The National Park: Reviving Eden in Iraq's Marshes

Abstract

An Argument for EdenIraqi exiles planned to restore southern marshes as country's first national park well before US-led coalition forces invaded and occupied country. By 2007 George Packer, a Yorker reporter, told me marsh restoration had become the success story of war.1 Since 2003 global news agencies have published more than seventy-five stories on marsh revival. Headlines read: Iraq's Eden: Reviving Legendary Marshes, Marshes a Vengeful Hussein Drained Stir Again, Iraq's Marshlands: Resurrecting Iraqi-American Seeks to Restore 'Garden of Eden.'2 Zaid Kubra, an Iraqi exile living in United States, was founder of Green Iraq, NGO leading initiative. I met Kubra for first time in 2004 at a conference entitled Mesopotamian Marshes3 We sat across from each other in a cafe during a break in proceedings and I asked about his efforts. Kubra started working on project he called New in 1999, when he was part of Iraqi opposition movement in exile. Kubra was charming, but direct. He told me he came up with Eden connection for purely political purposes to market wetland conservation in Iraq to a skeptical Western public by highlighting region as site of biblical garden. Kubra told me that his experiences running a company taught him value of marketing; Eden had market value, utopia was sexy.In post-war reconstruction-era Iraq, Eden facilitated economic and political goals of occupation. The environment has historically been an instrument of politics. The European quest for Eden in fifteenth century facilitated colonial purchase over tropical islands of economic import.4 Nineteenth-century democracy building initiatives like US national parks movement conserved nature for republic by forcibly removing Native communities from indigenous lands.5 Contemporary biodiversity campaigns continue imperial tradition by imposing international conservation policy unilaterally across global south, enforcing new regimes of Western governance over non-aligned states.6 In nineteenth-century North Africa, French colonials cited environment as a justification for colonial expansion that displaced indigenous communities. French officials argued that these communities ruined granary of Rome.7 Similarly, in early twentieth-century Iraq, Ottomans first referenced draining of marshes as crucial to restoration of Eden, and with it country's agricultural prosperity in global market. British imperialists continued to champion logic of draining as they encroached on Ottoman territory. In fact, it was British engineer Fred Haigh's 1951 wetland reclamation plans for Irrigation Development Commission that served as blueprint for Saddam Hussein's draining in early 1990s.For United States and coalition partners, creating Iraqi nation anew involved remaking its national environment. National parks commonly index national ideals. They are one way for nations to project images of themselves to their citizens and world.8 Building environmental capacity became part of UN- and US-led Coalition Provisional Authority's national reconstruction plans, which created Iraqi Ministry of Environment after Hussein's fall in April 2003. The US government sup- ported Green marsh restoration as integral to war effort by citing marshes at key political moments. President George W. Bush cited Hussein's draining of marshes as part of his rationale for invasion and occupation of Iraq.9 When Iraq rewrote its constitution, preamble remembered marshes, equating post-Ba'th political participation with marsh memorialization.10 An Iraqi judge charged Hussein with seven crimes at his arraignment, including draining of marshes. Each of these acts validated war as environmental redemption and made deposed president a test case for prosecution of world leaders on basis of environmental crimes. …