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Analysis of Securitizing Iraq
Analysis of Securitizing Iraq
The article enlightens the mystery of unexpected and abrupt intensification of security forces in
Iraq by the administration of United States President George W. Bush in year 2003. Moreover, it
examines the concept of securitization by taking into account the case study of United States-Iraq.
In 1998, after the enactment of Liberation Act of Iraq, the policy of US was to overthrow President
Saddam Hussein from his reign in Iraq. Bush came to power in 2001 where in his initial era of
around one and a half years, his approach was to maintain normal politics of international level
rather than securitizing issue. In September 2002, suddenly Iraq turned into a very serious menace
and as per administration of Bush, the regime of Saddam Hussein needed to be knocked down on
urgent basis. On scrutinizing, it was observed that this sudden shift in Bush administration over
security claims does not have very solid foundation. This raised the question of how could a war
occurred with absence of objective threats? This query can be best explained by means of
‘securitization’ concept of Copenhagen School of Security Studies. This concept suggests that
security must instead be understood as an act of speech, in which the fundamental problem is not
whether the threats are real or not, but the means by which an issue (troop arrangements,
relocations) can be publicly portrayed as a threat.
In traditional concept, security is nearly identifying the alleged objective aspects, which
categorically needs to be declared and treated as ‘security’ issue. On contrary, securitization takes
security as a situation that is shaped or generated when entitled about existing menace, which
ultimately leads to deployment. Copenhagen school defines securitization as (I) ‘An act of speech’,
speaking in a way that provokes others to act. (II) ‘Securitize’, a practice in which securitizing
actors try to insert security into matters and ask for rights to take action to halt a threat. (III)
‘Functional Actors’ are those performers who have a meaningful influence on securitizing moves.
Thus, securitization is a conversational process in which an actor claims that reference object is
being threatened, requires that authority must be given in order to take exceptional measures to
counter that threat and persuades public that all the actions being taken to counter that threat are
legitimate. To cut short, in order to dramatize the situation, political actors proclaim the matter as
a security issue that needs to be resolved on priority basis by inserting security. The intention of
the article is to examine the explanatory significance of this theoretical framework.