The Iraq War UNSC Debate: A Forum For Hegemonic And Counter Hegemonic Struggles

1

The UNSC Iraq War Debate:

A Forum for Hegemonic and Counter Hegemonic Struggles

by

Rima Saydjari Bey

Submitted for the degree of Dr. of Philosophy

Department of Linguistics and English Language

Lancaster University

2

Abstract

The March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq – conducted without the authorization of the United

Nations Security Council (UNSC) – represents a failure of the institution in carrying out its

mission, and an act of self-serving aggression on another member state by the US, which

contradicts its duties as prescribed in the UN Charter (Articles II to IV).

The process and conclusion of the UNSC Iraq War debate of 2003 was obstructed by the US-led

interruption of the Security Council’s due decision-making process and the institutionally

unsanctioned invasion of Iraq. This study centrally purports to examine the argumentation and

linguistic means through which domination and resistance were enacted via the American, Iraqi,

Syrian and French contributions to the deliberative process.

Using the socio-cognitive approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the pragma-

dialectical approach to argumentative discourse, I pursue a normative and explanatory

assessment of the four contributions to determine their legitimacy according to institutionally

defined norms and standards. An ideological analysis of argumentative discourse is carried out

using the rules of an ideal model of a critical discussion and by providing interpretations

informed by the socio-cognitive approach to CDA. The American contributions to the UNSC

discourse are found to be hegemonic in nature, where persuasive and coercive means are used to

reach unilateral goals propagated as consensual. The other contributions are found to resist such

attempts by appealing to institutional values and goals. Two are also found to seek to expose the

paradoxical policies and illegitimate acts carried out by the hegemon in this context, although

themselves hegemonic in other contexts. Another is found to be seeking to preserve the current

3

world order as embodied in the Charter of the UN and to maintain the unity of the Council in

resolving world crises.

The wider implications of the process and outcome of the UNSC Iraq War debate are of grave

consequences – not only to the people of Iraq, but to the Middle East as a whole and to the

resolution of other current and future humanitarian crises in the world, as can be shown through

a normative critique.

4

Acknowledgements

This thesis has been a companion through a long and eventful journey. Undoubtedly, it is the

most challenging work I have had to complete so far, with the distractions imposed by two local

wars, neighboring uprisings and revolutions, a current version of war on terror, the passing of

loved ones, and the wonderful birth of my youngest daughter.

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my thesis supervisor, Dr.

Veronika Koller, who has provided me with guidance and support throughout the good part of

this journey. I would be amiss not to thank Dr. Jane Sunderland for her invaluable mentorship

and input during her interim supervision while Dr. Koller was away. A special thanks and

heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Isabella Ietҫu –Fairclough, who provided me with thorough and

invaluable insights and direction in the analysis of practical argumentation. Further thanks are

due to Professor Greg Myers for his guidance on the notion of hegemony.

To my loving husband Rashad, to his many sacrifices, his care and consideration through many

years, I give my most profound and heartfelt gratitude. Without him the completion of this thesis

would not have been possible.

To my wonderful children Adnan, Ammar and Jenna I give my utmost appreciation for their

unwavering love and support- particularly Jenna, who has been extremely mature, understanding,

loving and caring for her 6 young years.

Last but not least my sincere thanks to the three compassionate and supportive women in my life,

who have all stood by me throughout this project and inspired me to never give up: my sister

Lina, my sister in-law Rasha, and my distinguished and generous mother-in-law Kariman.

This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my dear and loving parents, Dr. and Mrs. Farid

Saydjari.

