhing would ha\•c: bc-m done wirhout sophisric::ned and matureleadersh1p. 1K
Although Sunni objections were deeply felt, forcing the constitution through and to a referendum was a deliberate tactic. To register their disapproval, they would be forced to vote against it, thus drawing them into the political proces.s. For Laith Kubba; spokesman of the government, "If that is the price to pay, we lose six months and have to start again, then it is worth it " 89 Yet one concession was more significant in that it merel)' deferred problems. This \Vas the eleventh-hour deal, brokered by Khalilzad, that meant that the new parliament could propose changes to the constinuion, reinforcing the sense that the constitution is a holding operation. Man}' contentious dements either were not worked through or were removed in pan as a response to U.S. pressure about rime because a constitution could be portrared as one of the signs of but a lso to instill a sense of compromise in some clemems of the Sunni population. The committee could be set up, but there was no guarantee proposals would be accepted. As the G11ardian noted, the constitution was therefore "probablr unique, .. as "it became shorter and shorter in the process of being wrirren." It is therefore described as a "colour-by-numbers book, with the shapes broadly outlined but the all-important colours left to be filled in later. " 90 But for \ViiBams and Spencer, writing in the Bosto11 Globe, such objections miss the point. What the Iraqis were working on, they claim, was a "political compact" that set out how they will resolve future problems. Thus, the: August 15 projc:ctcd text was "'marc of a General Framcwork Agreement than a traditiona l lcgaJistic constitution. " 9 1 [n the: words of BBC correspondent Paul Reynolds, it was a "milestone a long the way, not the destination it!;df. ""2 The Constitution of Iraqi Territory
While on the one: hand, Iraq's constitution raised issues around the problem of founding (in that the sovereign "we" was both posterior to the legitimacy of the event and prior to it), on the other hand, the entity doing thc constituting was a lrcady dccidcd- prc:determined. This is thc territorial extent of the constitution's sovereignty and the people who would be included within it. A key part of Iraq's constitution is thus an extraconstitutional act. 9J In a n a rticle looking at the issue of earncd so\•creignty. and particularly the case of Kosovo, Williams and Pecci suggest that certain dements of " phased sovereignty" arc relevant to the case of [raq.
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But there arc important differences, "most importantly the final status of the territory (i.e., Iraq as a so\·crcign nation) is not in question.'' 9• While: Williams and Pocci arc clearl}' suggesting that options rhen avaiLilble in me: case of Kosovo-such as creati ng an autonomous region within a larger sta te or an international prote-etoratC'-wert" not possible for Iraq, and that Iraq is o bviouslr destined to be a "sovereign nation," the implicit assumption is revealing. T his is a matter of determining the "final status of the territory," and that tt"rritory is lraq.lraq's territorial settlement was not in question. One of the ironies of the territoria l sett lement desired b)• the United States was that the 1990 constitution itself declares that "the SO\'ereignty of lraq is an indivisible ent ity"' and that "the territory of Iraq is an indivisible entit y of which no part can be ceded. " 95 But apart from the inappropriateness of carrying that over into the new post-Saddam Iraq, they would also like to diminish centra l control. Indt"ed, the TAL makes some progress a long this path, seeking to dilute federal power, to "encourage the exercise of local auth orit>•'' yet stiiJ preserve "a united Indeed, the CPA tasked tht" nt"w Ministry of Foreign Affairs with "actively working to reverse Iraq's former isolation and pursue the . .. objectives of our new foreign policy," fo remost of which was to " protect Iraq's sccurit)', stabilize the country, and preserve Iraq's territorial integrit)·...,.,. There arc some telling claims in the prelude to the 2005 constitution that showcase a particular geographical imagination: We the sons of Jt.·lesopotamt:J, la nd of rhe prophets, place of the holy imams, rhe leaders of civili7J.1tton and dte crearors of the alph3lxr, rhe cradle of nrirhmctic: on our I:Jnd, rhe first lnw pur in pl:Jce by mankind was in o ur nation, rhe most noble ern of jusricc in the polincs of nnrions was laid down; on our soil, tht' followers of th e prophcr and rhe saints prayed, the philosophers and the sctcnnsts theorized and th<" wnrers and poers
A subsequent litany of the tra..,.ails of the pt"oplc of Iraq is notable because the people arc not taken as a whole, but as discretely pcrscnncd groups. It seeks to constitute them as a people through a reference to the January 2005 elections, where "inspired by the suffering of Iraq's martyrs- Sunni and Shiite, Arab, and Turkomcn, and the remaining brethren in all communities," they supposedly voted to put all this behind them. The final lines of the prelude reassert the bringing together " freely and by choice . .. to write down this permanent constitution," to preserve the " free union of people, land, and Once again, we sec tht" constitutjon of a people through a shared community of suffering.
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lmportandy, this union of and land is rdnforced in a number of clauses. The president is seen as "the symbol of the nation's unity and represents the sovereignty of the country,'' and is charged with guaranteeing adherence to the constitution as well as "the presen•ation of Iraq's independrnce and unity and thr security of its territory, in accordancr to the Similarly, the central federa l authority "will maintain the unit)' of lraq, irs integrity, independence, sm•erdgnty, and its democratic federal system. " 10' In addition, in a phrase that bears the boorprim of the "'war on terror," "the state will be committing to fighting terrorism in all its forms a nd will work to pre\•ent its territory from bei ng a base or corridor or a n arena for its {terrorism's) activities." 10 1 Aside from the interesting grographical frames uscd-neithcr a base of operation, nor a corridor of passagc for actions outside, nor an arena in itself-this is a telling sign of the contingent nature of Iraqi SO\'crcignty. It was Iraq's supposed complicity in such prc\•ious actions that led to U.S. arguments for limitations on the right to noninterferrnce within the territorial boundarks of a state. Where a state was not in control of that territory and therefore was unable to prevent injurious actions bq•ond those boundaries, or where it acted in particular ways within its boundaries, such as persecution of groups or pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, their territorial SO\'Creignty could be overrun. For a federa l republic to work effectivclr, it is crucial that the power arrangements between central and regional government arc constituted carefully for future polit}'. And yet in the actual constitution's text, these issues arc glosscd ovcr, masked, or dcfcrrcd. There arc a numbcr of indications, but crucial issues arc ldt undeveloped. Thc different parts of Iraqi society necessarily have q uire differcm perspectives on rhis. Garerh Stansfield's work is extrcmclr useful in setting out the position of thc Kurds. In his analysis, thcy want threc ma in things: to maintain thcir current autonomy and "augment it with control of Kirkuk," to "'&ecure control of oil rcsourccs in Kurdish rcrritory (including the major oilfield of Kirkuk),'' and to "control a Kurdish miJitary forcc, and ha\·c the power to block thc military deplo)rment of Iraqi forccs to the north. '' This last point means that this "would, in cffect, make Iraqi Kurdist.an an indcpcndent state in all but namc" 1u2 because it would limit thc projcction of federal power and prevent the cffectivc monopoly of violence. By limiting thc spatial extent of their sovercignt)', this Kurdish demand ncccssaril)' brings opposition from the Sunnis, who ..demand that thc territorial integrity of Iraq !>hould not be thrcatcned by Kurdish a utonomy." 10 l This bdicf in the maintenance of the territorial integrity is shared with thc Shi'a popula tion, but in part, this is br.('ausc rhey arc thc dominant
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group and most likely to benefit from a combination of representative democracy and the territorial status qtw. As he notes, "for the Shi'a the issue is about who controls Iraq, for the Kurds it is about whether they should even be 'in' l raq." a!)I In the constitution itself, Article 11 3 notes that " the federa l system in the republic of Iraq is made up of the capital, regions, decentralized provinces, and local administrations." Several levels of government arc noted here. The provinces arc the eighteen governorates carried forv.•ard from the Saddam era, which were preserved in the TAL. 1ru The TAL had declared that "anr group of no more than gO\'ernorates outside the Kurdistan region, with the exception of Baghdad and Kirkuk, shall have the right to form regions from amongst thcmsch.•es,'' 10" a provision that again is carried forward in the 2005 constitution. Article 114 of the revised constitution notes that "the regions comprise one province or more, and two regions or more have the right to join into one region." This ability to merge regions is poorly formulated. One thing was though: a decision had to be approved in a referendum of the people of the relevant provinces, but this referendum was notably only of those people within the prO\'inccs, rather than the country as a whole. It therefore gives a right to limited secession. Equa lly new regions can be formed onlr from ex isting provinces, thus potentiallr perpetuating minority problems. Kurdistan is notably the key region to be formed, and Article 113 of the revised text states that "this constitution shall approbate the region of Kurdistan and its existing regional and federal authorities, at the time this constitution comes into force,'' and that it shall ··approbate nnv regions established in accordance with its provisions." This is a continuation of the policy of the TAL, which had sought to move the de facto to the de jure with regard to the Kurdistan Regional Government, consolidating the it had enjoyed under the no-fly zones until March 19 "'in the gm•crnora tcs of Dohuk, Arbil, Sulaimaniya, Kirkuk, Diyala, and Nennreh," without making a move for full indeFor Khalilzad, it was much more stra ightforward than it was being portrayed: \'l:lirh rc:gard ro federalism isJ broad agrc:emem and some disJ.greemem. I know thar of d-te Sunni pa rric1p:mcs on rhe outside hJ.\'e spoken OU[ ag.'linsT federalism ... On me day rhat rhe constitutiOn IS ronfied rhe Kurdi.s.h emiry will be de jure whar ir 1s de facto, an autonomous federal umr, a federal unit of Iraq. Feckrahsm 1s bringing oock the- Kurdjs h rc:gion i ll(O Iraq. h has bc:.::n aW:J)', separat.::d from lr:.Jq de (t1cto for a long nm.::.ICll
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But what Khalilzad failed to consider is the uony that it is the least powerful community that most wants to preserve the ex isting situation. The attitudes of Sunnis have been characterized as thinking of Iraq as a as Arab and Iraqi nationalists. 101 The fact that the whole and Sunnis werr both thr kast powrrful and most marginalizrd from the con stitutional procrss rc.quirrd morc concessions from thc Shi'as and Kurds, to bcttrr bind the former w the political project, There is thus an uneaS)' set of ad hoc alliances. Both the Kurds and the Shi'a want somc degree of autonomy and ccrtainly an end to Sunni dominance. But the Kurds want much more autonomy, and ker dements arc pushing fo r full independence. In opposition to this, the Sunni and Shi'a populations adopt "an Arab position," as they "fear it is thr first stage in the Balkanisation of Iraq."' 110 The Sunnis in particular sec it as cementing their loss of power and threatening territorial unity, and they fear Shi'a regions emerging on similar linrs to Kurdistan, which would mran thr Sunnis would be left with the "sands of An bar." With rrgard to Kurdistan itself, the constimtion fudges a number of is.sues. 111 Laws initiated since the de facto sovereignty of 1992 remain in effect: And dccasions made b)' the go11crnmcnt of the Kurdistan s-cgio ninduding and courr decisions--arc cffecri,rc unless the-y arc voided or amended accoroing to t he Jaws of the Ku rdistan region by the conccmcd bod)', as long as the)' not agains r the .constirution.111
This has been a central concession so that the Kurds should not enjoy lcss dcccntralizcd power than they did in the last decade of Saddam's rule. But for the Kurds, the key was not the retention of some auwnomy but the status of Kirkuk, given the importance o.f its oilficlds and its mix of populations. " 3 But this was one of the key issues that the constitution has failed to address, and it mar be a causc of ch·il war. Indeed, Article 152 of the new constitution states that it suprrsc:drs and mids the TAL, "except for what appears in paragraph (a} of Article (53) and Article (58 )." These two anides deal with Kurdistan and the situation in Kirkuk, particularly in terms of addressing the doctoring of its demographic character, As Patrick Cockburn notes, this masks some important political probkms. He suggests that a constitution '' assumes a stable balance of powrr." But this is not the case because "the Kurds a rc at the peak of their power. They captured the oil city of Kirkuk and intend to keep it. They want to freeze thrir gains undrr the new constitution. " 115 But in terms of population, Saddam was able to engineer the makeup of the communi()·, so this too is unstable. In trmls of o il, the constinltion similarly leaves much unworked
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through. While Articlc l 09 notes that "oil and gas is the property of all the Iraqi people in all the regions and provinces," Iknnis has claimed that thi:s is mcrd>• for currentlr known resources, meaning that future fidds be the prcscnrc of regional governments and foreign oil companies. 116 On resources more generallr, Article H 0 tries to ensure "fair distribution" of water as part of an overall deal. While the assertion of thc " sovereignty and territorial intcgrity" of states i:s a commonplace of U.N. rcsolurion:s-induding a reaffirmation of "the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity ofiraq, Kuwait, and the neighboring States" in Resolution H4 1 in November 2002-therc has been a telling shift in the reso lutions pertaining to Ir aq since the invasion. In May 2003, rhe U.K. and U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations stated that: Th( Uni ted States, rh( United Kingdom :md Co:1linon partners, working through rhc Coalirion P·r o,•ision3l .o\mhoriry,shall mtcr nli:1, for sccuriry in .:md for the prO\"ISIOnaladminisuation of Iraq, including by: deterring hosrilities; mainta ining the territorial imegriry of Iraq and securing Iraq's oorders, sccunn g. :1nd removing, diS3bling, rendcnng h:1rmless, ebmmating or dc-srroying (a) a ll of Iraq's wc-;tpons of mass desuucrion.'1 7
In these crucial clements, im•oking the Jaw of occupation, theirs was the sm·erdgn position, rather than Iraq's. But their position was endorsed b}' the United Nations on l\•1 ar 22, after the forma lity of the invocation of the SO\•ereignty and territoria l integrity of Iraq," with the United Nations "rc""ognizing the specific authorities, rcsponsibiJities, and obligations under applicable internationa l law of these states as occup)•ing powers under unified command. " 118 Resolution 1500 again pays lip service through the: usual though Iraq had been invaded, it was not sovereign, a nd its territorial integrity had been violarc:d. 119 Resolution 1511 docs the same, but there is a notable shift in the attenda nt register: 4
Underscoring that of Iraq resides in the State of Iraq, riglu o f rhe Iraqi peopk free-l y co their own reaffirmmg polirical future :1nd control their own narurnl resources, re1terar.ing irs resolve thar rhe day whe-n Iraqis go\'ern themsd\•es must come quick ly. J.nd r('Cognizmg importance of inrern:1r.ional suppon, panicubrly thar of counrries in re-gion, lrn q 's neighbors, and regional orgamzanons, m t.'lking forward this process expediriousJy ... Reaffirms t he sovereignt)' and territorial mregrit)• o f Iraq, and underscores, in rh:1t conrext, the- temporary namre o f the exercise b)'
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the= Coalition Provistonal Aurhorir>' (Authority) of rhe specific responstbiliric=s, o bligations under inrc=mauonallaw recognizc:d and sc:t forth m resolurion 1483 (1003), which will cc=aS<" when an imern;a.riona lly reco&ni.u
Thus, we ha\'e an endorsement of the principle, with recognition of tbe "temporary nature" of the aberration. The occupation is thus rocognized bur not reuospcctivel)• authoriud. By June 8, 2004, the U.N. Sccurit)' Counci l was welcoming the new arrangements which would lead to "a fu lly sovereign and independent Interim Government of Iraq by 30 June 2004," as part of the "transition to a democratically cle.cted governmC'nt, '' and anticipating "the end of the occupation and tbc assumption of full responsibility and amhorit)•'' by Iraq.'2 1 HowC'ver, the U.N. Security Council underscored that this government must refrain from "taking any actions affecting Iraq's destiny beyond the limited interim period until an clectC'd Transitional GO\•ernment of Iraq assumes office." In oth(:r words, the intC'rim government must simply facilitate thC' C'Xisting systC'm until the election of a go'\o·ernment that could begin to change it, through the constitutional process, of course. But it docs this 'Nithout recognizing the TAL, which without CPA soverC'ignty was now preswnably mutable'. Most naively, the resolution went on to proclaim that "by 30 June 2004, the occupation will end and the Coalition Provisional Authority will CC'ase to exist, and that Iraq will reassert its full sovercignty.'' 11! Instead of merclr the "sovcreignt)• and territorial intC'grity" of Iraq. Resolution 1546 now stressed thC' " indC'pmdence, soverc:ignt}', unity, and territorial integrity of h aq ." This phrase, which reoccurred in Resolutions 1557 (passed August 12, 2004 ), 1619 (passed August 11, 2005), and 1637 (passed NovembC'r 8, 2005), underscores the constitutive dements of the political process. SovC'rC'ignty now could be stressed as '"indcpendcncC''"although it is clearly a deeply compromised and circumscribed independence of action, both in terms of domestic and foreign policy-and territorial integrity could be reinforced by "unit)•." But these we're more than simply superfluous additions. As wdl as sovereignt)' being held C'ff('('tivdy in trust for the Iraqi people' under the occupation, which it now had restored with independence, they marked a very real fiction in the international communitr's acceptan{'e of a deep ly problematic political position. The United Nations established the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). whose mandate has bCC"n extmdcd,•.u because it was facilitating "Iraqi national dialogue:," which was "crucial for Iraq's
