Introduction to Geopolitics

Activity
Consider the movie releases in your hometown over the past, say, six weeks. 
• Who were the enemies or “baddies” portrayed in the movies? 
• Do they represent, either overtly or subtly, real world countries or other geo-
political agents? 
• Who do the “goodies” represent? 
• What were the nationalities of the actors who played the “goodies” and the
“baddies”?
• Consider the gender roles in the movies; can you trace geopolitical messages
akin to the interpretation of the biblical epics we discussed earlier?

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Derek Gregory (2004, pp. 197–214) talks of this development at length; noting the inter-
active websites of 
USA Today
and the 
Washington Post
that allowed you to point and
click over Baghdad, retrieve “details” of the targets, and keep track of the war by seeing
photos before and after the bombs were dropped. At the same time, the images were
almost completely empty of pictures of human suffering and carnage. Someone in
Birmingham, Alabama or Birmingham, UK could “repeat the military reduction of the
city to a series of targets, and so become complicit in its destruction—and yet at the
same time . . . refuse the intimacy of corporeal engagement” (Gregory, 2004, p. 205).
Geopolitics has become just another computer game of killing the bad guys, only in this
case the victims are not just computer-animated figures they are absent. The essential
point that Gregory is making by focusing on websites and computer games is that
Orientalist representations are now something that the general public actively partici-
pate in and help create rather than being “fed.”
At the same time, death and suffering is officially absent, in a breach from historic
military practice the deaths of enemy combatants and non-combatants were not counted
in the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent insurgency. Gregory’s use of blunt official
statements is most effective: “we do not look at combat as a scorecard” and “[w]e are
not going to ask battlefield commanders to make specific reports on battlefield casual-
ties” (Gregory, 2004, p. 207). From the Western perspective, contemporary war can be
a computer game, just as long as you do not keep track of the human consequences:
maybe it is the only computerized conflict available that does 
not
allow you to count
points!
However, in a time of electronic and globalized media, alternative visions are avail-
able. The Al-Jazeera satellite television was broadcasting images of carnage in Iraq
across the Arab world; broadcasting pictures described by its editorial staff as “the 
horror of the bombing campaign, the blown-out brains, the blood-spattered pavements,
the screaming infants and the corpses” (Gregory, 2004, p. 208). In a change from 
the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Orientalist situation described by Said, the
technology to broadcast the story of the victims is now possible. However, the legacy
of Orientalism lies not just in the ability to broadcast, but what gets seen and how it is
interpreted. Here the Western powers still have some advantage. Images from sources
other than CNN, BBC, or ITN, etc., are easily dismissed as “cinematic agitprop,” or
stories reported “from the enemy side.”
The geopolitical code of the world leader has always required a cultural complement
to give it meaning that encourages popular support. As technology has changed then so
has the role of the public: becoming “embedded” in such a way that the creation and
consumption of geopolitical information becomes blurred (der Derian, 2001). But also,
the ability for the “colonized” to speak back and give their own version has been
enhanced too. The Internet is a means for people across the globe to be given the perspec-
tive of what it feels like to be “liberated” (see Box 4.3). Within Modelski’s (1987) model
of world leadership, the cultural message of “leadership” is still touted, but there are
alternative interpretations too, making some attempt to undermine a singular view of
the world as needing and requesting a benevolent US presence.
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Case study 4.1: Saddam Hussein’s use of Arab nationalism 
and Islam to justify in the 1991 Gulf War
The 2003/4 war on Iraq was initiated by the United States within the parameters of the
“War on Terrorism,” a key component of its geopolitical code. This war must also be
seen as a continuation of an earlier conflict, the Gulf War of 1991 when the US
responded to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait in order to maintain the political status
quo in the Middle East and counter Saddam Hussein’s attempts to enhance Iraq’s power.
Looking at Saddam Hussein’s use of political rhetoric during the Gulf War provides
insights into key ingredients of Arab geopolitical codes as well as the tools used in an
attempt to justify the invasion of Kuwait to Iraqis and the wider Arab population.
Underlying Hussein’s actions and rhetoric were the politics of Arab nationalism
(Figure 4.4). Arab nationalism can be viewed in two ways. First, as exemplified by
Gamal Nasser (president of Egypt from 1954–70), Arab nationalism was a political
agenda focusing upon Arab unity, a common nation of Arabs that would come together
to resist external control by France, Great Britain, and the US, fight the state of Israel,
and provide peace and prosperity for the Arab world. As part of this process, Syria and
Egypt were united for a brief political moment between 1958 and 1961 when they
formed the United Arab Republic. The politics of this expression of Arab nationalism
was modern and secular, in opposition to traditional Islamic conservatives (see Khashan,
2000 and Mansfield, 1992 for more on Arab nationalism).
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Box 4.3 Baghdad blog
For me, April 9 was a blur of faces distorted with fear, horror and tears. All
over Baghdad you could hear shelling, explosions, clashes, fighter planes,
the dreaded Apaches and the horrifying tanks tearing down the streets and
highways. Whether you loved Saddam or hated him, Baghdad tore you to
pieces. Baghdad was burning. Baghdad was exploding. . . . Baghdad was
falling . . . it was a nightmare beyond anyone’s power to describe. Baghdad
was up in smoke that day, explosions everywhere, American troops crawling
all over the city, fires, looting, fighting and killing. Civilians were being
evacuated from one area to another, houses were being shot at by tanks, cars
were being burned by Apache helicopters. . . . Baghdad was full of death
and destruction on April 9. Seeing tanks in your city, under any circum-
stances, is perturbing. Seeing foreign tanks in your capital is devastating.
April 9, 2003 was the day Baghdad was declared to be under the control of
American troops. The quote is from the weblog of Riverbend, an Iraqi woman,
quoted in Gregory, 2004, p. 213.