5

Table of Contents

THE UNSC IRAQ WAR DEBATE: ................................................................................................................... 1

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................ 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................................... 4

LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................................................. 8

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................................. 9

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 10

1.1 PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION ..................................................................................................................... 10 1.2 FOUNDATIONS OF THE RESEARCH ............................................................................................................ 13 1.3 RESEARCH TOPIC, IMPORTANCE AND JUSTIFICATION ................................................................................... 15 1.4 RESEARCH APPROACH ............................................................................................................................ 20 1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS .................................................................................................................... 21

CHAPTER 2 - HISTORICAL AND CONCURRENT CONTEXTUALIZATIONS OF THE 2003 IRAQ WAR AND THE DEBATE ON IT ..................................................................................................................................... 23

2.1 HISTORICAL CONTEXTUALIZATION OF THE IRAQ WAR ................................................................................ 24 2.1.1 Views of the Arab World as shaped by historical events .................................................................. 24 2.1.2 An international crisis transformed into a two-enemies crisis.......................................................... 26

2.2 THE EVOLVING CONTEXTS OF THE UNSC DEBATE ..................................................................................... 29 2.2.1 The making of UNSC Resolution 1441 ............................................................................................. 30 2.2.2 The UNMOVIC and IAEA progress reports ............................................................................................ 31 2.2.3 International official and popular reactions .................................................................................... 32

CHAPTER 3 - LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK............................................... 35

3.1 RESORTING TO WAR UNDER THE NORMATIVE ORDER VS. THE “NEW WORLD ORDER” .................................... 36 3.1.1 Exemption from international law as hegemonic overreach ............................................................ 39

3.2 LINGUISTIC FEATURES AS HEGEMONIC DEVICES IN THE DISCOURSE OF THE “NEW WORLD ORDER”................... 44 3.2.1 Linguistic tools and rhetorical strategies of emotional manipulation as ideological constituents of the NWO discourse ............................................................................................................................................ 45 3.2.2 Argumentation and reasoning patterns in the discourses of the Iraq War ....................................... 50 3.2.3 Counter-hegemonic discourse and its representations of the NWO ................................................. 54

3.4 CDA: THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS ......................................................................................................... 58 3.4.1 Common principles ............................................................................................................................. 59 3.4.2 Central notions .............................................................................................................................. 61 3.4.3 Major approaches.......................................................................................................................... 63

3.5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF THIS STUDY ............................................................................................. 66 3.5.1 Situating the UNSC Debate as an object of study within the socio-cognitive approach to CDA and the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation. .......................................................................................... 67 3.5.2 Socio-cognition and pragma-dialectics’ compatibility for inferring the mental models of arguers .... 86 3.5.3 The critical analysis of practical arguments in political discourse .................................................... 91

3.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS........................................................................................................................... 93

CHAPTER 4 - DATA DESCRIPTION AND METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS ............................................... 96

4.1 DATA SOURCE, SELECTION, AND DESCRIPTION .......................................................................................... 96 4.1.1 Data source ................................................................................................................................... 97 4.1.2 Data selection and description ..................................................................................................... 101

6

4.1.3 Initial treatment of data and building the corpora ........................................................................ 106 4.2 METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS............................................................................................................... 109

4.2.1 Deriving macro structures: Topic Selection and sequencing as indicators of speakers’ mental models and strategic maneuvering of argumentation ............................................................................................ 109 4.2.2 The strategic role and ideological function of the use of lexis and aspects of indirectness as reflecting meso and micro level SCRs in argumentation ............................................................................................. 115 4.2.3 Argument evaluation ................................................................................................................... 121 4.2.4 Normative and explanatory critique of argumentation within a socio-cognitive approach to CDA . 124

4.3 STRUCTURE OF ANALYTICAL CHAPTERS .................................................................................................. 126

CHAPTER 5- ANALYSIS OF THE COGNITIVE MODELS AS MANIFESTED IN ARGUMENTATION IN THE FIRST SESSION OF THE DEBATE .............................................................................................................. 127

5.1 THE COGNITIVE MODEL INFORMING POWELL’S ARGUMENTATION OF FEBRUARY 5TH ...................................... 128 5.1.1 The significance of Powell’s topic selection and sequence to the argumentation plan ................... 129 5.1.2 Audience framing and persuasive devices..................................................................................... 136

5.2 THE COGNITIVE MODEL INFORMING AL DOURI’S ARGUMENTATION OF FEBRUARY 5 ....................................... 146 5.2.1 The significance of Al Douri’s topic selection and sequence to the argumentation plan ................. 146 5.2.2 Audience framing and persuasive devices in Al Douri’s speech ...................................................... 150