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political stability and unity'"; and simultaneously endorsed the '' presence of tht" multinational force in [raq" bt";Cause it was "at the request of the Govcrnrnt"m of Iraq. " •24 Evt"n though the constitution was adopted, and elections have since taken place undt"r its terms, the occupation continues today. In the words of the U.N. Se.curity Council. though, this is "at tht" request of the Government of Iraq," and tht"rcfore, it has reaffim1t"d "the authorization for the multinational force as set fonh in resolution 1546 (2004} and (decided] to extend the mandaoc of the multinational force as set forth in that resolution until 31 0t"ccmber 2006. "ll.l The mandaoc has bcm extcndt"d further several timt"S. What tht" U.N. &ccurity Council fai ls to address, howe\·er, is that the continual prest"nce of U.S. d{"Cply compromist"S the indepcndmct" of Iraq and that de facto soverdgnty continues to rest with the military. Until the Iraqi govt"rnmmt is able to back up its demands with its own monopoly of legitimate violt"nce, it "exercises sovereignty only in a Vt"f}' limitt"d way. "' •U After the constimtion was fina lly approved, copies Wt"rt" disrributt"d and the rcft"rcndum campaign began. The question was simplt": "Do you appro.,·e of the Draft Constitution of Iraq?" Onl}' those present in Iraq could vote: no out-of-country voting was allowed. Political citizenship was thus effectively tit"d to geographical pf{"Senct". Many of the vott"rs had not seen a copy of the rderendurn, which was being negotiated until at kast October 12-thr{"C da}'S bdore the election . ln late Septembt"r, some had believed that rejection of the constitution was inevitable, but voting on October 15 dcli\•ered an over<1 ll 78 percent in favor and 21 percent against in Iraq as a whole. There Wt"re some instances of violt"nct", but voting took place largely as plannro. Turnom was more than 60 percent of tht" 15.5 million voters. 11' Endorsements in some provinces were very high, including 96 percent in Basra in the south and 99 percent in the three Kmdish-dominatcd provinces of Dahuk, lrbil, and S}rlaimaniya in the north. More mixro arms such as Raghdad (77.7 percent) and Kj rkuk (62.9 percent} showt"d smaller minoritb. But the situation was entirely rcvcrst"d in the two Sunni-dominatt"d provinces, which voted overwhelmingly against: Salahaddin (8 1.7 percent) and Anbar (96.9 pcroent). These provinces indude the towns of Falluja, Ramadi, and Tikrit. [n Nineveh, which includ{"S a mix of Kurds and Christians, 55 percent voted against, but this was too small a loss to the third no-voting prO\rincc: needed to reje;Ct the constinltion. In Diyala, there was also a strong "no'' vote, but ht"re, it did not t"vcn achievt" a simple majority, with 49 pt"rct"nt against. lbe U.N. approval of tht" resu lt has largely displaced concerns of widespread fraud, but questions abound about the proct"Ss, and the
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starldr geographically pola rizcd support shows the very real divisions in the country. The referendum on the constitution was predictably trumpcrcd as the return of the Sunnis to the politica l process, after their having boycotted the January 2005 dcctions. Condolcczza Rice, who stated that the result was an endorsement before the results were actually known, suggested that "one way or another, the Iraqis will be in a position to move forward. " In For Khalilzad, "this constitution could be a national compact, bringing Sunnis in, isolating extremists, Baathists, and hard-liners, and setting thc stage O\'er rime for dcfc.ating the opponents. But the return of thc Sunnis was double-edged in two ways: thq• largcl)' votcd only to vote "no," and large dements of rhc " insurgency" co ntinued to pair the bomb and bullet with the ballot (and do so C\'Cn today}. For them, these tv.•o tactics can work in parallel: rcsistance through the political process as well as through violcnce. Oncc again, the headline figures mask divisions within the communities, with the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party initiaJly offering a cautious welcome to the document on the condition that disputed points were resolved by the cnd of August} "' B)' the middle of October, just as voting v.ras a bout to begin, the party endorscd tl1e constitution, partly because of the last-minute inserted clause that allows "articles to be rc-examincd b)' a ncw go•·ernmcnt if the National Assembly dcsircs."' ·11 Nor arc these intern.1 l tensions simply within Sunni communities. Within the Shi'as, Abdui-Az.iz ai-Hakim, who has strong tics to Iran, has called for greater autonomy for the south, with the support of Ayatollah al-Sistani. Otller key figures, including Moktada al-Sadr and Ayatollah Muhammed Yacoubi, think this goes against central Islamic rulc, 132 leading to common cause with some dements of the Sunni population. m And disagreements arc not merely the democratic disputes that Bush and have labclcd them, as Bush claimed: Some obsem:·rs quesTion t he durability o f democrncy in Iraq. They undere-snmate the power and appeal of freedom. \Ve',,e heard it SUI]',gested that Iraq's democracy must be on sha ky ,g round because Iraqis arc: ..uguml]', with J:"ach other. But rhar's me essence of democracy'! making your case, debanng with rhosc: who you disagree- who disagree, building consensus by persuasion, and answering ro the will of the people .... lr is. rrue th:u the seeds o f freedom have only recenrl y been planted in Iraq- bur democrac)', when 1r grows, is n 01 a fragile flower; it is a heahhy, sturd>•
Yet wha t Bush failed to realize, or to acOC"pt., is that the d isputcs arc not merely those that take place within any democratic polity; they go to the
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root of rhC' very constitution of that polity itself. This is constimtion nor as a document o r a process of making, but constitution as composition, rhc very makeup of land and people. One of the key concerns shouJd be that clements both sec themscl\•es as having more in common with neighboring states and communities than with other Iraqi populations, and perceive that of those others as well. Indeed, for many Sunnis, the Shi'as arc " Islamic fanatics in league with Iran," and the Kurds "traitors working with the Americans." 111 What is labeled " insurgency" has been made possible through the erearion of a "faile-d" state in place of a "rogue" one, and the United Statts has rhercforc ere-a re-d the very rh ing that ir claimed threatened stabiliry in the firsr place. The one group in Iraq that most \cvanrs the existing territorial settlement to be preserved consists of those most hostiJe to the political process, and the United States is in part trying to protect that settlement for them in the face of rheir opposition. It is likely rhat a new balance of power needs to emerge in Iraq before it can begin to stabilize. The ongoing debates about the prcsenc.c of the troops and timetables for withdrawal hinge on this question: whether the invasion precipitated a division that the oc,cupation postpones. As British journalist Simon Jenkins put it in 2005: Neocon5erv:uivcs might fantasise O\'er Iraq a democr.u1c Garden of a land ro stablliry :md prospemy. Harder noses were comem ro dump t he place m Ah mad Chalabi'slap and let ir go to hell. H.J.d that I suspect there wou ld ha\·e been :.1 bloody of scores bur by now a tnpartrre republic hauling rtsclf back to peace and reconstrucrion. Iraq is., after all, one of lhe richesr narions on eartb.'J£
Other writers suggested that the situation was likely to gcr worse if premature withdrawal takes place, following Colin Powell's prewar warning to Bush that if "you break it, you own it'' Getting rid of Sa.ddam created a duty to resoh·c the problems that his overthrow produced. Yet the internal tensions bcrwccn Shi'as and Sunnis in Iraq cannot be confined to thar counrry--othcr regional powers ha•·c a srakC' in the outcome of the conflict. In the north, fighting has a lready spi lled over the border with Turkc)', with incursions &om both sides. Those who sec a mor<1l case for the oc.cupation and re<:onstruction, however, suggest that "elections must be undc:rstood as the midpoint of the narion-building undertaking. not the end of the nation-buildc.-r's obligations toward the country in question, ••n- and sce the potential fo r much longer-scale assistance. Indeed, as Carroll wrote when it was first dda)•cd,
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the new constitution "will not scule tbc question of what is Iraq. '" 1J ' It may well be that by refusing to even consider that question, the United States has hastened the territorial and political decomposition of Iraq, rather than reconstituting it and securing its territorial integrity. Iraq is potentially on tbe brink of an even more destructive phase. The irony is that tbe intervention has led to the creation of a new failed state, with indfe-etive territorial control. The humanitarian catastrophe is so ovcnvhclming that were there not already U.S. and British troops there, there would no doubt be calls for assistance. m \Vith the exception of areas protected by no-fly zones, Iraq's territorial integrity was intact before the im·asion, both in terms of the preservation of its borders and its abilit)' to exercise power within them. This could, of course, allow ir to exercise its power in wars that would contra\•ene human rights. After the invasion, Iraq's borders arc nominally still intact, although the ability of the government (or indeed the occupying forces) to exercise a monopoly of physical violence within those is profoundly compromised. [n addition, borders with Iran and Syria arc porous in a way they never were before, and the instability with Turkey continues. Despite the initial notion of a bipartisan agreement with Democratic leaders in Congress. Bush largely ignored the recommendations of tbe Iraq Study Group, clinging to a conditional phrasing suggesting that it "could, however. support a short-term redeployment o r surgc." 140 Tbis "surgc'"-a short-term deployment of troops, mainly into Baghdad. to tr}' to address security issues and reduce sc.ctarian killings-has been widcl}' trumpeted as a success that brought stability to Iraq, thus cre<1ting the notion that this war is winnable. \Vhile there is. undoubtedly less violence in Baghdad, this is in part because the city has been divided a long largcl}' religious lines, with previous!}' mixed neighborhoods undergoing a process of transition towards homogeneity. Checkpoints and barriers have made contact between opposing groups rarer and redm:cd opportunities fo r sectarian violence. Many ha..·e left the country. Equally, part of the reduction in violence has been in anticipation of an eventual U.S. withdrawal and an attempt to begin position ing for the aftermath. This aftermath is likdy to result in isolated and divided provinces. Thus. within tbe existing territorial frame, sectarian division is increasingly being fixed. 141 In earl}' 2007, at the moment the surge was beginning. Bush claimed that "'succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrit}' and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges."' This is aimed at Iran and Syria and their involvement in the region, but the speech swiftly moved to the kind of Iraq he envisaged within those boundaries: "A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights
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terrorists instead of harboring them-and it will hdp bring a furure of peace and scntrity for our children and grandchildren .'' 1u The lraq Study Group report equally continues the process of denial. The first explicit policy proposed in the report is that "the goals of the diplomatic offensive as it rdates to regional players should be to: i. Support the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq. " 143 In 2005, Bush had described victory in Iraq as dmdold: having a new ally in the "war on terror"; building an Iraqi military that could defend Iraq's territor)•; and creating a secur ity force able to "prevent safe haven for terrorists. " 144 The United States thus continually repeats its attempt of 2003: cha llenge territorial sovereignty, but refuse to countenance the rdated question of spatial c:x"tent. Iraq must remain togclher, bur its political actors must act in appropriatc, U.S .-approved, ways. Its territorial extent is fixed, but its sovereignty within remains contingent for three reasons: regional stability (including weapons of mass destruction). its focus as a base for terrorism, and rhc material conditions of its people. The la tter is the basis of "humanitarian inten•ention," bur the first two arc the kq· intcrlinke<J a ims of the ""global war on terror."
CHAPTER F IVE
Territorial Integrity and Contingent Sovereignty
This final chapter provides a widCT angle on the issues raised in this book, suggesting that arguments about the conringenqr of territorial sovereignty have a much longer histor}' than events since 2001. While these claims have been made by neoconsen•atives concerning Iraq and other states targeted in the "war on terror," the)' share a logic with earlier calls for "humanitarian intervention" that similarl)r limited the territorial sovereignty of states. Yet many states have long had their sovereignt}' compromised, and the United States is no stranger to making claims for the contingency of sovereignty, undertaking many interventions within both the Cold War and the "war on drugs" in Central America in the 19 80s and 1990s. • This chapter see-ks to show both thC"s.c: continuirics and the distincri\·eness of the contemporar}' sintarion. It first providcs a background discussion of international law on the issues of uti pos.sidetis and territorial integrity, and then it examincs the topic of humanitarian inten•ention and current discussions around reform of the United Nations. In doing so, it considers various historical and contemporary examples, paying particular attention to the case of Kosovo. The Integrity of a State
The 1933 J\·t onrevideo Convention noted that: Tht:" state: as J. pc:rson of mrernanonal low should
the: follow-
ing qualifkarions: (a) a po:-rmonc:nr popubrion;
a dc:fined r;erritor)'; (c) gov;ernmt:'nt; and (d) capacity ro c:nrer into rdnions w id1 orher sures. 2
The second of these qualifications i!; at stake here. The definition of a state's territory is a Clentral aspect of its sovereign power because it gives
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the very of that Although we might wdl the actual validity of these claims, the expectation is that within its territory, and its provide limits to tha t sovC'reignty. a state is term of "territorial 'lllcsc two aspects arc fo und in the integrity," which can be described as the spatia l of SO't'ereignty.3 By a of integrity" this chaphistory of ter seeks to accomplish two things: to in century, a nd to show how an interrogation of this term allov.rs a situation of the ">var on terror" in a much context. U.N. Charter. In "Territorial integrity'' is a term that is mshrined in Chapter 1: Purposes and Principles, Article 2, Paragraph 4, it decla res: AJJ Jt.·lcmlx=rs shall refrain in their mtcrmttlonal rd:nions from t he rhrca1 or usc of forc·c against 1hc: termorial intc:griry or pollric::tl indc:pc:ndc:ncc of ::tny stJrc, or in ::tny other ma nner inconsistcm with 1hc Purposes of rhc: Unttcd 1'\arions .4
Taken with Article 2, Paragrnph 7, which U.N. in domestic jurisdiction of an}' which arc essenriaiJy within state," a nd Article 2, Paragraph 1, which notes that "the Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Jvlcmbcrs," this a clear orientation of international law a round ke)' principle's: equalit}' of all states, competence for of existing boundaries. This tic jurisdiction, and territorial is, in a sense, the necessary fiction inherent in the concept of the Nations: that states arc in control of. and sovereignty over:, their entire territory. 'lllis ddinition and this reinforcement is not to foundU.N. resolutions, ing charter, it also c<1n be found in man}' both in terms of specific disputes in the Council and in broader statements of purpose, as the 1970 General " Declaralaw Concerning Friendly Relations tion on Principles of and Co-opcrntion among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United l'ations. " 5 This declaration continuaiJy three interrelated themes of territorial integr ity, noninterference in domestic jurisdiction, and of aiJ states. [t simila rly that this is not s imply pertaining to the vioJation of international boundaries but also " international lines of demarcation, such as armistice lines, established by or pursuant to an international agreement to which it is a party or which it is otherwise bound to respect." Similarly, it notes that " no territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or of s hall be
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recognized as legaL" In rimes, the most consistenr \'iolation of this principlc has bcc:n Israel's continued occupation of the territories seized in thc 1967 war, in particular the of East jerusalem and thc Golan Heights and thc construction of Israeli settlements in AJab land. U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, explicit!)' emphasizes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of tcrritory by war."" The historical roots of the term "rerriwrial imegrit)•'' go back what further. The of Nations Covenant- (Article 10} made stmilar claims to the U.N. Charter; while thc 1928 Kellogg-Briand which outlawed war as a mcans of international diplomacy, and the 19 32 Stimson doctrine, wherc the United States warned Japan and China that territorial through would not be rccogntzed, all helped to solidify the notion of tcrritorial integrity as an idea l, even if it is really onl}' since the end of World War ll that the term has had any forcc.' Thc assertion of territorial intcgrity in the Lcague of Nations Covcnant may bc somewhat surprising, as the Covenant and the fourtee n Points of Woodrow \lC'ilson that infom1cJ thc wider setdemenr arc often looked ar as promoting the idea of self-determination. As a central principle in thc breakup of cmpires, self-dctem1ination might seem to be thc dtrcct opposite of thc preservation of existing territorial seulemcnts. Wilson oertainl}' supportcd self-determination, bur he stressed the importancc of territorial equally. For cxample, in 1916, hc listed the fundamental things that "we" bdic\'e in. The tint was "evcry people ha\'e a right to choose the sovercignt)' under which they shall live," but he immediate!}' fo llowed this with a guarantee of tcrritorial integrity for all states. 11l Equally, the Fourtecn Points called for the "autonomous development" of the nonTurkish portions of the Ottoman Empi re (point 12), and for "the peoples of Austria-Hungary" (point 10). but the Fourtcc:nth Point suggested that "a gcncral association of nations must be formed under !;pccific covenants fo r the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of po litic<JI independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.'' Simi larly, point 13, concerning Poland, brought together "the territories inha bited br indisputably Polish populations,'' but following this is a statement stressing thciJ "political and economic indepcndem:e and territoria l integrity., 11 Even whcn the national self-determination cause was proposed, therefo re, territorial integrity would ultimately prevail. '! Publications of the Hungarian Tcrritorial Integrit}' League made a particular plea against the dismemberment of that country, using the language of Wilson and the Lcaguc of Nations Charter against the peace treaties.U Indeed, as is often pointed out, self-determination was much more concerned with wider gcopolitical interests than those of the people themseh•es. '4