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However, the lifespan of the United Arab Republic was brief. It fell apart because
of another expression of Arab nationalism, that each Arab state should be an independ-
ent sovereign state. The geographic scale of Arab nationalism has, in practice, been
centered upon separate national interests. However, as we will see in the rhetorical
politics of the 1991 Gulf War, the idea of the unified Arab world was still a backdrop
to the politics of the Middle East.
The catalyst for Arab nationalism, in the sense of Arab unity, was the establishment
of the state of Israel in 1948, and the consequent wars with Arab states (we will discuss
the Arab-Israel conflict in more detail in Chapter 6). Israeli victories in the consequent
wars of 1967 and 1973 led to a feeling of Arab humility, and further derailed the unity
of Arab nationalism as individual countries made peace with Israel and also allied them-
selves with the United States, while others proclaimed their anti-Israeli and anti-colonial
credentials in the name of Arab nationalism.
Two countries that remained hostile to Israel and the United States were Syria and
Iraq. These two countries shared the Baa’thist political ideology, a combination of
nationalism and socialism that had its philosophical roots in European left-wing politics.
In that sense, it was an imported political ideology that aimed for the secular modern-
ization of the Arab world in order to fight Israel and resist outside “colonial” influence,
especially the presence of the United States. As we discuss the geopolitical code of
Saddam Hussein, it is important to note that at the outset the Baa’thist philosophy was
opposed to conservative fundamentalist Islamic political ideologies, but emphasized an
Arab path to modern society.
Before the conflict with Kuwait, Iraq’s geopolitics had centered upon its conflict with
Iran, during which it was supported by the United States of America. After the over-
throw of the pro-Western Shah of Iran in 1979 by the fundamentalist Islamic regime of
Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein’s war with his Persian neighbor was seen as a
means to prevent Iran expanding its influence in the region. The Iran–Iraq war lasted
eight years (1980–8). Estimates of the number of casualties vary, but it is thought that
the Iranian dead amounted to between 400,000 and 600,000 and the Iraqis suffered
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Figure 4.4
The Arab world.

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approximately 150,000 casualties (Brogan, 1990, p. 263). The war ended in a stalemate,
but the situation was enough for Hussein to claim a “victory” to his people. To main-
tain his political legitimacy, Hussein emphasized border disputes with Kuwait but used
the rhetoric of Arab nationalism.
Iraq and Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman Empire, but Great Britain had estab-
lished de facto protectorate control over Kuwait before the final Ottoman collapse. 
At the end of the nineteenth century Britain’s policy was to control the Persian Gulf,
and though it had no real interest in controlling Kuwait its policy was to exclude 
other powers. Of special concern to the British was the influence of the Ottoman allies
Germany and, to a lesser extent, Russia. What was at issue was the discussion of a
railway from Baghdad to the Gulf, which was seen by the British as a means of extend-
ing German influence in the region. The key question was where on the Persian Gulf 
coast would the railway end? To cut a long story short, Britain aimed to determine the
location of the railhead by defining Kuwait’s borders in such a way as to control the
mouth of the Shatt el Arab and make Basra, in Ottoman Iraq, an unattractive choice for
the rail terminal (Schofield, 2003).
But the view from Iraq was different, and remained a viable political stance for Iraqis
through the twentieth century. In Hussein’s interpretation Kuwait was part of the
Ottoman province under the authority of Basra. In this logic, Kuwait should be part of
Iraq as Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman territory controlled by what is now an Iraqi
city. Both the logic and the historical interpretation were false. Ottoman control of
Kuwait had not really ever existed, and it was outmaneuvered in its political claims to
the territory by the British. However, historical record was not the concern of Saddam
Hussein, his targeting of Kuwait rested more upon his interpretation of a contemporary
material concern, oil (Schofield, 2003; Slot, 2003).
Kuwait possesses the fourth largest oil reserves in the world, behind Saudi Arabia,
Iraq, and Iran (World Oil, 2003). In the rhetoric of Hussein, Kuwait “owed” Iraq because
of the service it had performed in fighting a war for all Arabs against Iran. With 
$40 million of debt from the war, Hussein was looking for political glory by receiving
thanks for his efforts from his Arab brothers, but also a fraternal injection of cash to his
war-ravaged economy. Neither was forthcoming. And so, Hussein portrayed the Kuwaiti
regime as misusing their oil fortune. Rather than sharing oil wealth among the Arab
nation, in the form of a regional sharing of wealth, the Kuwaiti elite were, according 
to Hussein, taking the money out of Kuwait and spending it in an immoral manner. 
By invading Kuwait, Hussein asserted that he would be claiming Kuwaiti oil reserves
for the benefits of all Arabs. In reality, if the invasion had been successful Iraq could
have dominated the world’s oil production.
The material aspect of Hussein’s geopolitical code was domination of the Persian
Gulf oil reserves in order to counter the costs of the Iran–Iraq war and provide the
economic basis for dominance in the region. These actions were justified, with special
focus on the whole Arab world, by framing material concerns within Arab nationalist
rhetoric and language of religious identity and conflict in the name of Islamic brother-
hood (Figure 4.5).
One ingredient of Hussein’s message was Arab unity in which oil wealth was
portrayed as a common resource being stolen by the wealthy and immoral emirs (Long,
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2004, p. 29). Hussein claimed he would facilitate an Arab nation that “will return to 
its rightful position only through real struggle and holy war to place the wealth of the
nation in the service of its noble objectives” (quoted in Long, 2004, p. 29). In a clever
turn of phrase, this was an internal Arab conflict, a