5.3 THE COGNITIVE MODEL INFORMING AL SHARA’S ARGUMENTATION OF FEBRUARY 5 ...................................... 154 5.3.1 The significance of Al Shara’s topic selection and sequence to the argumentation plan ................. 155 5.3.2 Audience framing and persuasive devices..................................................................................... 158

5.4 THE COGNITIVE MODEL INFORMING DE VILLEPIN’S ARGUMENTATION OF FEBRUARY 5 ................................... 162 5.4.1 De Villepin’s topic selection and sequence and their significance to the argumentation plan ......... 162 5.4.2 Audience framing and persuasive devices..................................................................................... 165

5.5 SUMMARY OF ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................................ 168

CHAPTER 6- INFLUENCE OF THE EMERGING HISTORICAL CONTEXT ON TOPIC SELECTION AND SEQUENCE .................................................................................................................................................. 171

6.1 THE LEGITIMATION OF THE USE OF FORCE: ENFORCING COMPLIANCE WITH R1441 AND ELIMINATING THE

DANGERS OF WMDS. ........................................................................................................................................ 173 6.1.1 Powell’s treatment of the emergent context on the topic level ...................................................... 173 6.1.2 The linguistics of redefining the context and constructing the enemy ............................................ 178

6.2 AL DOURI’S REFUTATIONS AND COUNTER-ATTACKS .................................................................................. 184 6.2.1 The emergent context’s influence on Al Douri’s topic selection in refuting and counter-attacking .. 184 6.2.2 The linguistics of attacks and refutations in Al Douri’s contributions ............................................. 189

6.3 AL SHARA’S DELEGITIMATION OF WAR: THE DOUBLE STANDARD POLICY BEHIND THE IRAQ WAR ..................... 194 6.3.1 The emerging context influence on topic selection in the Syrian contributions ............................... 194 6.3.2 The linguistics of accusations and justifications in Al Shara’s contributions ................................... 199

6.4 DE VILLEPIN’S DELEGITIMATION OF WAR BASED ON INSTITUTIONAL GOALS, VALUES AND NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES

204 6.4.1 Influence of the emerging context on topic selection in the French speeches ................................. 204 6.4.2 Linguistic elements and their rhetorical functions in the French arguments ................................... 211


CHAPTER 7- THE POWER STRUGGLE WITHIN: ASPECTS OF HEGEMONIC AND COUNTER-HEGEMONIC DISCOURSES IN THE UNSC DEBATE ........................................................................................................ 219

7.1 A NORMATIVE AND EXPLANATORY CRITIQUE OF THE PRACTICAL ARGUMENTS............................................... 222 7.1.1 Traces of hegemonic and counter hegemonic discourses detected in the circumstantial premises . 223 7.1.2 Evaluation of the proposed actions as means to the goals: hegemony and resistance ................... 240


CHAPTER 8- FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................... 255

8.1 ANALYTICAL OBJECTIVES ...................................................................................................................... 255

7

8.2 FINDINGS ........................................................................................................................................... 258 8.2.1 Aspects of strategic maneuvering as indicators of the mental models informing the speakers’ argumentation .......................................................................................................................................... 258 8.2.2 The UNSC Iraq War deliberative process, outcome and wider implications .................................... 266 8.2.3 Theoretical implications ............................................................................................................... 275

8.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND THE WAY FORWARD ............................................................................... 278 8.4 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 279