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It is worth that until LC".aguc of Nations set out these norms, a state that had won a war could annex territory either through occupation or treaty. 11 Tho ugh territorial changes still took place after World War I, they were lirnited by two ma in issues: the Russian Revolution and Woodrow \X'ilso n's Naturally, if bOlmdaries a rc traced bac k lo ng arc a lways based on territorial acquisition of some kind, and changes a rc common through hisrory. Thus, the acquisition of title by conquest is a nccessar}' step for the later rein fo rcing of territorial integrity.•" there was debate about the scope of Article 10 in the of Nation's this was takrn to apply to statrs that wrrr victorious but had not been aggressor.'g This necessarily aggressor nations, who now had less to in launching wars of In this contrxt, the puniti\•e territorial at the end of World War II, with the redrawing of Germany's borders a nd the territorial changes that benefited the Sovkt Union a nd Poland itsdf was losing land to the U.S.S.R.) can be understood only by it as fall ing betwccn the prohibitions of the of Nations a nd those of the creation of Israel in Nations. The partition of lndia and Pakistan, and mandate Palestine, were two of the carlirst major of the Nations. Article lA applies only to the situation following its adoption!' tha t date though, as was noted in the case of Iraq, even aggressor countr ies have not been geograph ically punished by loss of their own ritory. The tacit of Israel's gains in the 1948 war are thus an anomal)' in thesc ttrms, .as well as The assertion of integrity in the U.N. Cha rter, has two interlinked and usually self-reinforcing On the one hand, it protr.cts existing boundaries, with the a im of preventing nation-states from territorial acquisition or from promoting secessionism or changes in other states. O n the other hand, respecting equa l sovereignty, it protects from interference in interna l .affairs: the idea of domestic We could call these two preservation and territorial sovereignty. meanings have foundbeen widdy recognized. in constitutions of indh•idua l states; ing of international organizations such as the Arab League (1 945) a nd the Organization of Arab States (1948); the Organization of African Unity (1963);!0 the charter ofthe African Union (2000); and the Helsinki Final Act 0975). and now an uneaS)' balTrea ty Establishing a Constitution for supranatio nal space and territoria l integrity of its members.!• NATO and the European Union (EU) have
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that all access ion states have border agreements with their neighbors and that all candidate countries should submit outstanding disputes to the International Court of Justice (JCJ).U Territorial integrity is stressed fur ther in the 1978 Vienna Com•ention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties, which in Article 11 notes that "'a succession of States docs not as such affect: (a) a boundary established by a treaty; or (b) obligations and rights establishe<J by a treaty and rdaring to the regime of a boundary."ll Territorial integrit}' has long been asserted as a stabilizing factor, where it a llowed the de.colonization of a region w ith a degree of norma lcy remaining. In other words. trading upon the idea of tlti possidetis (what you have you will continue to possess), stares wo uld inherit the boundaries of colonics or internal jurisdictions on independence. The statlls quo, for all its flaws, is preferred over the disorderliness that would likely result from a wholesale of boundaries. The Organization of African Unity made this explicit in the Cairo declaration. when they stated that "the borconstitute a tang iders of African States, on the da}' of their ble reality. '"U Various reasons can be given for this stance, including weak elites who wanted to minimize threats to their rule, the desire to avoid chaos in recognition of the mosaic of racial and national disrribution, and stares' intent (at least initiaiJy) to act as the motor of pan-African unity.11 The notion of uti possidetis. deriving from Roman Jaw, was pionccre<J in South America following Spanish decolonization.16 In addition to its usc in Africa, it has conditioned the breakup of other empires. For example, it is behind the differing statuses of the constituent pam of the former Soviet Union. Satellite states or republics gained independence along existing lines; bur regions such as Chcchnya or South Ossetia remained as part of the Russian Federation or the: successor states to the Soviet republics/,. Sdf-determination therefore not only tightly circumscribed in international law, but in a lmost all cases. territorial integrit}• can be asserted m·er and above it. Indeed, self-determination not only a llows colonial independence, but can a lso be used as a justification for an existing state's continued territorial integrity, where people withi n existing boundaries assert their wish to remain together or separate. Such difficulties of who is within a disputed region and who therefore is allowed to vote on its future bedevil places such as Northern Ireland, Western Sahara. and Gi braltar. And yet indigenous peoples have claimed: Th.:- principle of intq;rrry nas no spro:.1l st::ttus or significance principles.- such :15 dernoc:Jbove :.1 nost of other mcy, rule of law, rc:spccr for hurn:.1n rights., :.1 nd
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justtc('-which all appl)' in comc:xr of sdt-dc:terminarion. There is no hierarch)' that would p lace: principle of rc:rrimrialmrc:grit)' idc:nriflc:d for human nglus or orhc:r mrc:mano1u.llaw in imc:rn:.uional instrummu.2M
Thi!> claim that there i!> no hierarchy docs not seem to lx- the Gl!>e, asterritorial integrity continuall}' out in struggles with other principles of international law. In part, this is bccaUS(' of its fundamental importance to any commonl}' concdvcd notion of statehood and its role in the international system. This is the ncccssar)' myth of territorial integrity and absolute sovereignty. A recent example would lx- the Council for Europe's negotiations around the rights of minorities, such as the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Mj noritics, fommlatcd in Strnsbonrg in 199 The notion of territorial integrity is stressed three times in the Framework, notably in Article 21: "Noth ing in the present framework Convention shall be interpreted as implying any right to engage in any activity or perform any act contrary to the fundamental prin<:iples of international law and in particular of the sovereign equality, territorial integrity, and political independence of States.'' As P notes, this meant that "'minority rights continued to be hdd in check by the traditional principles of international relations-state sovereignty. territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, and the like. '" 30 This principle was similarly stressed immediately after the Berlin Wall came down in the "Charter of Paris for a New Europe," and br the Conference for Security andl Cooperation in Europe in Copenhagen rlier that same ycar.l• In addition, the invocation of this idea has been used as a defense b}' Lndigenous peoples such as the Western Shoshone Nation in North America against !>ettlement, nuclear testing, and mineral exploration of their hi!>toric land. Despite the widespread usage of the term, tbe explicit literarure on territorial Lntcgrity is limited, with exceptions mainly coming from international law. Perhaps part of the reason is the vagueness of the term. For Akwccnda, it "denotes non-annexation, invio lability of boundaries, and respect of sovereignty," altbough "no general and exact definition" is possiblc;Jl while: for Vincent, "territorial integrity- preserved so long as none: of the territory of the state is taken from it-is not the same: thing as territorial Lm'iolability-'the right of the state to exercise exclusive jurisdiction within its own territory."' 33 Other than some recent in constructivist international rdations/ 4 political science, political theory, and political geography have be-en largely silent on territorial integof numerous related issuesY And )'et, as Li rity, despite their stares, " if sovereignty concerns the way in which exclusive jurisdiction is exercised over respective territories of an empire or a nation-state, then
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the power of a sovereign state is more than the authority of bureaucratic administration; it hinges on territorial integrity. '' 311 The notion of "integrity"' requires a number of things. On the one hand, it speaks to notions of honor, respect, and pride. An as.sault against the idea of territorial integrity is an attaclc on the integrity of a state, the bod)' of a nation, its national standing. Yet beyond this is the question of the term "integraL" Parts arc integral to the whole. An integer is whole, and fractions, which cause fractures, a rc therefore illegal. To dispute this, to advocate disintegration, is to question the integrity of those that do accept it. If truth and integrit)' come into conflict, integrity must be seen to win out be.cause not even the truth c
Secesslonlst!Terronst
The way that the United Nations provided a framework for decolonihelped to couple sovereignty with zation, especially in Africa and territorial integrity, and the supposed "norm of sovcrcignty-as-territorialintegrit)"' has been reinforced continually What this has meant is that sdf-dctcrmination applies to colonies or what the United Nations calls "'Non-Self-Governing Territories,'' bur not to independent countries, fo r whom territorial integrity O\'erridcs claims people might make. Sdfdetemlination is asserted in Article 1 of the U.N. Charter, but as dscwhcre, it is generally trumped br territorial integrity. The 1970 General Asscmblr Resolution 2625 clarified the position: The rerritory of a colon)' or other Non-Sdf-Go\•emang Territory has, unckr the Charrer, a sr.1.tus scparare and distanct from the rerritory of the state administering it; and such separate and d1srinct sr.arus under the Charter shall ex1sr untd rhe people of rhe colon)' or Non....S.CifGoverning Territory have exercised rheir right of self-determination in accordance with the Charter, and partlcLLiarl)' its purposes and principles. "
There is extensive literature in international law concerning secession. TherC' is broad agrccmC'nt that whitc- international law docs not provide a basis for secession that exceeds rhis determination, it docs nor express!)' prohibit it dthcr. 40 This leaves states in a strong positioll bC"Cause the balance is clearl)' in favor of the status q110, while secessionist movements
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have almost no legal recourse. International law has thc:rcforc: largd)' sc:t itsdf the problem of protecting borders wherever ther arc, rather than recognizing their artificial nature in many places. Sdf-dc:tem1ination, in the narrowly circumscribed sense found in the U.N. Charter, thus applies to colonies alone. to nonsovert'ign tc:rritories rather than Substate groups art' not subjects of intc:rnational law, bur crucially, once: nonsoverc:ign tcrritoric:s ha\'C achievt'd indt'pcndc:nce and sovcreignry, they roo ha\'e tc:rrirorial integrity. This is the dearly implied purpose of the U.N. General Assembly "Declaration of the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples" adopted by the General AsSt'mbly of the United Nations on December 14, 1960 ..u Selfdetermination docs not apply to indepcndmt countries, for whom territorial integrit)' overrides claims that individual peoples might It therefore has not been successfully used on an international basis by indigenous proples within statt's such as Canada or Australia, despite the state- or provincc-based settlements. nor by those peoples whose land has been colonized by a comiguous power such as Russia or China. In such cases, what has more often been granted is Iimitcd "tc:rritoria l a utonotn)'•" rather than independence and full sovereignty. Tc:rritorial autonom)' opc:rates when states dcvoh•c some dc:gree of sdf-governancc: to regions. It is worth noting tllat territorial autonomy is dc:pc:ndcnt on individual state practice: ratllcr than being provided for under international law in more than a limited way, although it is becomjng more widely welcomed as a means of allowing some measure of self-rule within the confines of a state's territorial integrit)'·-l-1 For sdf-determination to fully take effect, colonies need to be St'paratc:d from tbe colonizer by salt watcr.4 s lndc:c:d, between the end of World Wa r II and the Cold War, only B.ang.ladesh successfully seceded, and the self-declared states of Biafra and Katanga had only brief existences without w idespread rocognition. 4 " For Canadian politician Stcphane Dion, " There is a contradiction bc:rween democracy and secession which makes these two notions hard to reconcile," on the basis that dc:mocracy requires us to accc:pt fellow citizens as e.quals and scocssion requires a choice between those .. we accept and those we wish to transform into foreigners. "'·P He adds that "there has never been a well established democracy, which I dcfinc:d as having had a t least ten consecutive years of universal suffrage. rhat has experienced St'<ession. " U Yet it is broader than simply well-established democracies, for as Li states, "the world map of the 1990s dramatically indicates that most of tbe new states formed ha-.,·e been the products of state fragmentation rather than secession. " 19 It is important that internal boundarit's of thes-e fragmented states have been preserved as the
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national boundaries. For Zacher, "-tbis indicates that states regarding the international territorial order. They do not but if they ar c going to occur, do not want successor states fighting over what their boundaries should be. "'JO Even the of East Timor may been in part to prevent a breakup of Indonesia and to prese-rve the economic stability of East Asia. 11 ln addition, this example can be seen as a return to the shon-livcd prc- 1975 s ituation of East Timor as a separate state. Indonesia was allowed to oocupy East Timor for so long in part because of U.S. support in thC' Cold Wa r sparked by fe-ars of ln tha t sense, its can be lookro at as a consolidation of the of integrity than a a nd indud, territorial of was during the and in U.N. Council ll64. Eritrea's fro m Ethiopia can looked a t in a simila r way. T he tional law tends therefore to be one of prot«"ting borders the)' arc, rather than recognizing their artificial nature in many places. Such claims arc co ntinued today in the of the "war on terror." Territorial integrity is increasingly taking on a special status and significance. This is cspc"'iall y the case in the speeches of Tony Bla ir, which make a key formulation the importance and the at H. \V. Bush Library and on April 8, 2002: The struggle 1s for srabiliry, for lhe sccuriE)' wilhin which progress can be made. Of course. wam to pro te<:l th eir rerrirorial inregriT>' bur few inm empire bmldm,g. is especial!>· uue of democracies whose prople \'ote for higher living standards and pumsh menrs who don 'r ddl\'er on them. For 2,000 )'ears Europe fought O\'er tc:rrirory. Today boundanes arc: \' irtually fixed. Governments and prople know th:n any territorial ambinon srabiliry, instability threatens
nus
What is striking is bow st.abiJiry and prosperity arc linked to territorial changes.s.c While the analysis of this book has focused o n the first pa rt of this chain, and to an extent the second, the third should not be neglected. Territorial prcsen •ation and control is part of a much larger concern with stabiliryl now to prospcrit)' a nd sucworking of the globa l market. It would be thing if this to our the grabbing of land from other bm this potcmiall)' prevents and an}' to Russia
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has used exactly the s:amC' argumC'nt, especially with regard to ChC'chnya (although it has made the opposite claim for Russian-dominated regions within its neighbors' Indonesia has also crackC'd down on Acch, Uzbekistan on its people, and China on the Muslim separatists in Xinjiang. ThC' East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) seeks autonomy for this last region, aspiring to the status of the independent sta te proclaimed in 1933 and 1944 before Chinese annC"xarion. Western Turkistan includes lands in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in central Asia. ETIM was labeled a terrorist group b}' U.S. Depot}' Secretary of State Richard Armitage in Beijing on August 26, 200V" Although China had been insisting on the links between ETJJ\•1 and a i-Qacda since September 11,2001, the United States finally accepted these claims around the time that China's support was needed in the United Nations for the action against Iraq. In a similar way, the Russian price for logistical and diplomatic support over Afghanistan had been freedom of action in Chcchnya. China's issues around its own territorial integrity extend beyond Xinjiang, of course, and include Mongols and Tibetans as well as Muslims/- but what we sec here is the usc of the "war on terror" as an excuse to suppress all separatists, and not just violent ones. [n addition. India's insistence on its territorial integrity with respect to Kashmir has led it to prosecute those who publish maps with boundaries other than those it believes arc correct, claiming that "the publication of maps of lndia depicting incorrect boundaries of the countr)' indirectly questions the frontiers and challenges the territorial integrity of the nation. " n Numerous other examples cou ld be given, induding dements in many of the states discussed in chapter 3. A range of regions in various parts of the fo rmer Soviet Union show a range of inconsistent positions on the part of Russia in particular. \While it fears that gi\•ing Chechnya independence would create precedent for Tatars and others within its borders, it supports the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossctia in neighboring Georgia, a tension that came to a head in August 2008 / 9 Western powers, while largely impotent against Russia in this instance, continually stressed Georgia's territorial integrity in the sense of preservation. \'Xfhat signific-ant about the conflict was that Georgia initiated actions to reclaim territorial so\'ereignty over the areas, which, while nominally part of the state, were effectively autonomous. The return to tl1e status quo allte continues their de (ado separation while seeking to maintain their de jure status within Georgian territory. More broadly, the key question is often recognitio()-{)ne that accords a status in international law. Northern Cyprus, for example, has territorial control or effective internal sovereignty, but it lacks the external recognition that would gi\•e it international
