The following is the second of five in the Surface Rot series. They are taken from essays I wrote in 2020. They were written as a provocation for a history and theory seminar led by former politician Dennis McShane: No Empire, No Europe, Soon No United Kingdom? The Coming Crisis of Britain’s Future at the Architectural Association in London.

Page from a compilation of fatwas from Safavid Persia, late 17th century

The Occupation Authorities are not entitled to name members of the assembly charged with drafting the constitution... There is no guarantee that such a convention will draft a constitution which upholds the Iraqi people’s interest and expresses their National identity.

Fatwa issued by Ayotollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, June 2003

Mythological Democracy: In June 2003, The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) transitional government, after removing Saddam Hussein three months earlier, faced a crisis in their state building project, Iraq. The US had constructed the CPA of US personnel, holding executive, legislative and judicial power over the territory. The above Fatwa issued by Sistani, came as a surprise to Paul Bremer (leader of CPA) who had expected the federal system to be welcomed by the country with open arms. Caroleen Sayej in a lecture on the Ayotallahs and democracy in Iraq, clarifies the challenge of importing democracy to the region. The challenge was not presented by the Kurds who had wanted independence since the 1920, nor by the secular Nationalists returning in 2003, nor the Sunnis whose 80 years of rule had ended. The challenge was set by the Shiite clerics, which may seem largely counter intuitive, for they have over 60% majority of the country (over 15 million strong). They could easily have shaped the country themselves, but instead committed to democracy, pluralism and human rights. Quite simply, the clerics challenged Bremmer and the CPA to uphold democracy.

US administrator Paul Bremer in Hillah, Iraq, in 2004 (Getty Images)

If we look at any plan of Iraq used to understand its boundaries, we see Mosul to the North (Kurd), Baghdad at the centre (Sunnis) and Basra to the South (Shiite). This understanding of the division of Iraq is artificial, as is the Western attitude towards the Middle East. Winston Churchill is famed to have crafted the states divisions with numerous drunken lines after a long meal. These zigzagging assumptions led the US in 2003 to believe that the Shiites (the majority) will need to be saved after the removal of their leader (Hussain) left them headless. A federal state structure was introduced by the then Senator Joe Biden in 2007. What followed was a series of revolts as many felt they had been secularised, dismissing the ethno-secular symbols projected onto the masses. The US and UK were left with a remarkably familiar question, to leave or to remain. The war democracy machine left in 2011, knowing that there was never such a tripartite vision of Iraq, it was myth of democracy.

The power facilities at Baiji, severely damaged by bombing in the 1991 Gulf War, which destroyed 80% of the facilities. (ConstructionWeekOnline)

Futile/Fertile Matter. Decay by default:

Immersed in the undercover of decay, dimensions and metrons deteriorate beneath the machinery of rot.

The process of decay is to lose any distinction between what is soft and solid. Negarestani’s, Cyclonopedia is occasionally narrated by a fictional character, a Middle Eastern critic known as Parsani. He writes three enigmas / controllers / constants one must understand in approaching the Middle East:

1. The degeneration of the whole in the absence of complete erasure or destruction (referred to as poromechanics and ()hole complex).
2. Petrological reason and the geo-politics of petropolitical undercurrents (referred to as Tellurian Lube).
3. The enigma of openness on ail levels of economics, politics, religion, life, communication, etc.

Negarestani’ concludes that if the contemporary Middle East evades socio-economic and political reformation, it is to do so by betraying its death in acceptance of decay. Did the Shiite population of Iraq challenge the US to install democratic federal state systems as a move to ensure infrastructural control over the country? A system allowing another system in, to further fester the weak links of democracy in the region. ‘Decay can extract softness from despotism, political persistence from the abolition of utilisable power’, and results in the failure of any tactics that aim to control it. Iraq has become a testing lab, not for democracy but for the endurance of the structures pre-existing within the Middle East. We are still connected to this decaying entity, as once in contact its ‘non-fragmentary disintegration in which everything remains connected [...] is preserved in the absence of consolidated dimensions and coherent measures.’ Any chance of subversion or disconnection from the decay is part of the process, the ‘ontology is, so to speak, merely a superficial symptom of chemistry’.

A Palace [Shawn Yuan/Al Jazeera]

A boy cycling past an oil field aflame ahead of Mosul offensive in Qayyarah, Iraq. Carl Court/ Getty Images

Iraq and its default of decay provides a clear example of the infrastructure of decay/ the decay of infrastructure. The CPA aimed to maintain control through regulation and maintenance of democracy outside of its own body. Exterior forces (the US and UK occupants) after the second gulf, subverted the relationship of decay with the introduction of the federal system as new infrastructure, aiming to reboot the operating system, but instead playing a crucial role in the process of disintegration, resulting in collapse.

We need to learn from this strategic failure to understand processes of decay in Iraq and acknowledge the global presence of wholesome planetary decay in the Anthropocene.

Brexit could mark a pivotal moment for this relationship and our role within the overall planetary system, as the UK repositions itself.

Reference

1. Caroleen Sayej, professor of Government and International Relations at Connecticut College in New London, CT.
2. 5  Negarestani, Cyclonopedia, (repress, 2008), 188.