| Since the 1970 s,Iraq has been encountering severe water resources challenge to worsen noticeably recently.Although some of these challenges stem from the natural causes,such as climate change and rapid population growth,the water policy of the upstream states is still more influential because about 75% of Iraq's water resources originate from outside its border in the shape of transboundary water.About 42 seasonal and non-seasonal rivers originate from Iran,and the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers spring out in Turkey to cross through Iraq.In the last few decades,Turkey and Iran had more prerogatives over Iraq,particularly after the US-led invasion in 2003.In addition to their position on the upper of the shared rivers,they both have advantages over Iraq in terms of material and bargaining power.As regional hegemons,Turkey and Iran,initiated their hydrological project on these rivers as a part of their national development programs,neglecting Iraq's water right.Nonetheless,the non-hegemonic Iraq,challenges the unequal configuration in the region that benefits Turkey and Iran to bring about a status of preserving its water flow.Thus,this dissertation spins around the question "What are Iraq's tactics and strategies to defy and counter the hydro-hegemonic states in order to maintain its water needs?”.But to answer this question is to understand how the interactions over these rivers occur in the first place.Therefore,the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers(ET)would be taken to understand the hydropolitical relations between Iraq and Turkey.On the other side,the case of the Shatt al-Arab River(SAR)would be chosen to grasp the hydropolitical ties between Iraq and Iran.The empirical results uphold the validity of the hypothesis;“Iraqi hydro-political relation with Turkey and Iran is a subject to the overall political interaction and not a merely technical matter.Although,the overt efforts of the hegemons always push to depoliticise the water issue,yet their implicit aim is to maintain the desirable status quo or achieve their strategic goals.Notwithstanding,to obtain its desirable water quality and quantity from the riparian states,Iraq relies on diverse strategies;ranging from employing oil-exporting and trade,passing upon the issue-linkages,to utilising the international-water-law,and norms”.Notwithstanding,the constructivism approach in IR applies here as the background for the study since it is valuable to track the transformation process of conflict into cooperation and vice versa.Also,it accounts for the formation,change of the state identity,and the demonstration of structure within which states interact.Still,the constructivist approach needs a framework to be functioned.Thus the Framework of hydro-hegemony(FHH)for Mark Zeitouna and Jeroen Warner,and the Framework of Counter-hydro-hegemony(CFHH)for Ana Cascao,respectively,will be applied.While the FHH informs the research about Iraqi hydro-political relation with each of Turkey and Iran,the CFHH highlights Iraqi policy towards the upstream(hegemonic)states.The data and information in this study collected mainly from academic articles,newspapers,and official documents.Too,semi-structured interviews had been conducted with some experts.For this purpose,the qualitative methods will be using because it proved the applicability over a quantitative one;besides,it used mostly by the positive and post-positive approaches.The originality of this dissertation lies in empirical and theoretical contributions.First;this study is exceptional in focusing on both the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers in the context of Iraqi-Turkish relationships.In contrast to the prior studies that mostly emphasized on the Euphrates River.Or they researched the ET in the context of the Syrian-Turkish relationship.Second;despite the SAR has widely been researched,yet they all were concerning engineering and environmental perspectives.Thus this research would fill this gap by investigating the SAR its general political fabric.Third;this thesis has a novelty in highlighting Iraq's counter-hydro-hegemonic strategies in order to preserve the water flow of these rivers.On the other hand,the theoretical findings might be categorized into two mainstay contributions.Firstly,it proves the analytical applicability of the FHH to apply on and analyze the transboundary water which constitutes a border between two sovereign states;the SAR.Secondly,it emphasizes on embedding the hegemon in its rationality in order to comprehend its role and burden,so it distinguishes from the duty of the global hegemony model.The FHH,which is applied here,is based on the two main pillars.First one is the three dimensions of power for Steven Lukes;behavioural,bargaining,and ideational power.The hegemon emphasizes on the third dimension of the power or the ideational power.It attempts to manufacture the compliance of its subject,which consequently digests the state of affairs willingly or believes it has no better alternative.Nonetheless,using behavioral and bargaining power is probable to bring into use.The model of the hegemon is the Gramscian one which based on Robert Cox.This paradigm of hegemon fits flawlessly with the three dimensions of power for Steven Lukes.The Gramscian model of hegemony prefers to employ the non-material power to achieve its strategies,yet the material power is always lurking behind the scene.However,this thesis reintroduces hydro-hegemony as a regional power or hegemon.That implies this regional power has specific burdens