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................. 282

8

List of tables

1. Table 3.1: Definitions of R1441…………………………………………………..…..86

2. Table 4.1: Word count of targeted speeches…………………………………………..88

3. Table 4.2: Corpora………………………………………….………………………….99

4. Figure 5.1: Keywords related to the topic of dangers of weapons and the Iraqi regime

…………………………………………………………………………………………131

5. Table 5.2: De Villepin’s keywords of the February 5th session……………………….160

6. Table 6.1: Powell’s Keywords of Feb. 14 and March 7……………………………….174

7. Table 6.2: Al Douri’s keywords of Feb.14 and March 7………………………………187

8. Table 6.3: Al Shara’s keywords of Feb.14 and March

7………………………………...195

9. Table 6.4: De Villepin’s keywords of Feb. 14 and March 7…...…………………….....207

9

List of abbreviations

CDA Critical Discourse Analysis

EP End of paragraph

Frq. Frequency

IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency

KW Keyword

MP Macroproposition

SC Socio-cognitive

SCRs Socio-cognitive representations

NWO New World Order

U Utterance

UN United Nations

UNMOVIC United Nations Monitoring Verification and

Inspection Commission

UNSC United Nations Security Council

WMD Weapons of mass destruction

10

Chapter 1 - Introduction

On March 19, 2003, the President of the United States of America George W. Bush announced

to the world: “My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early

stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave

danger” (Bush, 2003). This presidential announcement came after several weeks of United

Nations Security Council (UNSC) deliberations over the authorization of the use of military

force against Iraq. Although the official sanction of the UNSC was never given, the war was

launched, and the UNSC debate was brought to a halt. The paradoxical actions of the United

States, of first seeking a UNSC sanction and then acting in contravention to the institutional

majority will, are the main objects of examination in this study from the point of view of three

UNSC members and Iraq as the concerned state.

1.1 Problem Identification

My thesis assumes the position that the three goals of the war, as identified above by George W.

Bush, make four morally and legally problematic presuppositions. The first is that Iraq possessed

illegal weapons of mass destruction, which was never established by the two United Nations

agencies in charge of determining that: The United Nations Monitoring Verification and

Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The second presupposition is that there is an American responsibility to intervene militarily on

behalf of non-American populations oppressed by their governments, without being called upon

by these people to do so. This presupposition reflects a blatant inconsistency in U.S. policy

dealing with such situations around the world, and represents the willingness to violate

11

international law as set out in the United Nations Charter. This, of course, presupposes that being

a founding member of the UN means that members of this institution who originally formulated

its role, responsibilities, rules, laws and regulations, and also defined its members rights and

obligations; are willing themselves to abide by this normative order while expecting other

members to do the same. The third presumes a US responsibility for ridding the world of regimes

deemed dangerous to its security, which clearly disregards the international body in charge of

making such decisions and authorizing such actions: namely, the United Nations Security

Council. The fourth is that these justifications are based on the ideology of the so-called New

World Order, defined on June 2, 2002 by President Bush, and more widely known as the Bush

Doctrine. As this New World Order redefines the moral and legal superstructure of the world

according to one state’s hegemonic vision, it clashes with current global legal and moral norms

protected by the institution of the United Nations and upheld by all member states, i.e.,

practically all existing nations in the world (Habermas, 2003; Flint & Falah, 2004; Johnstone,

2004; Mandel, 2004).

This thesis also assumes the position that the American declaration of war marks a failure of the

UNSC to perform its foremost power and function: to protect human rights and ensure equality

among all nations, big or small (UN Charter, 1945). This institutional failure is exemplified in

the case of the 2003 Iraq War debate in which the Council failed to decisively pass a collective

resolution clarifying the international community’s position on military action against Iraq. The

will of the United States in preventing a UNSC vote prevailed, and the debate did not conclude

with a Council decision.

Whereas the pro-war position was proclaimed by a large number of studies to be rooted in the

New World Order ideology, anti-war positions were both unified in calling for upholding UNSC

12

principles and values, and yet diverse in their unique justifications for such a position. This

makes the UNSC Iraq War debate the site of a multinational power struggle to enforce one

worldview over another. Undoubtedly, these views each have their roots in certain sets of ideas

and beliefs, and thus in certain ideological frameworks conceiving of the world and its current

and future order. The ideological divisiveness at the heart of the UNSC Iraq War debate makes it

difficult to assess the complex issues involved in an objective manner. Hence, there is need for a

universal standard against which these various perspectives can be compared. Zunes (2004, p.