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sovereignt)•.60 Similar situations arise: in Somaliland, Trans-Dnicstra, and Nagorno-Karabakh-the sort of places that a BBC Four documentaq• described as "Places that Don't Exist.""' Scoecssion is necessarily a cha.llenge to territorial integrity. For a state to function. it requires effective enforcement of its rule. which, as Buchanan notes, requires "cffe>Cth·c jurisdiction, and this in turn requires a clearl)' bounded territory that is recognized to lx- the domain of an idemified political authority .. . territorial integrity faciJirates the functioning of a legal order. " 6.2. Without territorial integrity, he claims, states arc not onl}' not able to sun•ive, but they arc also unable to d ischarge their responsibilities to thc "most basic morally lcgitimate interests of the indi\·iduals and groups that states arc empowered to serve, their imerest in the prcserva6on of their rights, the security of their persons, and the stability of their expectations." States therefore do not merely have a "morally legitimate interest in maintain ing the principle of territorial integrity," but an "obligatory• intcrcst. ' 'h} Buchanan similarly wants to challenge the absolutist interpretation of territorial integrity, where it is applied to all statcs, and proposes a more circumscribed \'crsion that is applied to legitimate states only. nlis is what he calls "the morally progressive interpretation of the principle of territorial integrity. " 64 Statcs arc illegitimate if they "threaten the lives of significant portions of their populations by a policy of ethnic or religious persecution" or if they deprive "a substantial proportion of the population of basic economic and political rights. " b.l The &econd case is cxemplified by South Africa; the first is shown by the infringement of "Ir aq's territorial integrity in order to cstablish a 'safe zone' in the North fo r Kurds. '" 66 What we have here is the basis for the a rgument for humanitarian intcn·cntion, where a state that docs not discharge its responsibilities to its popu lations can legitimate international intcnrention, a theme discussed in the next section. In the current dimatc, therefore, sceessionist movC'mems (that is, those who want to challenge an)• nOlions of territorial integrit}' in the sense of existing borders) arc increasingly being redefined as terrorists, or, at the ver)' least, as dangers to local, regional, and global stabiJity. The line benvecn secessionist and terrorist is increasingly blurred. Dcspitc their condemnation of many states in thcir prosccmion of independence mo"ements, it is worth noting that almost all the groups on the U.S. Department of State's list of terrorist o rganizations arc self-determination movements. 6- The U.N. General Assembly, in Rcsolution 49/60 from 1994, a lso made this link, stating that "thc Statcs Members of the United Nations solemnly reaffirm their condemnation of a ll acts, methods, and practices
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of terrorism, as criminal and unjustifiable, wberever and by whomever committed, including those which jeopardize the friendly relations among Stares and jX'Oples and thrc
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the President ... -6 Today, the territorial integrity of the: Ukraine is guaranteed by the: United States, in a deal struck when the Ukraine demilitarized nuclear weapons. The 2004 Ukrainian elections were punctuated by calls from various U.S. officials that the territorial integrity of the country should be respected and that even discussing secession was dangerous,- despite the dearly geographically polarized support for the two Viktors .., It is surely not coincidental that Bush's speechwriter back in 1991 was Condoleezza Rice, thell in charge of the Soviet affairs directorate of the National Security Later in 1991, on November 16, the U.S. State Department's "Guidelines on the Recognition of New States in Eastern Europe and the: Sm·iet Union" noted the importance of the "inviolability of a ll fromiers," which was to be: changed only .. by peaceful means and by common agreement. Some commentators ha ..·e noted that the U.S. default position of opposition to se;('essionist movements comes from its own histor)' in the: Civil War,N• to which we can add Thomas Jefferson's aim of a conrinental empire that avoided the fractures of the O ld World. As Paquin argues,u the United States departs from this default position only when the status quo is a greater danger to stability. Such caution continued through the Clinton era,u and was the: policy behind t reatment of Bosnia and Yugoslavia more a point that is returned to below. A Right to Intervene, a Responsibility to Protect
U the trepidation then has parallds to the caution of the United States m·er Iraq's borders and its tacit toleranoc: of Russia in Chechnya and the actions of China, then the other side of the rhe-toric of the "wa r on terror" breaks with longstanding precedent. In this, it relates to more recent calls for a right to intervene, and a responsibility to protect. As was suggested, the other meaning of the term " territorial integrity" is that what goes on within the boundaries of the: state is its own business and that inte-rnational intervention is not permissible. This is the idea of internal competence. Internal competence is itself, of course, a limitation of an idea of absolute sovereignty because it acknowledges the idea of international competence or sovercignty.sr One of the kq• statements on this is the 1965 U.N. General Assembly Declaration on "Inadmissibility of Interference in Internal Affairs of States and on Protection of lndependencc: and Sovereignty. "'16 As Vincent puts it, "So long as international society is primaril)' composed of sovereign states, observance of a general rule of non-intervention can be regarded as a minimum cond ition for their orderly coexistence. " If'
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This is coming under increased pressure. Events in the l 990s, including in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Somalia, Jed to calls for a grc.atcr role for the internationa l communit)', as wdl as to such reports as "Prc"•'cnring Deadly Conflict" and "The Responsibility to Protect. " 53 One of the earliest articulations was in a report on Africa in the wake of the Somalia and Rwa nda debaKosovo was, in a sense, the test c.ase. Although the "sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia"' was stressed in rhc Petersburg principles of the G8 of May 6, 1999, in U.N. Socurity Council Rcsolurion 1244,911 and the Rambouillet intervention in Yugoslavia, namely military action br NATO, was justified on humanitarian The " ritual affirmation of sovereignty and territorial integrity in 1244 >vas thus part of the traditional rhcmric of the United Nations, but this action dearly challenged those ideals. Indeed, the violation of its territorial intcgrit}' was one of the key points of the Yugoslavian goverfUllent's protest to the United Nations following the NATO action.114 Resolution 1.244 did not justify action in Kosovo, which was taken without Security Council support, but as former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook points o ut, intervention was backed by NATO, the European Union, a nd all of Serbia's neighbors, t hroe tests that the 2003 invasion of Iraq did not While Cook said this after the event, at the time he was Jess sure, with international lawyers wa rning that the war could be illegal. U.S. Secretary of State l\.'[adclcinc Albright notes in her memoirs, "I told him he should get himself new Iaw}•crs. If a U.N. resolution passed, we would have set a precedent that NATO required Securit}' Council authorizatio n before it could act. Th is would give Russia, not to mention China, a veto m•er NATO. Such concerns resurfaced during the Iraq war:. While Resolution 1244 saw Kosovo's funtre as ..substantia l autonomy within the Federal Republic of it did not quite, pace Fink Yoshira,.- expressly rule out independence for Kosovo because this wa:s the basis under "interim administration." Albright reca lls that "we agreed among ourselves that Kosovo would have to become an international protectorate aher the war, with Yugos lav sm•crcignt}' retained in name only. "n As \'(Tilliarns suggests, the actua l substance of 1244 "sigl1ificantly, and likely irreversibl)', altered sovereign control over Kosovo. Indeed, problcn1s concerning a final scttlement-oJ:, in the words of Ahtisaari's 100 - for the disputed plan, ·' independence with international territory stalled on the dua l issues of recogl1itiol1 a nd precedent. A unilateral declaration of independence, while m:ognized by ma ny states, did not resolve the issue. Claims that Koso\'O is a su; gePieris case that demanded recognition but docs not create precedent arc politically expedient but legally dubiotts.' 0 ' They arc in the same category as denials that the initial
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for intc:rvcnrions without U.N. mandate-a claim made by former French prime: minister Dominique de Villc:pin, among For Ignaricff. the intervention did establish principle that statc:s can lose sovereignty over a portion of their tc:rritor}' if thc:y so opprc:ss the majority population there that they rise in and successfully intcmationa l support for their rc bdlion."' ' (11 But cautions that this is not a universal bwluse it would not appl)' in Chochnya or East Turkistan. It docs nor work as a principle as much as a product of great-power politics. For the American ncoconsen•ativc: Char les Krauthammrr, these: intrrvrntions a nd the U.S. opc:ration in Ha iti had supporr from U.S. Jibrra l and world opinio n-as o pposed to their reaction to the Iraq war- for a simple reason: Hai1i, Bosni:., and Kosovo were hum:.nitarian \'C'ntufC's-fights for right and good, det'Oid of ,-aw 11ational intC'resJ. And only humanim ria n imer\·enriomsm-
Much has been writtm a bout these huma nitarian interventio ns, both in terms of the of aid, military and other state: or Lntc:-rnational organization rc:sourccs a nd in relation to intrmationallaw.•os States, viously held to sovereign for interna l matters. arc incrcasing.l)' held to have too, a nd fai lure ro uphold them can externa l AJgumrnts have bc:rn made on the grounds of international community's "responsibility to protect.'' adopted in part in the: 2005 World Summit. Gardner notes that the usc of the term "right to protect" instead of " humanitarian intervention" is pa rt of an "dfon to downplay the: military connotations of the term "'intc:nrcntion.'' 106 [n immediate post-Cold War world, howcvrr, intervention did not carry obvious idc:ologkaJ connotations-or at least thc:rr was no great-power balance to limit such interventions. It is worth to former Prime Minis ter Blair here. ln its 1997 doction manifc:sro. the: heading " Human Rights,'' labour parry declared that it wanted "Britain to be respc:cted Ln the world fo r the integrity with which it conducts its foreign relatio ns," with the "promotion of human rights" and thc "creation of a permanent international criminal court"' to priorities. '0" Ra thc:r than thc later shorthand of "cthical foreign policy," Foreign Secrc:tar}' Cook's early noted
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an "ethical comem,'" suggesting that foreign policy should have ""an ethic.al dimension and must support the dema nds of other people for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves . ••toR T he statement, as Kampfner shows, "appears to bear out the theory that ethics and human rights were intended only as a cog, and not a particularly prominent one, in the \vhed ." 10» Although Bla ir initially showed some caution, later on he did nor wa nt the ethical dimens ion to be confined to the amlS trade, but rather to include em•ironmental issues, crime. a nd-tellingly- "the right to secure frontiers." 110 For Blair, Kosovo \Vas the key. T he former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, Wesley Clark, has note<J how important Bla ir's election was in changing strategic prioriril:s, 111 with the pressure fo r ground troops parricularl}' coming from him. I l l Blair expresse<J the inherent tension, and the territoria l aspect, of nonintervention in a famous speech in Chicago on April 22, 1999, while the wa r was ongoing. Here, he s uggested that we should not " jettison too readily'" the principle of nonintervention, as "one state should not feel it has the right to change the political S)'Stem of another or fomen t subversion or seize pieces of territory to which it feels it should have some c!a im." But this did not mean that it should not be "qua lified in important resp« ts. •· These qualifications were genocide, oppression leading to refugees, and minority rule.t 1 Blair cla imed tha t Kosovo was unusual b«ause it was "a just war, based not o n an}' territorial ambitions but on values." 114 Its significance was certain-it was NATO's first war a nd an explicit recognition of the rejection of the idea of noninterference within a sovereign state. And Blair is correct in a sense, because the war was not fought to gain territor)'--at least, not for the NATO powers, leaving aside debates a bout the TransBalkan pipeline from the Caspian basin. But the relation is more: complicated than this. Blair's rcferenoc to "the right to secure frontiers" is essential: this war was inherently about territoria l integrity. On the one hand, Blair sought to cha llenge the notion of internal competence, bur at the same rime, he insisted o n the territorial integrity (i.e., preservation) of the "secure frontiers·· of Yugoslavia in several international forums, including the G8, a t Rambouillet and in the- U.N. Security Council. For Lord Robertson, formerly Secretary of State for Defence: under Bla ir and then NATO secrerar)' general. the Chicago spe«h did for foreign politics what reform of Clause IV did domesticallr: "It was one: of those occasions where Tony Blair sc:t out a bold line which changed the whole geography." 1 u J ust over a year later, in Ti.ibingen on June 30, 2000, Blair elabora ted the '' doctrine of international community , .. a community based on
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the equal worth of all, on the foundation of murual r ights and mmua l responsibilities. " 11" The context at that time was intervention in Sierra Leone. In paraUd ro the intervention, the Security Council, in Resolutions 1260, l270, and 1562, among others, continually r>tresscd the "sovereignty, political indcpcnden<'e, and territorial integrity of Sierra Leone."••'" Thus, advocates of humanitaria n intervention recognize that longstanding ideals of territo rial integrity need rethinking, explicitly on thC' question of the C"xdusive internal SO\'ereignty of recognized states. Former U.K. secretary general Kofi Anna n provided another important example. In The Economist in 1999, he argued: Stall' SO\'l'rl'ignty, in its most b3sic Sl'nSt", is bt"ing rrod]nt"d-nor ll'mt by thl' forct"s of globalisarion 3nd mtl'rnauon31 co-opl'mrion. Sta tt"s art' now widdy undt"rstood to bt" instrumt"nr:s :u the ser.,icl' of rhl'ir peoples, and not VK<= Vt"rsa. At rhl' S3ml' time indiv1du3l sm•c=retgnr)·-by whjch I mc:a n the rundamc:nt:J l frc:edom o f e3ch indiv•du3l, enshrined in rhc: charrer of the U.N. o nd subsc:quenr intunariona l trearics--has bt"l'n c=nhanced by a rc=newt"d and sprc=ading consc1ousnl'SS of individua l righrs. When we rt"ad the ch:trrc=r rod3y, Wl' 3rt' mort' than l'\•c=r conscious rhar irs aim is ro prorc=cr individual human bt"ings, not m prorc=ct those= who abust"
Annan went on to discuss the tension between e\'cnts in Rwanda and Kosovo. In the first, genocide was met with inaction, but he felt that the second " raised equally imponant questions about the consequences of acrion without international consensus and dear legal aUlhoriry": lr has casr in srark rdid the= dikmmo of so....rollro inrc=r;l'ntion." On the= o ne= ha nd, is it lc=gjtimarc= for 3 rl'giono l orgamsatio n ro usc= iorct" without o U.N. mandate? On thl' o ther. is ir permtssible ro lc=r gross J.nd S)'Stl'maric \oiolonons oi human righrs. with gn\'C hum3ntr.man consC'q uc=nces., cominuc= unchNkcd? The= ina biliry of rhc= inrc=rnational communit)' to rl'COilcik these rwo compelling inrc=resrs in thl' case: of can bl' lltcwed o nly 3S a
Altho ugh on one b·cl this question is poorlr posed, it is undoubted!)' seen even more dearl)' as valid today. Annan worried about the way states and groups of states-in this case. NATO-would act outside the sanction of the United Nations, a nd whether this would undermine .. the imperfect, yet resilient, security system created a fter the second world war. and of scning dangerous precedents for future interventions without a clear criterion to decide who 1night invoke these precedents and in what circumstances?"
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Trying to work througb these issues led Annan to pr opose four conditio ns: Intervention need not be force, :md can exrend '' to to humanit:uin n asststance, to rehabtlimtion and reconstru crion,,. but it is impo rtanr thts is done more evrnly, with a commitment m humanitarin n act10n; 2.. Nonns o f so\'ereignry are o problem, bm so too are notional interests. For many challen§cs collective interest is the nati onal interest'\ 3. T he Sc:cunry Council m llsr to rh e challenge... Unjty nnd inoctton (Rwanda I and dtvision w ith regional actton (Kosovol should no t be the chotces. both cases, the U.N. should have been able to find common ground in upholdmr, t he principles of the c ha rter, a nd ncung in defence o f o ur common humamry"; 4. mremottonal commitment ro pence musr be i ust as strong as w.:u the commtrmem to war," and thjs too m ust be done consistentJy. 1!ll 1.
