Neighborhood Sectarian Displacement and the Battle for Baghdad: A Self‐Fulfilling Prophecy of Fear and Crimes Against Humanity in Iraq

Abstract

We use two unique Iraq data sets to show how fear and uncertainty served to motivate the self-fulfilling, neighborhood-specific forces that followed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Sectarian criminal violence by armed Shia and Sunni organizations created a situation of ethnic/religious cleansing that reconfigured much of Baghdad. The article focuses on the case of how one particularly violent group, the Mahdi Army, mobilized through the coercive entrepreneurship of Muqtada al-Sadr, used organized crime tactics of killing, torture, rape, kidnapping, harassment, threats, and forced displacement in a widespread and systematic attack against civilians that forced Sunni residents from their Baghdad neighborhoods. Ordinary Iraqis were victims of an amplified "self-fulfilling prophecy of fear" that created the momentum for massive sectarian displacement in the battle for Baghdad. We demonstrate that there is a neighborhood specific effect of early postinvasion neighborhood fear net of intervening violence on displacement three years later, following the Al-Qaeda Samara Shrine attack, confirming an effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy of fear in the neighborhoods of Baghdad that compounded in a self-reinforcing way. The changed demography of Baghdad was effectively consolidated by the later surge of U.S. forces that left in place the territorial gains made by the Shia-led Mahdi Army at the expense of former Sunni residents. We conclude that this continues to matter because the resulting grievances have contributed to renewed violence.

The Militarization of Mass Incapacitation and Torture during the Sunni Insurgency and American Occupation of Iraq

“…These deaths disproportionately consisted of Sunni residents. Sunni residents who were displaced from the neighborhoods of Baghdad numbered in the hundreds of thousands, as Shia militias grew in number and size and enacted an ethnic cleansing of the city's Sunni and mixed neighborhoods [26]. Amos [27] called the outcome of the battle for Baghdad the "eclipse of the Sunnis," while Nasr [28] called Iraq "the first Arab Shia state."…”

“…Amos [27] called the outcome of the battle for Baghdad the "eclipse of the Sunnis," while Nasr [28] called Iraq "the first Arab Shia state." Ethnic cleansing had played a major role in changing the balance of power and demography in Baghdad [26].…”

U.S. sociology and the Iraq War

“…The U.S. military soon deposed Iraq's leaders and dismantled its previous governing institutions, establishing itself as a “Coalition Provisional Authority” and undertaking plans to install a new government, oversee the creation of a new constitution and legal system, and grow Iraq's economy through market liberalization (Chandrasekaran, ). Iraqi citizens at the time, however, were rightfully fearful that an outside occupation's dismantling of their nation's authoritarian government would create opportunities for lawlessness and sectarian violence (Hagan, Kaiser, Hanson, & Parker, ). Rather than enacting policies that would reduce sectarian tensions and diminish Iraqi's support for the emerging insurgency, the U.S. government instead promoted the growth of both by disbanding Iraq's national army, creating a mostly Shia‐dominated government in place of the previous government that was controlled by Sunnis, and by responding to insurgent violence with overwhelming force that created widespread property destruction and a high number of civilian casualties (Bacevich, ).…”

The Politics ofIDPEducation Provision: Negotiating identity and schooling in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

“…Identity is central to the conflict in Iraq; many commentators agree that the roots of the current crisis can be found in the sectarian political system perpetuated by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (Laub and Masters, 2014;Gulmohamad, 2014;Hagan et al, 2015;Stansfield, 2014). Maliki's political marginalization of Sunni leaders and sectarian command of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) led to anti-government protest movements in Sunni areas such as Anbar and Salah ad-Din in 2013 (Adnan, 2014;Katzman, 2014).…”