285) suggests that, despite its failings, international law has the ability to transcend such

ideological divisiveness and partisanship because it is based upon certain universal principles of

behavior, rather than on the ideology or foreign relations of a particular government or

movement. The normative legality and morality of the Iraq War can only be evaluated based on

international law and universally recognized moral standards embodied in the UN Charter.

Johnstone (2004) holds that American military action against Iraq caused serious damage to the

current world order as embodied in the UN Charter. Zunes (2004, p. 291) considers the war on

Iraq to have “seriously undermined the authority of the United Nations and the international legal

system, thereby threatening the very legitimacy of twentieth-century concepts of an international

system based on agreed-upon legal principles, and replacing it with a nineteenth-century notion

of power politics.”

Thus, the normative role of the UNSC witnessed perhaps its most serious crisis during the Iraq

War debate. The conclusion of the debate left scholars of international law, international

relations, and philosophers with much to ponder, given the episode’s testament to a current world

order that clearly submits to the will of the most powerful. By contrast, the will of less powerful

nations, despite their majority status in an international and supposedly democratic Council,

13

could not overcome political impasse. The disparity between the resolutions passed by the UN

and its inability to consistently and equally enforce them presents further complexities and

challenges to member states seeking resolutions to the crises they face. This research is intended

to explore these complexities from different perspectives based on the interrupted due process

attempted in the UNSC Iraq War debate.

1.2 Foundations of the Research

This research takes as its premise the universality of international law and moral principles

adopted by the only universal institution charged with their enforcement in accordance with its

Charter. Thus, my thesis makes several assumptions based on the current normative moral and

legal order recognized by all member states of the UN:

1- In times of crisis, such as the Iraq crisis, different views amongst UNSC members are

expected to be considered, argued, and resolved in the UNSC in accordance with its

Charter and due process.

2- The fair and legitimate resolution of such a crisis can only be achieved by equalizing the

entitlements and obligations of all concerned under the same law.

3- The UNSC is the only universal institution capable of providing such a fair appraisal.

4- The UNSC is expected, based on its Charter, to deliberate from various perspectives and

make a collective judgment through its normative democratic debate and voting

processes.

5- The UNSC is expected to take decisive action in accordance with the will of its majority

members to enforce its principles, values, and resolutions.

As for the UNSC members, they have inherent rights and obligations, by virtue of their

membership in the Council, under the principles contained in Article II of the Charter. Most

relevant here are principles II through IV. These three principles require member states to “fulfill

in good faith their assumed obligations in accordance with the present Charter,” and to refrain

14

“from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any

state,” or to act “in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations” (UN

Charter, Articles II to IV).

In light of these assumptions, I seek to discern the various concerns of the three debating Council

members and those of Iraq’s representative in terms of their consistency with these actors’

broader roles, obligations, and responsibilities to maintain international peace and order.

This research is thus concerned with examining the moral and legal legitimacy given to the Iraq

War by its proponents. It is also concerned with the counterarguments seeking to expose the

inconsistencies between the arguments for war and normative moral and legal principles. The

“dangers” of marginalizing the role of the UN and its subsidiary bodies, in this case the UNSC,

UNMOVIC, and IAEA – and the defiance of the majority international will within its

institutional setting – constitute a major social problem on a universal scale and therefore form

the main interest of this study. The significance of this problem cannot be underestimated, in

light of the absence of a legally recognized alternative beyond the UN for nations seeking just

solutions to international conflicts. Accordingly, this research is interested in the struggle to avert

the dangerous consequences of a war launched against the international will, manifested in the

contributions to the UNSC debate. It seeks to examine the roles of the most concerned

participants in this debate from multiple perspectives. Through this examination, the concerns of

the participants can be said to diverge from or converge with the UN’s goals and purposes.