These then, arc tbc ker questions and commJtmcnts that condition "this developing international norm in favor of intcn•cntion to protect civilians from wholesale slaughter.'' Fo r Annan, " national sm·ereignty was never meant to be a shic.ld behind which massacres arc carried out with impunit)•,"tlt but this must be through the existing structures of the United Nations a nd international law, rather than something that required wholesale rdorm or abandonment of core principks. [n the debates preceding rhe war in lraq, Annan claimed that he stood before tbe United Nations "as a multilateraJist-by precedent, by prLnciplc, by Cbarter and by dut)•," 111 and stated that: Any Srare, tf anacked, reta ins the innerenr righr o f self-ddencc= under
An•cle 51 o f t he Charter. Bur beyond rhar, wnen Smres dec ide ro use force ro deaJ w ith broader rhrcars to inrernnrional peace and security, mere is no subS£iture for rhe umque leginmaq• providc=d by the U nircd :-.l'arions. 1l..l
Annan's is a good example of the humanitarian arguments in fa\'Or of limitations to state sovereignty, something that has found its way into recent reports discussing tbe war the United Nations can evolve in the face of nc:w threats, a nd in part adopted at the 2.005 Wor ld Summit. 124 In the initial reports, the idea of "sovereignty as responsibility" is advan<"ed, where states have duties to uphold and pay penalties for failure. Signing up for the U.N . Cbartcr is an " international obligation voluntarily accepted by member states"' that allows tbem to lx welcomed as "a responsible mcmbC'r of the communit)• of nations" but also requires them to accept " the respons ibilities
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of flowing fmm that signatur'C.'" Thcy argue that " there no transfer or dilution of state sovereignty. But there is a necessary rccha racterization im·olved: from sovercignt)r as control ro sovereignty as rcsponsibilitr in both internal functions and external duties." I l l Zaum has thus argued that the understanding of sovereignty as control of territory has bct-n replaced by the ''liberal notion of sovncignty as responsibility.''' 2" The claim is that this has a "thre.cfold signific
The claim is that the United Nations. broadl}' in its existing form , is appropriate for this involvement, that Article 51 "nreds. neither extension nor restriction of its long-understood scope, and that Chaptrr VII fu lly empowers the Securit)• Council to dc
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concerned with peacekeeping- in Chad/Libya, the Dominican Republic, India/Pakistan, West Guinea, Cyprus, and the Mjddlc East-under Chapter VI Mandarr:s rather than Chapter Vll 1\·i andates, which authorize fore;('. Since the late 1980s, this has changed, with varying degrees of Chapter VU mandates authorized in Sierra Leone, Somalia, Haiti, East Timor, the former Yugoslavia, and Georgia (Abkhazia), as well as a prolifera tion of Chapter VI mandatcs. n• Blair was quite explicit in suggesting that U.N, la w was inadequate and that it should lx- dc\•clopcd to avoid situations where "a regime can S)'Stcma tically brutalisc and oppress its people and there is nothing anyone can do, when dia logue, diplomacy, and even sanctions fail , unless it comes within the definition of a human itarian catastrophe.'' 1n In this kq• speech, given in his Scdgcfidd constituency. Bla ir de<:lared: Bur rhe norion of inreo•cnmg on humannnnan grounds had been gaining currency. I ser this our, follo wing t-he Kos0\'0 war, in a in Chicago in 1999, where I c:JIIed for a donrine of inrcrn:uional communit)', where m cenain dear Clrcurnsmnces, we do mrervene, e\·en rhough we :Jre not direct ly threatened . .. So, for me, before September l ith, I was a lready reachmg for a different philosophy in inrcrnarional rdarions from a traditional one that has held sw:1y smc·e the rre:Jt}' of Westphalia in 1648; namely rhat a country's internal :Jffa1rs are for il and you don'r mterferc unless il t-h rcmens you. or breaches :1 tre:uy. or rriggers an of alliancc.IJJ
U.ere arc, of course, many problems with th is, but it clearly demonstrates Blair's wish to dis,pensc with the support for the internal competence aspect of territorial integrity, and, with it, the principle of sovereign e-quality. lndccd, in the Guildhall speech of Novcmlx-r 16, 2004, he suggested that transatlantic cooperation could be used to insist on "a greater role of for the Un ited Nations on the rcsponsibilit}' of states to prote.ct not injure their own citizens .'' Given that the existing charter (in Article 2, Pa ragraph 7) ma kes internal competence outside the remit of the United Nations, subject to Chapter VII, which deals with external aggression, this would profoundly rcshift the balance of sovereignty. Blair and Annan- who rook very different views on the Iraq war- thus share an understanding of the question a nd challenges. U.cre is, of course, an unexamined "we" here that calls foJ:, legitimizes, and underta kes international intervention. ln so me of the recent calls for the ''responsibility to protect" only partir adopted at the U.N. World Summit, the a nswer is a reformed U.N. Security Council. For Blair, the solution is the "'international commun ity," which may or may not coincide with dtc
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will of the Socurity CounciL In the latter case, the charge is obviously that states arc acting in their own interests, but for some, this is not necessarily a problem. In fact, Walz.cr declares that «mixed motives arc a practical advantage" because a combination of acting " in their own interests as wdl as in the interests of humanity" means action is taken. ' 34 This parallels Blair's assertion of a notion of "enlightened self-interest," where he claims that "sclf-imcrest and our muntal interests arc today incxtricabl)' woven togcthc[. " 1u Bla ir even claimed that such rhemricaJ tropes could explain more than "Politics is different in America. This is a Republican administration w ith a certain view, so they wi ll couch what ther do in terms of U.S. national interest, not international community. But the doctrine of international community is just enlightened national self-interest, so whatever the different rhetorical perspecti\•es you come to the same point."' u. "Sovereignty Entails Obligations"
The shift between Democrat and Republican administrations in the United States thus shows significant continuities. As Clinton declared in his first inaugural address, "When our vital interests arc challengcd, or the will and conscicnce of the internationa l community is defied, we will ac4 with pc.accful diplomacy whenever possible, with force w hen The significance of the phrase "'vital intcrests" is important, as is the refcrence to the notion of "international communit)'·" Tellingly, Clinton suggested to the Unitcd Nations that thc United States wouJd act .. multilaterally when possible, bur unilaterally when necessary." As Derrida notes, it is significant that this claim was in relation to Article 51 of the U.N. founding charter, that is, "the article of exception. " IJa This article makes it de
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What we find is thus not a dramatic changc in the transition from Clinton to Bush, but at most a shift of emphasis. In both administrations, the United Statcs enough to constitute a "we.'' Cohen was a Republican senator before his appointmcnt in thc second Clinton term, and ht' had made clear his support for a bipartisan national secur ity policy. The Clinton Natio11ai Security Strateg)' of Engagement and Enlargement, for example, shows cvidcnce of much of what followt'd. 140 But if in this carlicr prriod, the emphasis had been on unilatcralism as a last resort, with a multilateral strategy prcfnred, 1• 1 the shift was to one where multilateral strategies Wt're pursued only if dt'cmcd nt'cessary. Clinton's "new internationalist foreign policy" was designed to make the United States "the 'indisprnsablc nation'" in such issues as peace in Europc, Northern Ireland, and the East, and to "reestablish collective security for a new agt' of globalization a nd intcrdt'pcndence, " 1"l Tht' rt'action to this internationalism within neoconservatism thinking was pronounced. Ont' of the issues was the supposed surrender of U.S. interests to the United Nations, along with the critique of Jt.·tadclcinc Albright's notion of "assertive multilatcralism, " by which is usually meant a majority in the Security Council, minus an}' great-power veto. In contrast, the Bush regime operated with more of a "unilatcralist and militarist \'is ion of how to overcome world disorder." 1.u Krauthammer initially callcd this thc "unipolar momcnt" 144 and now calls this a "unipolar era," which he describes as a fom1 of realism, a "new unilateralism." But he cautions that this is not isolationism becaust' "the new unilatcralism defines American interests far beyond narrow In particular it identifies two other major intercsts, both global: e:x-rending tht' pcacc by advancing democracr and preserving the prncc: by acting as balancer of last resort. " 14 ' Alongside this willingness to go against the United Nations, or indeed world opinion mort' gt'nt'rally, was a swift reaction against multilateral treaties. 14 6 A5 Lind notes, " in his first year, Bush more international treaties than any prcsidcnt in American history. " 14- The ground for this had been pr'Cpared beforehand. For example, future \'icc prcsidcnt Dick Cheney sent a letter to Clinton in 1997 in the wake of the Kyoto Protocol, suggesting that it would "'hamstring' American military operations . .. and undermine American sovereignty. "'43 Not o nly did Bush refuse to ratify Kyoto, but the Unitcd Statcs walked out of the Durban conference against racism for criticisms of Israel and refused to be a party to the International Crimina l Court (ICC) or to conventions, protocols, and treatit's on tht' rights of the child, land mines, and biological Wt'apons. In addition, it unilaterally withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty.' 4 "
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John Bohon's a ppointment as ambassa dor to the United Nations, and the 750 changes he proposed to the 2005 World Summit outcome document, a rc further indications of this resistance to multilateralis m. This tension is wdl highlighted in his proposed change to paragraph 60 of this document. Where the origina l first point read " We resolve to: Appeal to all States to ta ke act ion, in a multilateral framework, to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction a nd their means of delivery in all irs as pe-cts," Bolton OC'lctcd the phrase' "in a multilatC'ral framework " and replaced it with " unilaterally, bilatC'rally, or multilaterally."''0 The relevant section did not make it through to the fina l agrred document. This intention to take " a narrow virw of America's national interrst" was largely the position on which Bush had run for president. Bush and Condolcczza Rice had indicated thatthry were " not intrrested in do-gooding in far-Aung lands1 " and wrre thrrcfore " scornfu l of thr mulrilateralism at the heart of Blair's outlook. "•S• Srptember 11, 2:001 1 was the catalyst for a rethinking of this position. For Blair, the opportunity of these events was that his earlier thrmes of "internationa l community " could be seen in sharper focus. m Indeed, there was a superficial shift in the Bush rhetoric: Our nanon 's cause has a lways been larger than o ur nation's defense. We fighr:, as we fight, for a just peace--a th:Jt f:wors human hbcny. \'f/c wi ll defend the pc:1cc from terrorius t)'r:J nts. We wdl prcscr\'e [he peace by building good rdarLons :.1mong the powers. And wall c:n cnd rhc pc:tcc by cncoumgLng frl!f! :.1nd op<:n socicncs on every contlnt"nt'. is Amcnrn 's opportunity, and Ame-rica's duty. 151 Buildmg thas j usr
Indeed, this stand and the mobilization of the figures of "good" and "evil" show how the religious as pects o f Bush's consen·atism, which in the 2000 ele-ction had largely been confined to domestic issues, now took on a much wider international " moral'' agendla.'s• Since the events of September 1], 2001, key voices in the Bush administration have promoted the idea that for certain kc)' issues-nota bly the harboring of terrorists and the holding of wea pons of mass destructionnorms of sovereignty need not a pply. In a 1998 report coauthored by Philip Zdikow, later executive director of the 911 1 Commission. the contoms of this approach were sketched out: lnrcrnarional norms should adapt so rh:.1r such surcs arc obliged to reassure those who worried :.1nd to rake reasonable ro pro"e they arc nor sccrcrly developing weapons of mass dcsrrucrion. in thcar Failure ro suppl y such proof. or prosccurc rhc cr1mmals
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borders, sho uld c:nritlc: worried n:uions ro rake all necessary meir sdf-ckfen sc:.1!5
for
One of the key miccs has been Richard N. Haass, whose comments on integration were discussed in chapter 1. Haass declared in April 2002: Sovereigncy en rails oblig.1.rions. One IS nor ro massacre: your own people. Another is nor ro support rerronsm many way. If a governmc:nr ro meet these obhg;.u 1ons, then ir forfeirs some: oi rhe normal of so\•c:retgnry, mcl uding rhe nghr robe left :tlone mstck your own tt'rrirory. Other govt"mmenrs, includi ng rhc: Unired St:ttes, gain the right ro mrc:rvc:ne. Jn the cast" of terrorism. rhis ca n even le:td ro a right o f pre\'enrive, or pcremprory, self-
In a speech from the same yea r, he declared that "'sovereignty docs not grant gO\'crnments a blank chcck to do whate\•cr they like within their own borders." tP While this socms to mirror Blair's intmtions, it masks a much harder line of the unipolar moment in U.S. foreign policy, which refused to be bound b}' the collective constraints of NAT0 118 or the United Nations. Tdlingly, Haass includes in a state's support for terrorism not merely active ar.sistance, but a lso the inability ro control what is happening in its territory, noting that "one challenge to sm·crcignty arises when stater. have too little of it. " 1.!9 In other words, as chapter 3 argued, a state that faiJs to exercir.e one of the standard definitions of wvcreignty-cffective political control or the "monopoly of legitimate physical violence'" within its territory-finds that its r.ovcreignty more generally is bdd to be "contingent." He makes it ex-plicit that this is for three reasons: ''stopping genocide, fighting terrorism, and preventing the spread of '"'•'capons of mar.s destruction." In each case, "the principle remains the same: with rights come obligations. Sovereignty is not absolute. It is conditional. "' 60 As b1s ex-colleague from the State Department, Stewart Patrick, puts it: Hisroric:tll)', the num obstacle ro :trmed inrer\•enrion-hununit:J rian or otherwise-has been the docmne of sovcretg.nry, which prohtbirs nol:tring the integncy of anomer S[;Jrc:. One of the srriking dc,rclopmenrs of the p:tst dec:Jdt" h:.1s been :ln e-rosion of rhis no ninten'enrion norm :Jnd rhe rise of :l nascenr doct rine of -conringenr so\·er<"ign cy. • llus school of thought holds rhar SO\'ereign nghrs :tnd immunities :tre nor absolute. T hey ckpcnd on rhc obsef\•:mce of fundamenral sm tc: oblig:trio ns. t&L
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This notion of ··comingem sovc:rc:ignty" is important. It takes the: logic of humanitarian intervention or the resp<)nsibility to protect civilia n popu lations and broadens it to include legitimate intervention on the grounds of pursuit of wea pons of mass destruction or the harboring of terrorists. In sum, the idea that sta tes hold a monopoly of legitimate physical violence within thrir territories is therefore not so straightforward. T his inrvitabl)' gives rise to the same issues around Jcgitimac)', responsibility, and potential conflict between the United Nations, regional organiza tions, and more ad hoc coalitions of thr "willing."' Despite the opp<)s,ition between calls fo r U.S. cxceptionalism and this multilateralism, in terms of the challenge to s,overcignty, thc:re a rc similar logics at >vork. These suggestions havc-unsurprisingly, gi•·en their a uthors-found their way into polk)' documents. The policies ens,hrined in the U.S. National Secmity Strategy of 2002 (as chapter 3 noted, rewritten b)' Zelikow from an c.arlicr d raft by Haass) a nd the subsequent strategies o n homeland srcurity, military, countrr-intdligence, and ddensc all outline ways in which trrritorial sovereignty is open to challenge. But a t the same time, they continuall}' reinforce the importance of states being full}' in control of their territory, t he importance of territorial stability and the dangers of fai led states. For instance, the Natio11ai Defcmse Strategy declares tha t: lr ts unacceptable for regimes ro usc pnnctple o f sovereagnty as a shadd behind whach rhc)' claim to be free co engage in actiVItie-s that pose eno rmous threats ro their
Similar claims can be found in the National Security Strategy and the National Strategy far Combmiug Terrorism, and they parallel the notion of a shidd that Philip Bobbitt dcvdopcd in his book The Shield of
Aci?i/fes. 1B Such sentiments arc also found in the neoconservative statement of purpose, called Ar1 Ettd to El.rii: "National s,overcignt}' is, an obligation as well as an entitlement. A gm·emment that will not perform the role of a gO\:ernmcnt fo rfeits the rights of a go,·ernmcnt.'' 1•• Neoconservatives co ntinue to suggest that this has always been the c.ase fo r the United States, a nd that the United States has often had to intervene where other states ha\'t' been unable to Jive up to their obligations. Now this, has wider
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implications: United N arions srstem was founded upon the net ion of the equal competence of a ll the world's go,·ernments ... these hopes crumbled to dust a long, long rime ago." 161 In practice, such arguments have been used for the inten•entions in both Afghanistan and Iraq, as wdl as the other instances discussed in previous chaprers. But they simply be dismi ssed as of world relations the neoconservatives. Although manr of rhe figures shaping U.S. foreign policy believe that the founding principles of rhe United Nations should be rclanot absolute, as Shawcross notes, a rc distinct parallels th is and liberal internationalist thought. "'1.6 While call for in domestic affairs and a recogn ition of the limits to United Nations is shared, and wh ile the entails obligations" claim parallels Blair's domestic ma ntra that "with rights come responsi bilities," there is one key difference between the likes of Blair and the The Blair doctrine of international communiry, is- at lcasr in its ideal form-a multilateral strategy, as is the position of Annan, while the U.S. policy enshrined in these examples and more broadly in National Security Strategy of 20,2002, is un ila tera l.'"- On November 16, 2004, Blair his call for U.N. reform by suggesting that " none of this will work, hown·er, unless too our. Multilateralism that works should be its aim. I no sympathy for unilatera lism for its o wn sake.""'' But on April 22, 1999, he had noted something lnstead of the United States reaching out to the the world needed the Unitro Sta tes, as " those nations which have the have the responsibility. We need you engaged. We need with of isolayou.'" This was fo.llowed by a plea for avoiding ..the tionism" because the world could not afford it. 169 Yet this did not achieve simply a retreat from isolationism, but rather an assertion of U.S. tionalism. Blair's to provide multilateral support for U.S. unilateralism to ddivc:r Security Council resolution on Iraq, and )'ct he: still wcnr along with States in its mission in Iraq. This tension- which might be better understood as question of internationalism for Blair versus the uniqueness, or of the United unresolved at the heart of Blair's fo reign policy as he ldt office. integrity" arc thus The two meanings of the term ingl)' in conflict, no more so than in the context of the "'war on terror.'' Blair stressed the territorial integrity of countries that targetro: Yugosla via, Sierra Afghanistan, and Iraq. Blair intended to intervene in Sudan even as he stressed importance of the preservation
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of its territorial boundaries. rathcr rban any othcr Lebanon's and Somalia's territorial integrities arc repe--atedly underscored. smsc of protection of existing boundaries is Territorial integrity in to the violation of territorial integrity in the sense of territorial sm•ercignty or Tbis is not confined to Iraq, Afghanistan, or e-arlier in Kosovo and Sierra Lronc. Rather, it is being to other theaters of this war, including North Korea, Iran, SyTia, Sudan, and Lebanon. The "Gift" of Sovereignty
U stares can lose sovereignty, can they ga in it? This is the much less explored corollary of these arguments. As noted the norm has been for states to inherit the boundaries of colonial upon their that have split tended to break along and similar is then in its territorial integrity under international law. Uti possidetis was also key in informing judgment of the Badinter Arbitration Commission fo r Yugoslavia. It proclaimed that in all cases, "the right to self-determination must not involve changes to existing frontkrs (tlti possidetis except where the states concerned agree othenvisc... ,- , The Badinter ruling explicitly took its le.ad from rbe ICJ's 1986 judgment concerning Burkina Faso and Mali. wbicb not only the importance of stti possidetis but a lso used it to inform their understanding of territorial integrity. For tbe ICJ, uti possidetis is .. not a pertaining solely to o ne specific system of international law. It is a of general scope, logicallr with of the obtaining of independence, it occurs.'' 1" 2 The Badinrcr commission therefore suggested that "the people of former colonial countries were wise to appl}' it< Europeans must not commit the folly of dispe-nsing with it. This decision has come under sustaine
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ThC' probiC'm, he claims, is that while: the principle: might be a necessary first step, it should not bc.come "a permanent solution by ddault. '' The key to the Badinrer ruling is that changes can be made by agreement, but circumstances soon showed this to be an inadequate rc:sponse to the situation. as Lord Owen suggested, the idea that the bounda ries could even be negotiated was itself barely countenanced. creating a "straitjacket that greatly inhibited compromises the panics in dispute." 1- 1 Ratner therefore claims that cl1crc is "a compelling need to respect the original Roman-law meaning of uri possidetis: to preserve the quo onlr until states can resolved their competing claims. rather than appl)' the gloss from dccolonization whereby states cffc:ctivcl>' presumed indC'pcndence-day lines to be permanent."•-• He closes by suggesting that "only by directly engaging the territorial quC'stion, wiclt a ll its dimensions, is the international community likely to control the breakup of states in an orderly manner consistent with human dignity." •-It is fo r this reason that one of the most pressing issues for international la w is finding a ba lance betwC'en sclf-detC'rmination and the territo rial rights of established states.'"1 Ad"ocates of territorial intcgrit}'• as presep;ation, say that it creates it wo uld fo llow, then, that the devotion to the principle is worthwhile on ly if it really safeguards the purpose of providing stability and the inrerests of the people. If states fail to follow particular norms, the question is how to resolve the tension that this creates. As Freeman notes. "The U.X had always been based on a pol itical theory that had sought to reconcile the principle of territorial integrity of states with that of the self-determina tion of peoples. '' 180 However, it is clea r in practice: that territorial intC'grity has regularly and usua lly successfully been asserted as dominant. Gi\•en that this has because sm·ercignt}' has been taken to apply to states rather than peoples, some argue that it is time to rethink that political theory. One of the ways that this is bc:i ng advanced in law is through the notion of "earned sovereignty," itself explicitly promoted as "'a con<:ept that seeks to reconcile the principles of self-determination and humanitarian intervention with the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. " 111 What is telling in this formulation is the relation of self-determination to humanitarian intervention and rhe explicit linkage between sovereignty and territorial integrit)'. Other names for this concept include "intermediate so\·ereignty, provisional statehood, conditional recognition, and earned recognition." I &! This co ncept comes from the Public International Law and Policy Group lPlLI'G], put forward in a number of articles, working papers, and consulta ncy reports.
