The Al-Anfal Campaign; Genocide or Politicide? A literature study about the basis for the US standpoint towards the Al-Anfal campaign.

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to understand why the US didn’t recognize Al-Anfal campaign to be a genocide. A research question was therefore made: Why did the US reject Al-Anfal campaign as a genocide? To answer this question, the definition of both politicide and genocide had to be clearly defined to understand how a conflict could be categorized. This is in order to understand the US point of view on the conflict, and to make it easier to explain the reasons behind their unrecognition of Al-Anfal campaign being a genocide. By defining and connecting both terms up to the political conflict between the US and Iran, this master thesis will show how the US chose to cooperate strategically with Iraq to fight the Iranian revolution. These connections are important, since they describe the support Saddam Hussein received from US, which gave him the opportunity to make a revenge on Kurds who cooperated with Iran. The conclusion is that the US rejected to recognize Al-Anfal based on their cooperation with Iraq and their view of Al-Anfal as a political conflict.