15

1.3 Research topic, importance and justification

The overall topic of this research addresses the process and outcome of the debate as manifested

in the various contributions to its discourse. More specifically, the study is concerned with

examining these contributions from a normative perspective which promotes the same values and

concerns adopted by the institution and its debating members, and Habermas’ view that the

promotion of democratic self-determination and human rights adopted by the universal order run

contrary to a centralizing view of the world. It requires that “one relativises one’s own views to

the interpretive perspectives of equally situated and equally entitled others” (Habermas, 2003, p.

5). Accordingly, this research takes the position that moral discourses, which assume the

interpretation and application of the normative moral legal order, should not monopolize that

interpretation and application process – no matter what level of power and dominance they

respectively possess in the current world order. Other morally based interpretations must be

equally considered and thoroughly addressed for their potential merit within the community of

nations represented by the UNSC (Habermas, 2003).

In this thesis, I explore whether and how the Iraq War UNSC debate denotes a struggle between

at least two views of the world and its ordering according to what is just, moral, and legal. While

the American speaker is expected to promote the NWO hegemonic ideology as his president

does, other speakers are expected to promote their own governments’ policies or long standing

ideologies which may be nationally or regionally dominant, but are counter-hegemonic in an

international setting such as the UNSC. Thus, the UNSC provides an opportunity for other

international speakers to challenge the moral and legal tenets of the NWO by exposing its power

abuse through military might, economic penalties or other coercive means, and to legitimate their

own counter-ideologies as equal, more worthy and just as proposed by van Dijk (1998):

16

Whereas it may be in the interests of dominant group to conceal their power

abuse and to hide the forms of inequality that are its consequences, dissidents

and opponents may be specifically interested in uncovering and exposing

domination and inequality, and manifest and legitimate as ‘just’ their own,

counter-ideologies. (p. 168)

A view of the debate sessions as the potential site of at least three conflicting ideologies is being

proposed in this thesis. The first is the New World Order ideology, which prevails in the political

discourse produced by President Bush and members of his administration since the events of

9/11 (see Sections 3.2.1, 3.2.2) and is propagated in the UNSC by Secretary of State General

Collin Powell. The second possibility I am exploring is a resistant ideology that conceptualizes

the NWO as an instrument of domination whose linguistic traces may be found in the

contributions of the opponents of war. These contributions to the UNSC discourse do not

necessarily represent one dissenting ideology. Van Dijk holds that such a situation may

potentially exist in a context such as the Iraq UNSC debate where conflicting ideologies coexist

at different levels of power:

There are good theoretical and empirical reasons to assume that there are also

ideologies of opposition or resistance, or ideologies of competition between

equally powerful groups, or ideologies that only promote the internal

cohesion of a group, or ideologies about the survival of human kind. (p. 11)

I explore how the French, Syrian and Iraqi representatives objected to war on some common and

other, not so common grounds, such as their governments’ political and ethical views, and

international power levels and positions, interests, historical experiences and current objectives.

Clearly, hegemonic ideologies do not solely dominate the political and social scene by espousing

various means of legitimation. Other opposing ideologies may present other belief systems and

views of the world, thus creating a state of struggle that may nevertheless be obscured by the

dominant discourse. As the forum of a complex power struggle, the UNSC debate offers a

17

unique opportunity to analyze an instant of the decision making process within this democratic

institution and the legitimacy of its outcome in view of the various decisions or actions being

proposed and legitimated by the various speakers.

Legitimation is a prominent function of discourse that involves providing reasons, explanations,

causes, or accounts for defending particular actions, goals, values, or decisions that may not be

obviously acceptable to others (van Dijk, 1998, pp. 255-257) (see Section 3.5.1.4). As each

group’s ideology provides the foundation of judgment and action, it also provides the basis for

group-related legitimation based on certain legal and moral grounds (ibid., p. 257). Having

proposed the likely presence of conflicting ideologies, i.e., the New World Order and counter-

NWO ideologies, an analysis of the linguistic aspects of legitimation as an ideological function

of four contributions to the UNSC debate is unprecedented in the Iraq War literature – at least

with respect to the UNSC debate sessions. This approach also offers a unique opportunity to

examine how these contributions converge with, or diverge from, the normative moral and

ethical standards adopted by the United Nations in constituting the international world order

known since the founding of the body.