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Rather than sec sovereignty as virginity- as something you either have or do not ha't·e, as something that once lost, can never be rcgaine.d, and as something tha t c.annot be shared-it is instead viewed more Auidly. 1sl Indeed it is seen as a "gift" to be transferrc.d by benevolent powers, perhaps with the- sant'tion of thr international community, but with conditions a nd qualifications. Total indrpcndence with unlimitrd and undivide-d sovereignt}' is not seen as the only possible outcome. Rather, a number of issues c.an be negotiated: I. The right ro rerrirori:J I inregmy 2. The right ro defend rhe state through rhe ust of force 3. The right ro govern by csm blishing, appl}•mg and enforcing law 4. £ligibilit}' for mremanonal organi.z:Jrions 5. The c.1pacity to an as :.1 legal enriry for ownmg, purchasing rra nsferrmg properTy, ere. 6. Gm nr of sovereign mmumiry for non-commercial act J\'iri es and consu lar relatio ns 7. C.lpacity to sign inrernarionnl agreements 8. The dury ro rcspecr orhc:r natrons 9. The obligation to abide: b}' inrernarional l:Jw 11!4
The three core clements of ea rned sovereignty arc "provision for sha red sovereignty, measures enabling some t}'pc of internal institution building.. and negotiations fo r fina l status"; the three optional clrmrnts a rc phased sovereignty, conditional sovereignty, a nd constrained sovereignty. In the first, changes arc over time and incremental; in the second, key issues must be addressed; and in the third, "continued limitations on the sovereign authority and functions of the new state, such as continued international administrative a nd/or mi litary presence, and limits on the right of the state to underta ke territorial association with othrr sta tes" 11\.1 arc invoh·cd. Final status may therefore be less-at times much less-than full sovereignty and territorial integrity. Scharf suggests that as sovereignty was never absolute, this may not be a new phenomenon, but legal norms have not rcAcctcd this. '"'The rime has c-ome to embrace de jsm• the new reality of earned sovereignty that is emerging fro m diplomatic practice. '' 186 Case studies in a rdatc.d article: include the " road map" in the M]ddle East, the Good Friday Agreement for Northern Ireland, the Machakos Protocol for Sudan, the Ba ker Pc.acc: Plan fo r Western Saharn. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 fo r Kosovo, thr Dayton Accords for Bosnia, U.N. Srcurity Council Resolution 1272 for East Timor, the Comprehensive Ag reement for Bougainvillc, and the new constitution for the Union of Serbia a nd
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It is worth noting that this notion of earned sovereignty is designed ro go further than the notion of territorial autonomy. Yet many of these arc weak compromises, denying cmities the rights that the}' would claim as entitlements, and gi.,·ing the responsibility of territorial administration to the United Nations or other gmups representing the international comAlmost all poss ibilities for Palestine envisage this compromised, even c•lisccrated the much-trumJX'"ted road map and the 2000 Camp David plan that Yasscr Arafat was so roundly condemned for rejecting. The Ahtisaari plan for Kosovo, while inherently more generous, similar!)' attached conditions and the need fo r supervision. The tension between territorial integrity and independence is. of course, central to the complexities of thc rclarions between Israel a nd Palestine. At the .,·cry end of his presidency. on Janua ry 7. lOOt, Clinton dedared: "'There will be no peace, and no peace agreement, unless the Israeli people have lasting sccurit)' guarantees. These need not andl should not come at the expense of Palestinian sovereignty, or interfere with Palestinian territorial integrity." ' 19 Since September 11, 2001, Bush showed consistent support for Israeli control of the airspace, territorial waters, and land passages through Ga:z.a and the \Vest Bank. Although Bush dedared, "Israel must freeze settlement actl\rity, help Palestinians build a thrh·ing cconomr, and ensure that a new Palestinian state is truly viable, with contiguous territory on the \Vest Bank, A stare of scattered territories will not work," 190 he too continually supported Israeli scntrity over Palestinian sovereignt)'. 19' Territorial integrity Ln this sense soems to imp.ly more a sense of viability than preservation or sovereignty: viability in terms of its contiguity, sustainability, and issues such as access ro neighboring countries and bctv.•een the \Vest Bank and Gaza. At the moment, Gaza lacks so man}r of the associations of territorial intcgricy that it is little more than a prison. These terms help to make sense of the ongoing tensions concerning Iran, which do not simply concern irs plans for nuclear power and, potentially, wcapons. l9! just as with Iraq, irs supposed pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is increasingly linked to two other clementssupport for terrorism and treatment of civilian populations. Thi1> is partly because the nuclear justification is bccomlng increasingly at odds with available inrdligenoc. 193 Nonetheless, the Revolutionary Guard, labeled by the Bush administration as a "specially designated global terrorist.'' is seen as a connection bctwoen the insurgenC}' in Iraq and the pursuit of nuclear technology, and the bellicose rhetoric of I\•t ahmoud Ahmadinejad concerning Israel has only increascd the tension. l l/4 Thus, in Hersh's words, "what had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has
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been reconceived as counterterrorism. '" 191 In addition, longstanding amipathy toward the Islamic m •olution itself has been coopted into a justification on humanitarian grounds for regime change. 19• As with Iraq, this is a confused, and intentionally confusing, rationale. Here too then, territorial sovereignty is St'en as contingmt for the multiplt' reasons of human rights \'iolations, harboring of tcnorists, and the development of weapons of mass destruction. On tht' one hand, territorial sovereignty is increasingly seen as contingent; on the other hand, thcoretic.1 l arguments arc being advanced in favor of challenges to territorial prt'servation. Tt'rritorial intt'grity, which encompasses both of tht'sc meanings, and is part of tht' post-World War 0 security settlement, is therefore under increased pressure. The notion of earned sovereignty is another way of compromis ing or circumscribing the powers that some political entitit's arc aiJowed to have. Palestine must accept less than Israel; Kosovo must not be allowed to set a precedent for secession; the Kurds must remain part of Iraq, if only nominal!}•; Somalil and must keep up the pretense that it is part of a larger state; and sovereignty in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, or Iran cannot be allowed to lead to outcomes that arc disliked by the United States and its allie-s. And yet, while the sovereignty of some states is in question, other statt's arc incrt'asingly looking to rt'tain or regain it from inrcrnational agreements they prn·iously made. The relation bctv.•een sovereignty and territory is therefore of paramount concern. What is clear is that the notion of "contingent sovereignt}'•" in both its humanitarian and sccu rity guises, has profound effects on both aspects of the question of territorial integrity. The a rgument is therefore twofold. First, territorial sovereign(}' is rendered contingent b}' the "international communi(}·" or dominant powers, in part due to the e:xtraterritoriallogics of globalization but more essentially because of globalization's strategic underpinning. Second, in the current international climate, challenges to territorial boundaries arc seen as inherently violent and therefore likely to be re-eoded as terrorism by dominant powers. Taken together, they indicate the way in which globalization both deterritorializes and reterritorializes, a claim that renders problematic some of the literature that suggests the first concept alone. This point raises a number of questions. What do borders mC'an today? How do the}' operate, and how a rc they maintained? How and where should the}' be redrawn, if necessa ry? These questions additionally show the way in which the logics of the "war on terror" ar e played out beyond the specific concerns of the United States, including by dom,inant regional po\vers such as Russia in Chcchnya and China in Xinjiang. Territorial
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integrity is inher'C'ndy problematic in the contemporary global climate, prcciscl)' the linkage of the two aspcds of the term-preservation of existing boundaries and sovereignty within them-is being explicitly challenged, rather than the latter simp l}' being practica lly violated. The semblance of order in the international system requires these two aspects to operate as founding principles or as necessary myths. That the linkage between terrilOry and sovereignty has been challenged since September 11, 2001, is not especially remarkable; that it has been argued against is much more important. Yet the problematic linkage of these two aspects is onc that has plagued thc United Nations since the beginning, and that the superpower rivalry of thr Cold War actually Thus, the tensions bcrween rights and sovereignty in rdation to territory have come into stark focus in the twenty-first century, but they have a much longer history.
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The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty
This book has described territorial integrity as the spatial extent of sovereignty. Sovereignty is an issue at tbc intersection of terror and territory; it operates as the crucial bridge between terror and the state and is integral to the state of territory. Those who have sovereignty-recognized statesarc able to exercise a violence within their territory that they claim is legitimate. Those who arc deemed not ro have sovereign powcr-flonstatc organizations, national self-determination mm·ements, and individualsarc in a different position. Their violence is seen as illegitimate b)' definition, as "terror."' They can therefore be labeled " terrorists," a strateg}' that immediatel)' shapes their actions; indeed, this label can procedc an)' action. It has been argucJ that tbe secessionist or tcnorist identification is made because any challenge to the territorial integrity of a state (in tbc sense of its territorial preservation) acts as a limit to tbat state's spatial cx"tcnt and therefore as a potential lim it to the exercise of its violence. It is therefore seen as a necessarily illegitimate act a nd is in itself violent. Challenges to Israel 's continuing occupations have certainly been labeled in that way, both by the Israeli state and U.S. advocates. Yet those states that claim legitimacy for themselves also claim the right to render territorial integrity, as territorial sovereignty, contingent in places that do not meet particular nom1s of behavior. These states' \'iolence can cxcocd their borders: the- United States and Britain can limit the spatial extent of Iraq's sovereignty with the "no-fly"' zones and eventually overthrow it entircl}'; Israel can invade south Lebanon to provide "peace for Galilee''; Russia can launch attacks over the border into Georgia. While communi!>m provided a justification for U.S. involvement in other countries throughout the Cold War, and the "war on d rugs'' was a basis for involvement a t least in CemraJ America immediately afrcrv.•ards,' there
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was a widespread difficulty in providing a rC".ason in other areas. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, with oil scrurity as an issue, succeeded in mobilizing opinion in a way that intcn•entions or situations in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, or Rwanda ne\'er could.1 1bc notion of humanitarian intervention was the key rhetorical term used in the interventions in Kosovo and Sierra which themselves were in part rC"actions to perceived failures in pw.·ious e.,·ents. Today, the discourse of the " war on terror" provides a n apparently new language' to justi fr what is a continuous practice. But it is the justification that is key, alongside the gencrahzed acceptance of a need for limits on sovereign power. Humanitarian arguments for "'sovereignty as responsibilit}"'' have been appropriated by calls for "'contingrnt sovrrcignty, '' which demonstrates both the continuity and that the international spatial order of territorial integrit)' is now challenged by a fa r wider, more dangerous set of demands. The U.S. Natiouai Defense Strategy, for example, a rgues that it is unacceptable for states to invoke a sovereign "shield," rendering sovereignty as a whole contingent. This strategy a rgues that if a state fails to live up to the TC"sponsibilities that the "'international community" or the United States a nd its a llies deem appropriate, thrn it must be rcfom1ed. Governments may to be prrsua ded or cajoled into changing their behavior, or, ultimate I)', they may be rC'moved. One of the key assumptions behind thr post-war settlement, a founding principle of the United Nations, is effectively rcjcrtcd. As Shawcross puts it: " Intervention and the abrogation of sO\•ercignty arc legitima te to stop genocide or other crimes against human it)•, or in the case of states protecting their own citizens against the thrC"at of terrorism, or in cases where they arc acting against dC"ar threats to international security. '"J ]t is the clumsy equivalence between these three situations that is the significant shift in recent years. Yet at the same time. the other relation between sm•creignt)• and territory- the question of extent- rema ins strong. ]n the post-war period, this was reinforced in such a way that secessionist movements were perceived as a danger locally and regiona lly, and the nomlS of the United Nations were establishrd on the basis that preservation of the territorial quo and the immutable link benveen sovereigmy and territory was important to global stabi lity. Thus, even dccolonization happened along the boundaries that marked the lines of colonial division. As Neil Smith has suggested, U.S. tactics in framing the United Nations contributed to its particular role: Glimpsed here is nor si mply an mrern:monalism bur a globalism in which th e sigmficance o f grogrnphical boundaries and rermorial exclusions are circumscribed b)• ::1 world
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Th!:' mrem was nothing less rhan rhe unhirching of specific geographical claams and rernrorialsrruggles from rheanrral d)'ll:J mi cs ofrhe glob:J I oconomac mrc:rcourse. The: U.N. would medio.re geogr.:tphically roorc:d struggles, conflicts, :Jnd skirmishes w hile global commerce: prococ:ded OP:JCC: •••
By sc:tt:ing up the: U.N. :JS a dc:::mnghouse for termo ri.al dispu rc:s, U.S. globali5m recognized :1. da11c:stmc:nr of the: country's powc:r dirc:crly inro the world m:.:trkct. (153iah) Bowman's coimng of ·'rhe America n lelxnsraum" therefore represented a n appropnatcly spariallexicon for rhis ambitious new globalism, and the U.K. was irs political ann.4
The notion of the United Nation!; as a "clearinghouse for territorial dispures '' is revealing. By forcing these disputes into the framcwork e-stablished by the United Nations, dominant powers were abll" ro pre-serve their own standing, especially in terms of ind igenous populations, contiguous colonialism, and minorities. The coupling of territorial preservation with territorial sovercignt}' in the term "'territorial integrity" appealed to the idcal of sta te self-interest, and it was abll" to create a ver)' real sta bility in tht" international system, especially compared to prC\•ious periods. But there was always a tension implicit in the construction of the Un ited Nations. Allowing statt"s to exercise exclusive sovereignty within their own boundaries implicitly enabled, or at least allowed. a ll kinds of repression of the civilian populations of rhesl" countries. While tl1is has bct"n long re.cognized, thl" geopolitical tensions of the Cold War madc most c.alls fo r inten rmtion too politicall)' charged to make it through the U.N. Sccurlt}' Council without a veto. In this sense, the superpower rivalry-often seen as a barrier to the effective working of the Se<:urity Council-actuall}' prevented the tensions o f the U.N. Charter brroming evident Since the end of the Cold War, the: Security Council has operated more as the founders intended. Wh ile therl" are still issues that the Permanent Five mt"mbers declare an interest in, th,crc:br often pre\'c:nting action. man}' more things a rt" not so obviously an issue. But the: d ramatic rise in U.N.sanctioned interventions of \'arious kinds has actually had the opposite effect of what was amicipated. 1 Ra ther than dt"monstrating the cffc:cti\•eness of the institution, they have: instead highlighted its flaws. Territorial integrity is challenged through intervention, but on the other hand, there is an attempt to prc:sc:rve it. Territorial integrity as prt"servation wins out m·er territorial integrity as soYcreignty. But if a state's territorial sovereignty is contingent bc.cause of its treatment of civilian populations, why should its territorial extent be presavcd in all circumstances? If a large, discrete minority exists w ithin its borders, why should international intervention be legitimate to protc<"t it only within those borders, rather than
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redrawing the borders and changing tbe geography of the problem? The situation in Kosovo is a classic instance of the international community opening up a problem througb the first kind of intervention without a clear sense o f bow tbey might resoh·e the second issue. The supposed resolution of that problem has. as predicted, opened up issues in other places, notably Georgia. The caution is, in some senscs, well placed, A territorial free-for-a ll would inevitably create thc kind of instability in tbe international system that cxisting frameworks arc designed prcciscl}' to avoid. But pulling at one thread in the international framework risks unraveling the whole. It is for this reason that an examination of international law is so \'aluable. Bobbin has argued that this is often neglected in work on geopolitics. He suggests that this neglect has meant that "the fun damental force fields of the Statc-thc relation between law and war, and between legitimacy and violence: relations that yield the State's most basic cxprcssion of its identity, indeed that gave birth to the modrrn statc-arr rarely cven mentionrd, much kss addressed.''" [n a small way, and from a d ifferent political perspective tban Bobbitt's, this book bas sought to interrogate these questions through the pcrspcctive of trrritory. Thr sta te of territory in thc " war on terror,. cannot be understood straightforwardly. It is clear that tbc: United States is not seeking simple territorial expansion because its own trrritorial expansion large!)' finished with thc Civil War.- This is why attempts to discus.s the United States as a new empire get into difficult}'· The approach of understanding the United States as a new rmpire, or its strategies as those o f imperialism, is in danger of missing what is csscmiaP [\llichad Mann calls the current conjecture "'temporary territorial imperialism,"9 \\o'hcre a country has its regime changed to one more: amenable to U.S. interests, and then the United States removes itsdf. 10 But this. can be questioned at every stage. It implies that this is a tcmporarr aberration, w hen it is increasingly being seen as the: norm; it suggests that the territorial aspect is part of that tempora ry nature when these practices produce a profound challenge to territorial logics of state power; and it reinforces the sense that these cha llenges can be understood through thr notion of imperialism. Some analysts have tried to defend a dis tinction bcrn•een imperialism and colonialis m, where the: goal of the former is political control and the goal of the latter is territorial control, but this is historical!}' suspect, both conceptual!)' and cmpiricall}'. 11 Different empires have undoubtedly operated in different ways. h is in(:umbent on those who wish to drfend thr "United States as empire" argument to clarify their terms and historica l lineages. The argument here is rather different.
