Description
This presentation deals with the transnational circulation of counterterrorism in the wake of counter-terrorist interventions, during the phase of withdrawal of foreign forces. The point of departure is a field-research carried out in Iraq in the context of the transfer of security operations from US to Iraqi security forces in 2010. The US were departing, leaving behind a catastrophic operation started in the name of counterterrorism, purportedly thanks to their embrace of a less ‘enemy-centric’ and more ‘population-centric counter-insurgency’. Behind the scenes, the main battle was now the one for the reconstitution of Iraqi security forces. In this context the focus of US forces was however primarily on exporting the precise ‘enemy centric counter-terrorist’ approach that had brought Iraq to the brink of catastrophe in 2006. How can this paradox be explained? The question is important because it highlights a broader trend of appropriation of ‘population-centric counter-insurgency’ in the form of ‘enemy centric counter-terrorism’ during US ‘advise and assist’ missions, from Afghanistan to Iraq. Being arbitrary policy-labels, the question is here not whether ‘counter-terrorism’ and ‘counterinsurgency’ are in essence similar or radically different. Rather it is why certain constellations of practices castigated as ‘narrow counterterrorism’ at one moment tend to be reproduced in the context of ‘advise and assist’ missions that claim to learn from past errors. As such, his presentation also provides clues as to the Iraqi aggressive approach that would trigger the advent of ISIS in 2013 and 2014. Focusing on the interaction between ‘trainers’ and ‘trainees’, the explanation that I here suggest focuses on the logics of non-discursive practices and its potential disconnection from 'what is said' in doctrinal discourse.