The main contribution of this study is its aim to combine the socio-cognitive theory of critical

discourse analysis (CDA) with the pragma-dialectics theory of argumentation and their

corresponding methods in a unique way based on their proposed compatibility and

complementarity for conducting explanatory and normative critiques of an instance of the

deliberative process of the UNSC. This study, thus, aims to offer a new critical insight of

political discourse that is argumentative in nature, institutional in type, with the declared purpose

of reaching a consensus or democratic majority decision in order to resolve an international

crisis. By adopting the normative order instituted by this body and accepted by all its members

18

and the pragma-dialectics ideal model for conducting a reasonable discussion; four contributions

to the UNSC debate can be critically examined within a normative framework which uses a

socio-cognitive approach in its interpretative process and the ideal model of a critical discussion

to analyzing argumentative discourse. Such critique aims to explain how social relations of

power are exercised and negotiated in and through the discourse of the UNSC and to unveil

inconsistencies in the discourse internal structures. It also aims to expose the persuasive, and

possibly manipulative, character of the four contributions to the UNSC discourse in order to

maintain or oppose certain ideologies. And finally such a critical approach to argumentative

discourse aims to contribute to improving the institutional process by pointing to both individual

and institutional purposeful language use deficiencies and suggesting guidelines for its

improvement.

Additionally, several gaps can be identified in the body of existing linguistic studies about the

Iraq War. Firstly, while studies of Arab intellectuals’ discourses in relation to the Iraq War and

its larger War on Terror context and Arab media coverage, commentaries, and cartoons are

scarce, linguistic analyses of Arab leaders’ or their government representatives’ statements are

wholly absent. This study considers the discourse generated in the Arab World by Arab

diplomats, who represent their countries’ official position in response to the declared War on

Terror in general, and the Iraq War in particular. I explore whether their statements and speeches

are representative of a counter-hegemonic discourse originating from the very region targeted by

both wars. Although this study confines its analysis to the discourses generated within the UNSC

Iraq War debate, it is a contribution toward narrowing this particular gap in the literature through

its analysis of the Syrian and the Iraqi addresses along with those of France and the United

States. The Syrian and Iraqi addresses are explored as instances of potentially counter-

19

hegemonic discourse in the international arena. They may have the characteristics of a dissident

discourse that seeks to elucidate dominance and inequality within the one international institution

promoting equality and justice for all.

Other gaps can be identified in the literature are also addressed in this study, thus enhancing its

contribution. First, there are no CDA studies of anti-war discourses generated by Arab leaders,

their representatives or Iraqi official speakers. Second, comparative discourse analyses of what

may be competing or dissident ideologies to that of the New World Order, within the same

institutional context, are also lacking. Secondly, the study of such discourse may reflect different

concerns than those propagated by the ideology of NOW. Thirdly, the study of such discourse

may also be reflective of the attempts of two Arab political elites to appeal to the fears and

concerns of their compatriots and by that maintaining their governments’ power and securing a

regional and international power position by also drawing on international popular opinions.

Fourthly, some Western scholars from the fields of international law, such as Johnstone (2004),

Fassbender (2002), Martinez (2010), and Zunes (2004); international relations, such as Dunne

(2006) and Hennebush (2007); political science and history, such as Ali (2002), have addressed

the inherent problems with the current power structure and processes of the UN. These problems

have led to an impasse (as in the Iraq crisis), failures to act (with unimplemented UNSC and UN

resolutions), and double standards (that is, selective intervention guided by the interests of one or

more of the Permanent Five members, as in the Iraq crisis, the recent Libyan revolution, and

currently in the Syrian civil war). These problems have not been addressed as legitimate

discourse topics in a public institutional debate, nor has the nature of the underlying struggle

these discourse topics represent.

20

1.4 Research approach

This study constitutes a critical discourse analysis of the contributions of four speakers as

articulated within the UNSC as a forum for multinational social action, more specifically,

political action. I take a contrastive critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach to determining

which discourses are hegemonic and which are resistant or counter-hegemonic in nature. As the

Iraq War debate denotes a struggle between more than one view of the world and its ordering,

according to what is just, moral, and legal, a contrastive critical analysis of the debate allows for

an examination of its ideological and regulatory natures.