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While al-Qaeda has looked to usc particular states, such as Afghanistan and later Iraq, as the birth of a new Caliphate and the reemergence of a the United States is looking for something particular form of other than straightforward territorial control. As chapters 1 and 5 showed, a process of integration has as the principal U.S. foreign policy and security strategy. This is integration into a system of political and economic structures, framed by the United States. The economic structure requires geopolitical support, which has important implications in terms of territorial control because the very nature of U.S. ambitions requires a double standard in its treatment of trrritorial issurs. Whilr it wants to complrtcly enforcr the inviolable standing of its own trrritory, and to reinforce and comrol that with whatever means necessary, it wants to asscn the absolute contingency of sovereignty O\'cr territory elsewhere. George W. Bush described Iraq not just as the "centra l front in the war on terror," tz but also a place that was supposed to act as a beacon of democracy for the rest of the Middle East. Similar logics arc at play as with ai-Qarda here, with the idea of one state being a potential catalyst for others. tllen, is the United States seeking to gain? As has been discussed in numerous places, its real achievement will be in the establishment of bases, the facilitation of free passage of its forc.cs, of capital flows and ac.ccss to energy.'} In tllrse terms, its operations ha.,·e been much more than headlines in the "war on terror" might suggest, with the signing of an agreement with the Iraqi government in late 2007 committing the United States to a long-term presence in the rcgion being only one example. In all this, the United States is looking to presrrve its own position, but much more generally, to ensure the institutional framework and provide the military support for globalization. This is the logic of integration: not into a territorial empire, but into a hcgemony of shared rule sets and values. It is for this rc-<Json, among others, that John Agnew's claim that we arc de-aling with hegemony rathe-r than empire is well-taken: in its frogmenration of exist1"'g sute territories ond its increasmgl)' predominant nerworked geograph)' of pow-c:r, 1s the necessary outcome of American global hegemony, not some sort of empire:. Globalization today and under Americ:111 hegemony represents a dramatic qu1ckemng and gc:ographtc:1.l reformul::ltlon o f rhc: progressi\'e uni,·ersahzarion of capitolist commodificatio n s nd accumubtlon.... Globalization 1s a hegemomc project mtimatdy connected w the gcopo· hricaJ calculus of the U.S. government and economic interests during t he Cold War and to the incorporation of the enrire world mto 1rs grip in the years since the dem1se o f rhc Communist projecr in the former Soviet Union and Cl1ina by a myriad of U.S.-basro agennY
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What the United States is concerned with implementing is effectively a new, global Monroe Doctrine of American hegemony, partnered with the: force of the (Theodore) Roosevelt corollary.' 1 To put rbis in more contemporarr terms, the U.S. Natior1al Security Strategy tmderpins "the new Washington While the norm of territorial integrity was never really accepted by dominant powers, the difference now is that they a rc being explicit about the challenge to internal competence or territorial sovereignty w hilc simultaneously stressing tbe importance of territorial in¥iola bility. 1' Numerous examples could be given where the United States or other dominant powers have violated the territorial integrity of other states, but the current conjuncture is somewhat different. It is one where territorial preservation is seemingly para mount, and yet at the same time, tbere is a concerted argument against territorial so¥ereignty rather tban simply its practical violation. Territorial integrity is thus fractured because while there is an insistence on the presen•ation of territorial extent, the sovereignty within it is held to be contingent. Indeed, it is often in exactly the same places in which territorial so\•ereignt}' is contingent that territorial preservation or im•iolability is asserted e\'en more forcduJly. [\•en the possibility of Afghanistan's or Iraq's territorial spatial ex-rent being open to question was de(:med impossible. With Iraq, this was at the very heart of the issue of the new constitution in that the territorial settlement was an extraconstitutionaJ event, and the resultant problems of resources, and representation continue to haunt the political process . Similarly, the ¥cry real grievances of Israel's neighbors concerning the Golan Heights, the Shebaa Farms, and of course, the Palestin ian territories arc pushed to the background. It was the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers that was seen as the initiation for the latest round of conflict in Lebanon, rather than any previous events; the rockets aimed at Sderot seemingly equivalent to what takes place in Gaza. Somalia's territorial extent is a problem internally, regionally, and more widely, yet solutions a re sought within its existing borders without recognition of the problems they are causing. The de facto collapse of its sovereignty cannot permit a de ;ure breakup of its territory. \Vhat is at stake in the question of territory in the "war on terror" is thus not an attempt at territorial expansion by the United States, nor a willingness of dominant states to countenance territorial change-far from it, in fact. Rather, there is a continuous attempt to prescn·e the: territorial framings of existing states as a process of maintaining and creating stabilit)'.•s Instead, the notion of territorial sovereignty is the key question. The question of sovereignty has, of course, long been a concern
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of relations and international law.'' But to address this question adequately-today and historically-requires us to take territory into account in a much more way than has generally been case. Territory because it is seen to provide the within which is said to operate, its limits what state can do, and because its limits are the of the Strugover territory and the placing of the boundaries that it But the delicate compromise of cl1e post-World War U settleinjum:tions against war and the Holocaust, is fractured and its is not e
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indi,ridual actors that drive these events.. In his. vale
NOTES
Introduction l. Wilham J Chnron, Scp.:c-ch of Augusr 10, 1998.
2. Rohan
Inside AI Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (london: Company, 2002j, J4Q. 3. On rho:io: evenrs., sec Peter Camm, The J 993 \t'orld Trade unli!r Bombing: Foresight and \\1ammg (l ondon: 200 l ); John K. Cooley, UniJoly W'ars: A(g!Janistan, America, a11d International Terrorism (l ondon: Pluro, 2002); Gtllrs K.:pd, }tl1ad: The Trail of Politiccns (C.1.mbridge. UniYersiry Press, 2.002); Dilip Huo, \Var rvtlhout f11d: Tile of ls/anust Terrortsm and Global Respo11.se tlondon: Rourledge, 2002h Mike Davis.. Buda's Wi1gon: A Brief History of the C.u Bomb tLondon: Verso. 2007); Sten::n Emerson. American ]tltad: The Tt!l'rorists Lir•i11g
Hurn
10011. 6. United Jl\arions Devdopmem Reporr figures from hrrp:l/www.undp.org; see :Jiso John Pilger. Tbc New Rulers of tiJC World (london: Verso. 2002), I. 7. Gilbert Achcar, T1Je Cl<1sh of Bi1rbarisms: The A"iaki11g of the New World Order, trans. Peter Druck.:-t:, Updared ond E.xpanded E.dinon (Boulder: Parodigm,
10061,36.
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8. George \'fl. Bush, spe«h of 12, 2005; S(:e also B.ol> WDI]((ward, o f Denial: Btts!J at War, Pan Ill {London: Simon and Schusrer; 2006), 4J I. 9. See, in particubr, hrrp://www.1raqbod>•coum.org; Les Roberts, Riyadh Ltfta, R1clurd Garfield, Jamal Khud h.un, a nd Burnham, "Mortalit>' B-efore and :\fter t he 2003 Im.-asion o f Iraq: Cluster Sample Sun·ey," Tilt! 364, no. 9448 (2004 1: 1857-64; a nd Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh l a fra, Shannon Dooq, and Les :1fter the 20()3 lm•asion of lr.1q: A CrossSecrional Cluster S."1mple Stuve)', .. TIM Lancet 368, no. 9545 (2006): 142 1-28 . For discu.s.sions, see John Sloboda and Ha mit D:.1 rd agan, Iraq Body Coum Projeove a stmplc: cakularion-is just w hat IE mc-.ms to count a bod)•, what Derek Gregory (following Achille Mbem be, ·'J\'ccropohrics," Publtc Cufturt 15, no. I 120031: 11 -40) calls ·' the: gnsl)' mlc ulu:> of colonial nccropohrics,.; also sec: Derek Gregory, ·•Palestine: undCT Siege, .. Antipode 36, no. 4 60 1-6. 10 . See Derek Gregory, TIJe Colonial Presmt: .4.{ghatJistatJ, Palestine, fr,zq (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 19. I I . A s1m1lar cla im could be m:.1de for the bombings m London on Ju ly 7,1005, which have similarly reduced to 7f7, or rhOS(: m o n March II , 1004, which have been designa ted 3/11. O f other events on September II, the coup agamsr Salvador :\Jlende m Ch1le m 1973 ls. most often noted, l>ut this was also the: date in 1912 thar rhc: Bnris h M:mdare of Palestine began. See Stuarr Croft, Culture, Crisis, a11d O JJ Ter-,or (C:.1 mbridgc:: Cambrtdge Uni\'c:rsity Press, 1006), 15-17; Angelo Rasanayaga m, l l{gJmmstan: A Modem H1story• (l ondon: t B. Tauns, 2003), 144. 11. Indeed, one book on the consequ ences has [he sim ple ride "'Afrer, .. wrth the: subtitle speaking of the 11 Era ... Sec: SteYen Brill, The Rebuildmg atJd Dcfendmg of .-\merica in the September 12 &11 (New York: Simon and Schusrc:r, 2003) . 13. On the: spatial aspects of the World Trade Center c:\•c:nrs a nd consequences for rhe site a nd the city, see After the W!orld Trade Center. Rethinkmg New York Cit)', ed. !vlichael Sorkin and Sharo n Zukm (Roud edge: New York, 2001). 14. 1'-:eil Smith, "Sca les of The !t.1:mufactunng o f 1\'ationa ltsm and [he War for U.S. G loba lis m, " in l ifter the \.l lorld Trade Center, 98-99; see also Arundhati Roy, 71u Algcbm of Infinite Justice (London: Flamingo, 2002). 15. Achcar; The Cfash of B.zrbarism s, 27. On t he role: of popuJa r culture in producing the wa r menra lity, see Cynthia Weber, Jm.zgiwng Am er1m <1t \.\:1ar: Morality, Politics, .md Film !London: Routledge, 20061; Croft, Culture, Crisis, and i\merica's
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War on TC""or; Andrew a nd Pacricc: Pedro, Global &curity: Media, Popular and ''War 011 Brunswick, N .j.: Rurgc:rs Uni\'c:rsit>' Prc:ss, 2006); Dc:bnx, Tabloid Culture, and Geopolitics tLondon: Roudroge, 2008). 16. Grorge W. Bush, spt>c:ch o f October II , 2.001> Set" also Rush, spt>c:ch of Octobc:r 29,200 I ; Rudolph Gi ul uni, York Ciry after 11,2001," Septembc:r 10,2003, hnp:l/fpc.starc:.gov/fpd2397 1.htm; D1mirri K. Simc:s, .. What War Means," Natwnal i!Jterest, Tha nksg1\'ing Specia l Issue, 200 I, hnp:/1 www. nixoncenter.org/pu blican on sfaniclesffNl spc 10 I dks.pdf. 17. j t":l.n-Marie Colombam, sommes tous Amencams," u Monde, Septembc:r 12,200 1. 18. Ken Booth and Tim Dunne, m Collision," m Worlds itJ Colliston: Te"or atJd tilt' Future of Global Order, c:d. Booth and Tim Dunne (london: 2.0021, I. 19. Gregory, The Colonial Present, 19. 20. George Vi". Bush, spc:och of Scprembc:r 27, 200 I. Bush equally said its terrams will be rha n the battlefields and beachheads of the past"i see also spc:c:ch of &ptember 2.9, 200 I. Cohn Powdl remarke-d t hat m his previous t rai rting as a soldier, .. t here is the roc:my occupying a p1ccc: o f ground. We .:.m define: it in sp:Ke, and other dimensions., and you c.m :.u.scmble forces :.1 nd go afte-r lt. T his is. The: c:nemy is in nu ny ploces. The is not looki ng to be found . T he rnemy is hidden. The cnem)' is very oftrn right here: within our own country. .-\nd SO you ll3\'e tO design a campoign plan mat goc:s after that kind o f enemy"> SCC Cohn Powdl, to !Press," September 14, 100 I, http://www.yak.edu/ lawweb.la\'alon/sept_ ll/powell_bncf05.htm. Earli er, ClLnton roo had djscussro the changing geographies: foes haYe ex'tended t he: fi elds of battle from physico ! space to .:ybcrspace; from world's \'ast bodiCS of wa ter to the complex workings of our own human bodies, .. William J. Clinton, .. Prcsidc:m BLII Clin ton SjX:Jks to the Na\':J l Academy a t Annapolis,.. Ma)' 22, 1998, http://www.cnn.com/ ,-\LLPOLITICS/19981U5/Wdinton.academy/transc ript.h.tml. 2L Smith, ..Scales o f Terror," 105. 22. Set" Wills, Tl1e First \V'ar 011 Tefforism. 23. Colin Flint, cd., of Geograpbies of Discrimi1zation and Intolerance m the (New York: Routledge, 10041; Colin Flint, cd., The Geography of War and From DealfJ Camps lo Diplomats lOxfo rd: Oxford Prcs.s, 20051. 24. The Geographical Dimmsions ofTarorism, Susan L Cutter, Douglas B. Richa rdson, and Thomas J. Wilbanks (New York, Roudedgc:, 2003 ). The: presem book can be seen as parr of a challenge wid1in the disciphne of geography to rh.at book. Vwfcnt Geographies: Frur, Te"or; and Pol1timl cd. Dere k Gregory ond Alla n Prc:d (New York: Routledge, 20061 arose our of precise-ly such a challenge, man)' of the papers bemg first presented ot the 2004 meeti ng of the AAG in Philadelphia.
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2.5. 1\.i.:trburg.c:r, m Cunc:r c:t a l..,
Geographical Dimt!mio11s of Terrortsm,
X\'11.
