Magister Legum - LLM / The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a jihadist militant group. The members of this militant group have committed criminal acts of unspeakable cruelty. These staggering criminal conducts are documented by the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and media. Besides, the group itself gives first-hand information through social media and its magazine. Having witnessed the atrocities committed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the United Nations Security Council affirmed that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s conduct in Syria and Iraq is a threat to international peace and security. Therefore, the media and various role players have called for the intervention of International Criminal Court. This research paper analyses whether the International Criminal Court is a viable prosecutorial option to account the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members for their crimes. For the Court to be a viable prosecutorial avenue, it must have a jurisdiction. Accordingly, this research paper critically examines whether the International Criminal Court has subject matter, personal and/or territorial jurisdictions to try the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant perpetrators. The study concludes that although the criminal conducts by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members constitute crimes under the Rome Statute, the Court, however, has limited jurisdictional reach over the perpetrators. It is submitted that with a limited and fragmented territorial and personal jurisdictional reach over the perpetrators, the Court is not a viable prosecutorial avenue. / German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Since the start of the Iraq conflict, world-renowned security expert Paul Rogers has produced a series of monthly reports scrutinising developments in the occupation and the Iraqi response to it, drawing on the unique range of contacts and material available to the prestigious Oxford Research Group. They have become the standard source material for journalists, policymakers and campaigners writing about Iraq. Now, for the first time, Paul Rogers has brought these reports together to provide a detailed and authoritative analysis of the last year in Iraq. A disturbing picture emerges, in which coalition forces repeatedly misread the direction of the insurgency, in which radical groups gain strength through the ongoing (and underreported) loss of civilian lives at the hands of the occupying forces, and in which the US's determination to secure the Persian Gulf's oil and gas resources lock it further and further into a destructive, intractable, and ultimately counter-productive war in the Middle East. Concisely-written and highly accessible, "Iraq and the War on Terror" is an indispensable book for anyone interested the Middle East, US foreign policy and international security. Its conclusions about the extent of the damage caused by the war, and how long the occupation looks set to last, will send shockwaves through policymakers in the US and the UK alike.

This dissertation analyzes the Iraqi reconstruction period, including two pivotal moments in 2005, the ratification of the new constitution and the democratic elections, to examine issues of identity and sectarianism in Iraq. The following analysis will assist in the demystification of Iraqi sectarianism, understood to be the manifestation of an identity struggle between Sunni and Shi’a groups within Iraq, and connect this phenomenon to issues of hegemony and democracy. The discussion of Sunni and Shi‘i relations in Iraq as it relates to the Iraqi reconstruction period involves numerous areas of discipline including politics surrounding the invasion and occupation, the history of Iraq, democratic principles, secularization, democracy, and its role Islam, and of course sectarianism to name a few. These topics are supported by King’s theory of postcolonialism, aspects of Geertz’s understanding of nationalism, and Weber’s connection of power and status. The impact of the 2003 invasion of Iraq will be understood in reference to Mark Juergensmeyer’s theory of cosmic war which he offers arises when symbols become deadly and the struggle for identity becomes so intense the thought of losing this conflict is unimaginable, therefore manifesting in a conflict that cannot be solved by Western political means. Furthermore, this dissertation addresses the role secularism plays in drafting of the 2005 Iraqi constitution and the following elections. Religious violence is nothing new, and in fact it often has little to do with religion itself; rather it’s a question of political and identity representation and identifies religious violence as a tool to gain power; it is through this lens that this dissertation positions sectarianism. This dissertation provides the groundwork for future projects which highlights the truth of American bias and identity issues while using sectarianism in Iraq as a case study for debunking the myth that religious conflict is prevalent in Islam due to the backward nature of the religion and suggests how dialogue might be useful in this instance. / Religion

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It is difficult to know exactly why leaders and their advisors make decisions. Despite this, scholars have long attempted to gain insight into this largely unintelligible process, especially when the decision is acknowledged by many to be a poor one. In 1972, Irving Janis published a book that intended to explain why groups of seemingly rational and intelligent men could make disastrous decisions, a theory he named groupthink. When groupthink was first introduced, the Vietnam War was provided as an example of the theory in action. Though at the time Vietnam seemed like a plausible case of groupthink, declassified documents now available tell a decidedly different story. It is now evident that Lyndon Johnson agonized over the decision to send combat troops to Vietnam and that he did in fact seek the advice of people with an array of opinions on the best course of action in Vietnam. The application of groupthink to Vietnam becomes even weaker when compared to the cogent role groupthink played in the Iraq War. The Iraq War not only displayed symptoms of groupthink at an executive level, but precipitated it down into the lowest levels of government and the American people. Consequently, the Iraq War has thus far manifested itself as the most potent case of groupthink documented in modern times. While many of the symptoms found in Vietnam could be construed as coincidental, much of the groupthink symptoms found in the case of Iraq appear to be the result of careful calculation by the Bush administration.

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The 2003 invasion of Iraq was one of the great blunders in American foreign policy. This thesis examines Neoconservative thought and policy, and its effect on the nation and state building effort in Iraq. It provides an analysis of the Iraqi Constitution and uses the faults of the Constitution to paint a picture of the larger instabilities and difficulties in Iraq today.

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