From Desolation to Reconstruction

Mokhtar Lamani is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), specializing in international affairs and conflict resolution. He is the former Special Representative of the Arab League in Iraq and Ambassador of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to the UN. His most recent publications include the CIGI Special Report: Minorities in Iraq: The Other Victims (2009).Bessma Momani is an associate professor at the University of Waterloo and Senior Fellow at CIGI, specializing on the Middle East and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She is the author of Twentieth-Century World History (2007), IMF-Egyptian Negotiations (2005), the CIGI-CIC Special Report: The Future of International Monetary Fund: A Canadian Perspective (2009), and is the co-editor of Canada and the Middle East (WLUP, 2007). Dr. Momani has also published a dozen scholarly articles in numerous political and economic academic journals.

``Mokhtar Lamani and Bessma Momani have assembled a very useful and compelling collection of essays about today's Iraq. They focus mostly on internal factors that affect national identity and social cohesion-both hard to achieve, given the centrifugal forces always at play in the territory called Iraq. But outsiders are also assessed here, from the donors who are hard at work on reconstruction, the neighbours who threaten and are threatened by events in Iraq, and ideas from the global community that may help Iraqis reinvent their society and politics.'' -- Ellen Laipson, President and CEO, and Director of Southwest Asia Project,Stimson Center; Member of President Obama's Intelligence AdvisoryBoard

• From Desolation to Reconstruction: Iraq's Troubled Journey, edited by Mokhtar Lamani and Bessma MomaniAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction Mokhtar Lamani and Bessma MomaniIraq under Siege: Politics, Society and Economy, 1990-2003 Peter SluglettInching Forward: Iraqi Federalism at Year Four David CameronThe Struggle for Autonomy and Decentralization: Iraqi Kurdistan David Romano Armed Forces Based in Iraqi Kurdistan: A Lens to Understand the Post-Saddam Era Maria FantappiéThe Extinction of Iraqi Minorities: Challenge or Catastrophe? Mokhtar LamaniIraq's Economy and Its Brain Drain after the 2003 Invasion Joseph SassoonIRFFI: A Multi-Donor Initiative Carla Angulo-Pasel Iraq's Tangled Web of Debt Restructuring Bessma Momani and Aidan GarribThe Iraq War and (Non)Democratization in the Arab World Rex BrynenDebating the Issues: A Roundtable Report Carla Angulo-PaselReinventing Iraq: Binding the Wounds, Reconstructing a Nation Nathan C. FunkList of ContributorsIndexContributors' BiosCarla Angulo-Pasel is a Research Officer at The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), where she coordinates global and human security projects and oversees North American governance projects. She holds a Master of Arts degree in political science, specializing in international relations, from Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research interests focus on the implications of intra-state conflict on internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees.Rex Brynen is Professor of Political Science at McGill University. He has authored, edited, or co-edited eight books on Middle East politics, including, Persistent Permeability? Regionalism, Localism, and Globalization in the Middle East (Ashgate, 2004) and Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World (Lynne Rienner, 1995 and 1998).David Cameron, FRSC, is Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. His professional career has been divided between public service—in Ottawa and at Queen's Park, Ontario—and academic life. A long-time student of Canadian federalism and Quebec nationalism, in the last decade he has turned his attention to ethno-cultural relations and constitution making in emerging or potential federal countries, such as Iraq and Sri Lanka.Maria Luisa Fantappié graduated from the department of Middle Eastern studies at Sciences po Paris with an MPhil dissertation about the role of irregular armed forces for state rebuilding in post-Saddam Iraq (2009). She is currently a PhD candidate at Sciences Po Paris and continuing her research about state rebuilding and the army establishment in contemporary Iraq.Nathan C. Funk, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Waterloos Conrad Grebel University College, with previous appointments at American University and George Washington University. His writings on international affairs, the Middle East, and peace building include Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam (University Press of America, 2001), Ameen Rihani: Bridging East and West (University Press of America, 2004), and Islam and Peacemaking in the Middle East (Lynne Rienner, 2009).Aidan Garrib is a Senior Risk Analyst with an investment firm in Toronto. He completed his MA in International Political Economy with a dissertation examining the reorientation of Canadian economic interests from protectionism to free trade. In addition to his MA, Aidan Garrib holds degrees in economics and political science, during which he analyzed competition in energy markets and the politics of international trade.Mokhtar Lamani is a Senior Visiting Fellow at The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), specializing in international affairs and conflict resolution. He is the former Special Representative of the Arab League in Iraq and Ambassador of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to the UN. His most recent publications include the CIGI Special Report: Minorities in Iraq: The Other Victims (2009).Bessma Momani is Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo and Senior Fellow at The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), specializing on the Middle East and IMF. She is the author of Twentieth Century World History (Nelson Education, 2007), IMF-Egyptian Negotiations (American University in Cairo Press, 2005), the CIGI-CIC Special Report: The Future of International Monetary Fund: A Canadian Perspective (2009) and is the co-editor of Canada and the Middle East (WLUP, 2007). Dr. Momani has also published a dozen scholarly articles in numerous political and economic academic journals.David Romano is Assistant Professor of International Studies at Rhodes College and a Senior Research Fellow at the Inter-University Consortium for Arab and Middle East Studies. In addition to numerous articles on Middle East politics, the Kurdish issue, forced migration, political violence, and globalization, he is the author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2006). He has spent several years studying and conducting field research in Turkey, Iraq and Israel/Palestine, in addition to briefer research trips to other parts of the Middle East.Joseph Sassoon, a Senior Associate Member at St. Antony's College Oxford, is currently a Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University. His recent book, The Iraqi Refugees: The New Crisis in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) deals with Iraqi refugees after the 2003 invasion. Other publications under his name include Economic Policy in Iraq, 1932-1950 (Frank Cass, 1987), and he has also written articles on Iraq and other Middle Eastern economies.Peter Sluglett is Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. In addition to over 80 articles on Iraq, he is the author of Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country (I.B. Tauris, 2007) and co-author of Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship (I.B. Tauris, 2001)