2.6. Ibid. 2.7. Ira Ch.:-rnus, Monstos to Dt!stro)': TIJe Nroco nsentative \ll,1r 011 Terror and Si11 tBouJdc:r, Colo.: Parad1gm, 1006), 144. 2.8. Hc:nri Lc:feb\·rc:, Espan! d poJittqltt!: L£ drott a Ia 11il/e 11, C:du-ion (Pans: Amhropos, 1000 ( 1972]), 59; Henri Ldc:bnc:, State, Space, \Vorld, ec:L Ne1l Brc:nnc:r and Stuan Eldc:n Uni vc:rsity o f 1\·tinnesoro Prc:ss.., 2008): p. 174. A of Lefebvre's work is provided in EJd.:-n , Undt•rstanding He11ri Theory• and Possible (London: Continu um, 2004 1. For the contexT of this ci:J im, see d uprc:rs 5 and 6 of thar book. 2.9. 1\.bnh.:-w Sparke, In Space o(T1Jeory: Postfoundational Geographies o f (M mnropolis : Universit)' o f Minnesota Press, 1005), 244-45. 30. SuS:J n Robens, Anna Secor, a nd Man h.:-w Sparke, G.:-opolitics, .. ,-\ntipode 35, no. 5 (2003). 31 . Sec: Da\•id H arvey, T11e !mpemlism (Oxford: Oxford Um\•ersit)' Pr.:-ss, 2003); ,-\ Brief Htst oi4. Ke\'ln Phillips, Tbe Peril and Politics of Radical ReligiOn, Oil, and Borrowed Money i11 the 21st Ce11t11ry (Xew York: Viking, 2006 ), 68. 35. On o1l, sec: in particular .o\ hmed Rashid, T.zl1b.m: Militdnt Islam, 01l, and in UtJtral Asia (N.:-w Hn\•en, Conn.: Ya le Uni,•ersit)' Pr.:-ss, 1000); Willia m ,-\ Ci!tlltrry of War; ,-\nglo-l\ mrmam Politics and the New World Order, rev. ro . tLondon: Pluro, 2004 1; !Phillips, Am erican T1Jeocr,1cy; Yah)'a Zalloum, O il Crusada: Am ertca Jl1rOitgl1 i\ rab Eyes (London: Pluto, 1007). For useful discussions, see H arvey, Tbe Nerv Imperialism, and Doug Stokes, "Blood for Oil? Global Capital, Counter-lnsurgenq·, and the Dual logic of Amc:rica n Energy Security," Ret•iew of Jnterrrational Studies 33, no. 2. (2.007): 245-64; and for ::1 more nua nced ona l)·sis o f lhe role of rc:sourc.:-s, se.:- !Philli ppe le Resources a11d Armed Adelphi Paper 373 Bilton, f uelling War; (Oxford: Oxford Uni,·erslry Press, 2005). 36. See Anderson, " Force and Consent," 5; P.:-rc:r Gowan, ·•A Calculus o f Power," New Left Ret•iew 16 {2001). Long Twentieth CentrJI
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40. Har\'e)', The Newllnperi,llism. 41. Deborah Cowen and Neil Smu:h, "Afrer From the GeopolitiCJI to .. Arrtipode 41, no. I (2009), pp. 22-28, 42. 42. lb1d., 42. 43. :\s D:n•1d Cosmopolitanism aud tht! Googmplnes of freedom (New York: Columbi.:t University Press, 2008 ) has pur it, rhe rdarional problem of "terrorism" was acmcked m crude absolure rerms . See also Su.s.an Tltit•king P<1st Terror: lslamism and Crit1cal Throry on tlu! L4t (london: Verso, 20031,34. 44. Howevet; "terror" is not used in :JS broad a sense as Henri ldeb\•re d1d in Erreryday L•fe in the Modem \Vorld, rmns . Rabinov1rch (1-Iarmondsworth, UK: Allen Lane, 1971 [ 1968] ), chapter 4, w here it IS the practice of the societ)' of controlled consumption." This IS nor to say th:Jt terror or fear is noc mobilized as a srraregy of governmen(S. For a analysis, see B)•ron Millet; "The Globaliz:Jrion of Fear: Fe-ar :Js a Technolog)' of Go\'ernmem," in G/ob,lfltation's Contradiciwrrs: Geographies of Discipfme, Destruction, <111d Transformallon, cd. Dennis Conw:.1y and N1k Heynen (London: Routledge, 20%1. 45. See in Noo.m Chomsky Gilben Achcar, Perilous .Power: Tl1c Middle E..zst and U.S. Foreigtl Policy: Dialog11cs on Terror, Democraq; W.zr, and Justice [Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm, 2007), 2 7, WiiJi:.J m Blum, Rogue Stdte: A G111dc to the \Vorld's On{y Superpou•er (Monroe, t\•1a ine: Common Courage, 2005), 124 Charles P. Webd, Terror, Terrorism, mzd tlu! Hmmm Cond1tio11 (london: Palgmve, 20041, 103; Frederick H. Gareau, .Stllll.' Terrorism cwd the Umtcd Stdtes: from Countcrinsttrgency to tiJe War orr Terrorism (Arlanra, Ga.: Claril)' Press, 20041. 46. Blum, Rogue State, 123. 47. Davis, Buda 's Wagon, 4. 48. Pc(er Sloterdijk, Luftbeberr; ,-\n Queffe11 des Terrors (Frankfurt a m Germa ny: 1002) . 49. Atmosphere is a ke)' term in his major work, the three-volume Sphi.iren [Spheres], see Percr Slcxerdijk, Sp1Jiirtm; Bfasen, Globen, Scbl:inme (Frankfurt a m 2004). oll..JI{tbebcn r.:apprnrs in Volume In. 50. Sloterda1k, Ltt{tbeben, 23. 51. Jonn H. Herz, lntemational Politics ;n tbc Atom;c Age (New York: Columbia Umversit)' Press, 19591, 104; s.:c Will ia m Conno lly, The Eti10s of Pluralization Umversity of Pr.:ss, 1995), 150-51. 52. See B.:au Grosscup, Strategic Terror. T1u Polir;cs <md Ethics of Aerial Bombardment (l ondo n; Zed Books, 2006); Derek Gregory, Anoth.:r TimeZan.:, rhe Bombs Fall Unsafdy .. .': TargeES, Civilians a nd late 1\!od.:m War," Arab \'(/orld Geographer 9, no. 2 (2006): 88-111.
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53. work looks at dlC: parricular USC:S of veniCal SOVereignty 10 lsradJPalesrine, wim an espc:c1ally re\•ea ling discussion of Clinmn's propos.1ls for layers of sovereignty m the volume of the Tc:mpk MoumJHam m a i-Sharif. See Eyal Weiz.man, HolitJw Land; Israel's .-\rdJitecture of Occ11pation (London: Verso, 2007), 54-55; and Weizman, Polirics of Verricalit)': T he \Xbr Bank as an Archit«turaJ Construcrion," in Turitom!s: Islands, Camps, and Otl1er States of Vtop1a, ed. Klaus Biesenbach (Koln: Wa lcher Komg., 2003); Rafi and Eyal Weizman, 1\•(ounr.tin: Principles of Building m He1ghrs," in A Civtfim1 ed. Rafi Sega l a nd Eyal Weizman O cc11pation; TIJe Polit1cs of Israeli (Td A\•iv: Babe-l, and london: Verso, 2003h a nd Stephen Graha m, Geopolirics: Baghdad a nd After," Allflpodl! 36, no. 1 (20041. 54. Barry Hindess, "Terron orr," A ltematmes 3 1 (20061, 243 . 55. Robespierre, Virtue .md Terror, presented b>• Slavoj Zakk (london: VefS.O, 2007), 115. 56. On dus, m me COfllC:Xt of t he ·'wa r o n terror." sc:e Jean Bethke Els htain, }ttst \"\:far Terror; Tlu 8tJrdl!tl of llmertcan Power tn l l VtolenJ World (New York: Basic Books, 2003) . Terry E.1.gleton, Holy Terror (0 .\: ford: Oxford Unl\'ermy Press, 2005 ) has suggested that "it is not a matter of offering Osam.t bin Laden a scat in Parliament, but o f granting justice to those who magJn omerwisc: exact a terrible re\•enge. jusncc is me onl)· prophylact iC for terror" l l 5). This raises some: 1mporro nt temporal issues. T he ao:ka that the assau lt on Afgh;a.ni5ro n m late 200 1 was ·'Infi nite justice"- the original name for t he U.S.-Jed actions before ic w.u dunged to ·'Enduring Freedom" a5 a supposed response to Muslim sc:nsitivariesatremprs to sc:e justice as rerri buuon subsequent ro the acr rather th:J n a potential pre\'enrion of it. ''Enduring Freedom" is also imeresnng in char me first word can either mean ·' Lasting"--a temporal indacaror--· worthy of a(tention. 57. Sfo(crd ijk, Lu(tbebe11, 14-15. In one o f her more t ho ughtful comments on t he campaign tra il, HiJJary Clinton ("'You Can'( Lump All Terronsrs Together': l nten·1ew With Michael Tomasky,"' O ctober 13, 2007, http://,'IWW.gu:J rdian.co.ulcJ usef«(ion50SihillaryclintonJstory·/())197 197,00.html) suggested that ·• terrorism 1s a roof tha t has been urili2lcd throughout history to ac hieve certain objectives. Some: have been ideological, others territorial. There are pcrson:Jlit)·-dri \·en terroristic obj«ti,·es. The bottom line 1s, you can't lump :JII terrorists rogether. "' 58. U.S. Code, 18 USC 1.B I, http://www.gpoacress.gov/uscode/index.html. 59. Cited in Chomsky and Achcar, Perilous Power, l. 60. Daanish f\•1usrata, Terrible Geogrnphica lness of Terrorism: Reft«rio ns of a Haz...uds Geographer," Antipode 37, no. I (1005): 78; see Eduardo
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:\·fendiera, ··JmJXri:JI Grograph1es and Topographies of Nihilism: Theaters of W:1r and Dead Ciries," City 8, no. I (2004). 61. Joint Chic:&. of Snff, Military Srrategic Plan for rhe War on Terrorism," 2006a, 4, http://www.ddensdink . mil/qdr/docs/2.005-01 -25 -SrrategicPlan.pdf. 62. Chomsky and Achcar, Perilous Power, 3. 63. Paul \V.Ikmson, Pol1ticdl TI!'Yrorism (london: Macmiii:Jn., 1974); P:1ul Wilkinson, Terromm atJd Liberal State, 2d ed. (london: t\•1acmdlan, 1986). 64. Kinsley, ·'Defining Terrorism, " The WashitJgton Post, October 5, 2.001, A37. 65. Weber, ·'Polirik :.1 ls Beruf," in GI!'S<mrme#l! Pol1tisciJ1! Schriften, ed. j. Winckelmann (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1971), 510-- 11. Tius rrans larion is modified from the one gi\•en in \'\1eber, Professio n and Vocation of Polirics," in Political Wriiings, ed. Peter Lassma n and Ronald SJXirs (C:.1 mbridge: wmbridge University Press, 1994), 311 . 66. The question of termory is much. more fully explored in m>' ongoing work, mainly in :.1 project currenrl)' under the m le of The Geoml!tt)' of tl1e Politual: A History of the State of Some initial st:Jtements o f these 1de:.1s c:.1 n be found in Stu:Jrt Elden, the Point: Globalis:Jtaon, Dercrritoriahs:mon, a nd the of the World," Tramactions of the fwtltld l!' of British GeograpliN's 30, no. I (2.0051: 8-19, and ·'Govemmenmlity, Gllcui:Jnon, Territory," flwironmelll tmd Platmillg D: Society and Space 25, no. 3 12007): 562-80. 67. The question of the policies of mlcui:Jtlon is addressed through J. re:.1ding of Heidegger m Stu:Jrt Elden, Speaking agai11st Nsmtber. Heidegger, Language, and tiJt! Po littcs of Ca{culatiou (E.dinbu rgh: Edinburgh Uni\•ersit)' Press, 20061; the ddimrio n of space itsdf is discussed m Mapping Present: Heiaegger, f oucau/1, and the Proiect of a History• (london: Conrin uum, 200 1). 68. Galles Deleuze :.1 nd Fehx Guatm ri.. .'t Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenin, rrans_ Brian Massuma !London: Athlone, 19881, 10, 54, also see 181, 508. 69. Ddeuze and Gu:Jttan, A Thousnnd Plateaus, 203, 303. 70. See Eldrn, "Missmg [he Pomt.. :.1 nd "The State of Territory under Globalisation: Empire and rhe Politics of In Born(e) across: Metaphoricity a11a Postmodern Politics, ed. Maria a nd Effie Yia nnopoulou (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 20061,47-66. 71. Neal Smith, The of Glob.altzation l London: Roudcdge, 2005), 5 1. 72. \V.Iham ConnoJJy, Territory, and Violence,"' Theory, Culture, and Socil!ty II , no. I (1994): 19-40; Tl1e Ethos of Pluralitation tM inncapolls: University of Mmnesota Press, 1995); Mark 1\eocleous, the Map: O n V'JOlence and Cartography,"' Europea11 ]ormml of Theory 6, no. 4 (20031, 409-25 ; /magining the State Open University Press, 2003h Handess,
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73. Se.:-. for insrnnce. Jean Gonntann, The Significam:e o f Territory tCitarlorresville: Unl\'ersiry Press of Virginia, 19731, 5. 74. Connolly, "Tocqueville, Territory, and Violence," 24; Connoll)•, TIJ.f! of Plttralhaiion, xxii l. 75. j . A. Simpson and E.. S. C. Weiner, Tlu Oxford Engl1siJ Drc!IOIWY)', 2d ed. XVII: Su-Thri,.·ingle)', 8 19. (Oxford: Cl.arendon Press, 19S9j, 76. F. Godefroy, Diciionnaire de l'mtcienne langue fnm( aisc 1!1 tor1s ses dia/ecJes dtt IXc--XVe s!f?de, Ten Volumes (Pam: t.mlle Bouillon., ISS 1-1901 ), vol. X, 758; sc:e Alam Rey (ed.J, Didio1maire historiqrre de Ia langr.e frallf;aise, Two Volumes (Paris: le Rolxn, 1992), vol. 1[., 1,108. 77. Henry John Roby, ,-\ Grammarofthl! Latm Langrrag£' from Plar.hrs io SuetOtliiiS, Two Volumes {London: and Co, IS72J, vol. I, 363. de /'(11JCII!IUII! lcmgi•Cfranr-aiu, vol. VII, 696; voL X, 7S. Godefro)', 758. The French mronings suggested are ·'effra)•er" (to frighten); J.U.'I: pieds" aterre" (fall to rhe groundj; J.nd (trample underfoot, or rread downJ• nr" (to land a plane or rtUke landfall). 79. Connolly, The E.tlws of Pfuralhalron, 167. Tlu 80. Connolly, ·'Tocqueville, Territor}', and 24; see Eth os of Plurdllzation, xxu. 81. 244. 82. For Neodeous, ••the secret of territoriality IS thus \'iolence: rhe force neces:s.ary for the production of styJ.ce and the terror cruciJ I to rhe creJrion of boundaries.. the Map," 412). On the linkage berwecn the words ••terror" and ·'territor)•," see a lso Gil Anidjar, ·'Terror R1ght," CR: T1u New Ccntennilll Revi£'w 4, no. 3 (2004J, 54-55; Homi BhJbfla, Tile Location ofCIJitMc (london: Routledge, 1994), 99-1001 G regory, Tbe Coloni11f Pusenl, 69; and Heribeno Cauo, •The Field of :\brs: Heterotopias of Territory :md War," Political Geog,.apby 23, no. S (2004J, 1009-1036. 83. Henri Lefebvre, TIJe Production of Spllcl!, trans. Donald Nicolson...Smith (Oxford: Bbckwell, 1991[1974]), 280; sec also 11 2. 84. Et1enne Balibar, N ous, atoycns d'Europd Lcs frontiers, l'E.tllt, le per.ple (Paris: Ia DCcou\·erre, 100 l j, 193. mo ndial er le planet:! ire," Espaa et sociitis 8 ( 1973 ), 85. Henri ldeb\·re, 15-22; Lefebne, State, Space, Worfd, 203 . 86. Lefebvre, The Pmduction of Space, 180-S I. 87. See also 1\,hlano's definition: is t he spatial sphere within which a srare's SO\'ereignry is normall)' manifested. Often rhe term sotrercignt)• IS used as a synonym of territonal so'rere1gnty" ; see Enrico :\lilano, Unlmuful Territorial Situations in l nlema-liona{ L.1w: Rr:conolmg E{fectitlencss, Lcgaiily, attd Legitimllcy (leiden: Martinusl\'ijhof£,10061, 66--67. 88. As Connolly puts it, termoriallsccuncy state forms the spoce of democraric liberation and imprisonmC'nt." Wilham E.. Connolly, ·'Demcxrocy ond Termoriality," Millennium: foumai of lnttrnlallonlll Studitrs 20, no. 3 ( 199