derived from its regional environment and has no potentiality to influence more than the states in proximity.Thus,one can assess regional hegemon and its power and would not confuse it with the global once,since the regionality endows the powerful states the descriptions.These descriptions set out as;first,is having more material power than the neighbouring countries,such as military might,economic and technological power.The second feature of the regional hegemon is shaping the preferences of or conditioning its other states which spinning in its orbit.Although producing compliance is a complicated process and timely;nevertheless,once it is achieved,it renders employing the other types of power unnecessary.The third character is recognition which granted not only from the regional states but also from the global system.Regardless of recognition nature which might be as a constructive state like Turkey.Or it is recognized as a destructive like Iran.The first case study is the hydropolitical relation between Iraq and Turkey in terms of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.The research shows how Turkey,since the establishment of the modern state,tried to tame the twin rivers as a part of its ambitious development programs.However,Turkey has always superiority over the regional countries,including Iraq(and Syria).It acted a hegemonic player in different mode matching the historical context with its given variables.In terms of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers,Turkey taking advantages of its geographical position as upstream,and mainly,after constructing a series of dams to compound the water from the downstream states.Besides its military and bargaining power overweigh Iraq and Syria's power.Notwithstanding,the historical track of the bilateral ties reveal that regional and global condition were always mattered to bring them closer or not.Turkey has been engaging with the unification of the country in the first quarter of the last century.Still,it started the national development plans to make from water as an economic value.But water resources didn't rise to a political issue between the riparian states until the 1970 s when Turkey had built the Keban and Karakaya dams on the Euphrates River.An unfortunate coincidence,Syria accomplished Tapqa dam that provoked Iraq to use its military against the former if not released the water that Iraq needs.In 1990,Turkey had cut off the water of the Euphrates River for compounding the Ataturk dam.Accordingly,Iraq realized its vulnerability to Turkey in terms of water resources.However,in the 1990 s Turkish rhetoric was crystal clear to use the water of ET as a national resource;as Arabs have their oil.Although the commercial ties created semi-interdependence between them,Turkey benefited it more than Iraq did.In general,Turkey employed the material power in its relations with Iraq,ranging from its military superiority to joining the NATO and forming alliances to hold water hostage for its various political purposes.After the US invasion,Turkey's foreign policy towards Iraq altered with AKP receiving power in Ankara.It developed the relationships with the Iraqi Sunnis and Kurds to maintain its interests in unstable Iraq as well as to create a buffer zone in the face of the growing Iranian influence.However,AKP attempted to impart its policy of which Islamist principles to Iraq which fitted with its holistic strategy.After all,Ankara controlled the twin rivers entirely for the first time in history to strengthen its leverage in terms of material power.Besides,it started to lean more to the discursive power in the shape of Islamic discourses to deal with Iraq and particularly regarding water management.The second case study is the SAR,which constitutes a border between Iraq and Iran.Allegedly,this river was the main reason for the eight-year war between the two.Several divergences indicate the substantial potential for conflict between the two states.Iran utilized diverse strategies and tactics to realize its domination over SAR;in response,Iraq ruthlessly tried to keep off the former from its only outlet to the sea.Since then,the dispute had been taken various intensities between them;sometimes was manifested explicitly and other time was covert.But always the disputes reflected within the political relation context at large.A bunch of causes have affected SAR water quality and quantity.These factors include climate change,the reduction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers because of constructing hydraulic projects by Turkey,rapid population growth,and water mismanagement practice due to wars and sanctions.Nonetheless,Iranian diversion of the Karun and Karkheh Rivers for Iranian consumption has caused an enormous impact on the people and ecology of the SAR.That has social and ecological repercussions on the Iraqi side of the SAR;many villages and arable societies have been displaced or immigrated because of the drought and high rate of salinity.The more affected city was Basra province which is considered the third biggest city in Iraq,with around four million populations.In contrary,Iraq as a downstream was obsessed with,agriculture and seasonal floods;consequently,it constructed several dams and Barrages.That situation changed after the 1960 s when Turkey began its national development programs made water to be an economic value.In addition to the regional political dynamic,Kurdish question and oil-exporting became more indispensable constitutive factors of the bilateral relations.With the ups and downs in their