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The Government of Iraq (GoI) and the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq have used microfinance institutions (MFIs) as part of their counterinsurgency campaign. This raises several questions. What role can MFIs play in counterinsurgency? Are the economic or civilian and military motivations for supporting microfinance convergent or divergent? What constraints does conflict impose on microfinance borrowers, lenders, and institutions and how can an MFI ameliorate these constraints? Analyzing these issues is the core of this chapter.

This chapter provides an in-depth examination of the quality assurance process in the higher education system of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) in terms of standards, processes, and procedures. More specifically, the chapter aims to examine the impact of the quality assurance process on the quality development of education in Iraq and Kurdistan Region, as well as identify the challenges that staff (top management and faculty members) face at various higher education institutions therein. For this purpose, a qualitative/quantitative analysis was conducted, which involved reviewing existing official policies, reports, and forms; interviewing top officials (presidents, vice-presidents, quality assurance directors) at a few higher education institutions (public and private); and developing a survey questionnaire that detected the perspective of top officials and faculty members regarding the level of impact quality assurance has had on the development of higher education. A total of 284 university staff members were surveyed from different universities in Iraq and Kurdistan. A total of 29 universities from Iraq and Kurdistan were represented in the survey. The respondents came from a variety of colleges and departments at public and private universities, with 79% of respondents coming from public universities. Study results demonstrate that quality assurance has contributed significantly to the improvement of university staff performance. There are a number of recommendations made within this chapter for educational leaders, which could lead to the further development of quality practices and the upgrading of the higher education system.

This chapter uses an analytic procedure to uncover how Saddam Hussein made his past decisions, and the decision rule(s) Saddam adopted in choosing his actions. In analyzing Saddam, a leader who was considered one of the most formidable enemies of the Western world, this study utilizes official recordings captured at the Iraq war, which provide a reliable source of information. This chapter adds to the literature on the use of applied decision analysis (ADA) in analyzing leaders’ decisions.

Specifically, an emphasis is placed on the importance of understanding the process that led Saddam Hussein to his key decisions, in order to create his decision profile. Decision profiles describe the decision rules and models that are used by decision-makers en route to choice and can help understand and predict decisions of world leaders. I use the ADA procedure to examine key foreign policy decisions made by Saddam Hussein. Finally, after thoroughly examining each of these decisions, I attempt to uncover what decision rule Saddam used, and elaborate on the implications and recommendations of my analysis.

This chapter investigates the use of prospective (i.e., future oriented) narratives as rhetorical devices in public discourse. Drawing on recent narrative research and Northrop Frye's discussion of generic narrative forms in literature, I contrast the classic Romantic Narrative of America's occupation of Iraq presented in President Bush's State of the Union Addresses (SUAs) over the last 6 years of his presidency with the alternative narrative projected in the Democratic Party's formal responses to those addresses. My analysis demonstrates how Bush's story of America's actions in Iraq was constructed through the course of those speeches – by exploiting both narrative form and temporality – and how it constrained the articulation of counter narratives by the Democrats. The results support the general thesis that, by virtue of a neo-rhetoric centered around strategic frames and culturally resonant narratives, the Bush Administration in particular and conservatives in general successfully dictated public discourse on important national issues.

Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the international community took vigorous, unprecedented steps to curb Saddam Hussein's military ambitions. The central component of these actions was a set of comprehensive arms, aviation, maritime, and economic sanctions, each imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). When the multinational coalition forces ousted Iraq from Kuwait the following year, the UNSC made these sanctions and embargoes a component of the armistice agreement. Over time, these sanctions were subsequently used as leverage to press for Iraqi compliance with relevant UNSC resolutions calling for Iraqi disarmament.¹

This study investigates patterns of violence employed by insurgents killing civilians living in small ethnic enclaves located in Ninewa Province, Iraq from 2003 to 2009. The ethnic minorities in these communities include: (1) Yazidis in Sinjar District, (2) Chaldo-Assyrian Christians in the Ninewa Plains and, (3) the Turkmen enclave of Tal Afar. To date, there has been little investigation into violence directed toward small ethnic enclaves during civil war, though some have suggested that ethnic enclaves might insulate civilians from violence (Kaufmann, 1996). Using fatality data from the Iraq Body Count, this study compares the patterns of insurgent violence directed toward these enclave communities to co-ethnic and mixed-ethnic communities. The experiences of the enclaves were varied – some were largely insulated from attacks – but when attacked, the average number killed was greater and more indiscriminate as compared to communities with significant Arab populations. One possible explanation for these differences is that insurgents did not regard these citizens as being “convertible,” which caused them to employ violence in a more indiscriminate manner. When insurgents did act to secure control of enclave communities, they used indiscriminate forms of violence against civilians, as compared to more selective forms of violence employed when controlling co-ethnic communities.

Iraqi universities in the aftermath of invasion in 2003 experienced extremely high levels of “post”-war violence and insecurity. The most widely known dimension of this violence is the shocking assassination campaign that killed hundreds of Iraqi academics. This paper provides an analysis of violence and insecurity in post-2003 that takes a broader optic and considers multiple forms of vulnerability to attack including insurgencies, sectarian conflict, and criminal violence. It also considers the various responses to the security dilemma taken by Coalition forces – principally counter-terrorism and stabilization efforts – and by Iraqi policy-makers and higher education communities, including security measures, politicization, ethno-sectarianization, and displacement.