affairs,Iraq and Turkey never disconnected the connections completely;neither had they reached a typical relationship.This research indicates two periods of hegemonic configurations applied over the SAR.The first period characterized by utilizing hard power such as military mighty,seeking alliances,and shoring up Kurdish insurgencies across the borders.Thus,Iran accomplished its domination over the region around the SAR.That brought Iraq at its knees to sign Algeria Accord 1975.While the Accord was a production of using hard power by Iran,it was broken at a slight alteration in the balance of power.That proved when Iraq had regained its strength,what coincided with the change of the system in Iran by the Islamic revolution in 1979.However,a new order of the second period has sprung up over the SAR.It was characterized by rarely using hard power since the actions based on soft power.Moreover,Iran has gained more momentum in Iraq through supporting Iraq to defeat ISIS that what accomplished by 2017.It has come across as a savior and reached profoundly out minds and hearts of Iraqi people.Evidently,it has the capacity to exert the 'supreme exercise of power' over Iraqi people.Ultimately,the SAR has been shut off from the political discussions as well as blacked it out in media.Although Turkey and Iran consolidated their domination over the ET and SAR respectively,benefiting from the asymmetrical power before Iraq,the latter is by no means powerless.Baghdad used diverse strategies to contest the dual hydrohegemony either to change the form of hegemonic configuration from negative to benign one or to turn the situation into "shared control",if not reaching a persuasive agreement.Iraqi strategies combined constellations of straightforward and indirect tactics against the hydro-hegemonic states,even in crisis time Iraq's narratives resisting the status quo.In contrary to how Ana Cascao described Ethiopia's counter to the hegemonic role of Egypt that composed of "apparent consent" and "veiled contest",Iraq's resistance was almost obvious.Nonetheless,the analysis of the Iraq' counter strategies resembles that of Ethiopia's which described by Cascao.These strategies are active diplomacy,reactive diplomacy,and cooperation,mobilizing international donors,the construction of expertise-based knowledge,discourse alternatives,and claiming for legal principles.Additionally,oil-exporting and trade and social media campaigns will be added too.Notwithstanding,the newfound findings of the thesis that Iraq had various strategies to defy the upstream states,Turkey and Iran,yet,these strategies combine of deliberate and unintentional actions.Moreover,the most effective of those strategies is crude oil.Still,Turkey also used it against Iraq in several occasions,say,in the 1990 s after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait,Turkey shut off Iraqi oil-pipe which crosses through Turkish territory as a punishment for Saddam regime.However,significant of Iraq's capabilities are non-material nature.It ranges from active and reactive diplomacy and international water law to security issues and the rhetoric of cooperation.This Thesis composes of six chapters plus the conclusion as follows:Chapter one provides the brief of topographic water resources of Iraq and the spatial focus,the drainage water of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers as well as Shatt al-Arab waterway,temporal discussion and research gap plus research significance,empirical findings and theoretical contribution,research question,hypothesis,methodology,data collection methods,and research structure.Chapter two is a literature review of the hydro-political studies conducted by the mainstream theories in IR.The first one is the neo-realism in which water is a potential source for inter and intrastate conflict,if not all-out war.At the same time,the neo-liberalism emphasizes on the water as a source for cooperation.In contrary,the constructivism explains the transaction of the conflict to cooperation and vice versa.Chapter three provides the theoretical background of the research.The FHH,FCHH and London Water Research Group(LWRG)would be explained briefly to outline its usefulness for application in this research.These frameworks grounded in the constructivism as it proved its validity to illustrate the complexity of water issues.Chapter four highlights the hydropolitical relations between Iraq and Turkey over the ET.It shows how the interaction between the two states is subject to bilateral ties as well as the regional and global context.However,relations became much softer in the last decades.Chapter five illustrates the hydropolitical relations between Iraq and Iran over the SAR.It shows binary periods of different relationships between the two—the first period characterized by using power by Iran to dominate the SAR.But,the second period Iran utilized the soft power.This soft or hidden power is mostly dependent on the religious discourses.Chapter six explores the strategies that Iraq use in the face of the hegemons' policies to maintain its water needs.Although Iraq is weak,particularly after the USled invasion in 2003,it is still not powerless absolutely.It employs several strategies range from the economic aspect like oil-exporting,passing through bargaining power,to reach using the pretext of international –water-law to maintain its water needs.And finally in chapter seven,we will wrap up with the conclusion of the entire research and highlights some suggestion for promising research. |
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