Fairclough (2001) defines discourse as “language as a social practice” and maintains that CDA

assumes that discourse can function ideologically, and can be used to naturalize and disguise

unequal power relations in all aspects of institutional life, such as deliberating, regulating, and

decision making. Luke (1996) views dominant discourses as representing specific social

formations and power relations as if they were the product of necessity. He presents CDA as “a

political act which intervenes in what seems to be a natural flow of talk and text in institutional

life. It attempts to ‘interrupt’ everyday common sense (Silverman & Torode, 1980) and has the

potential to destabilize ‘authoritative discourses’ (Bakhtin, 1986) and expose relations of

inequality, domination, and subordination” (p. 12).

One may expect a specific social/institutional format for the United Nations Security Council,

and a dominant discourse reflective of the conventions, rules, and power structure of this

institution. While this may be the case in certain instances, it was not during the Iraq War

debate. Being constituted by institutional members from different cultures, the UNSC is also a

21

site where non-dominant discourses are presented. These discourses represent different social

organizations, various power relations, and different political philosophies underlying

identifications of who is a friend and who is an enemy, who is a danger to the world and who is

not, and which state is a rogue state and which is not. From a CDA perspective, such discourses

are the product of different cultures and their related histories. Accordingly, a contrastive CDA

can reveal presupposed commonsense beliefs, opinions, and practices by dominant institutional

or non-institutional discourses – and by those non-dominant ones as well.

1.5 Structure of the Thesis

As stated above, this introductory chapter identifies the main two social issues to be addressed,

the US war on Iraq and the UN incapacity to impose world order, their normative status, and

their problematic natures as actions resulting from an international crisis. This chapter also

outlines the topic of this research, its general concerns, and its approach. Chapter 2 constitutes a

historical contextualization of the Iraq war leading up to the UNSC debate. In Chapter 3, I

review studies of international law, international relations, and linguistics relevant to the topic of

this thesis. I then detail the theoretical assumptions made in this study, discuss the importance of

this research in light of that literature review, and follow with outlining the main research

questions.

In Chapter 4, I describe my research data, detailing its source and the rationale for its selection. I

also describe the methods of data analysis I follow in the analysis of the targeted debate

speeches. Chapters 5 constitute the analytical chapter devoted to analyzing the argumentative

plans of the first session of the debate. Chapter 6 additionally analyzes the argumentation plans

of the second and third sessions with special attention to the influence of the emerging context.

22

In chapter 8 I analyze the practical arguments for and against war from a normative perspective

in order to determine the better argument. In Chapter 8, I discuss the overall findings of this

research and offer conclusions.

23

Chapter 2 - Historical and Concurrent

Contextualizations of the 2003 Iraq War

and the Debate on It

This chapter first provides a historical contextualization of the 2003 Iraq War. In Section 2.1, I

sketch the evolving relationships between the Arab Middle Eastern states and both European

countries with histories of imperial rule in the Middle East, as well as with the United States of

America from World War I up until the 2003 invasion. This historical contextualization is

important in that it outlines the origins of the political and social experiences of the debate

speakers, who represent countries with distinct roles in the historical events that have shaped

their mutual relationships and their established views and attitudes towards one another.

In Section 2.2, I review the evolving international political context, which includes actions and

events that took place during the months immediately leading up to the UNSC debate on the Iraq

War. Such a recent contextualization is critical to understanding the background from which the

speakers’ discourses are drawn, and how they form and articulate their positions on the war.

The historical and more recent contexts for the Iraq War and the UNSC debate both informed the

opinions, arguments, decisions, and actions of the debaters and their contributions to the debate.

These contexts have also contributed to shaping the beliefs and perceptions of all concerned with

regard to this international conflict.

24

2.1 Historical Contextualization of the Iraq War

The 2003 Iraq War is viewed here as but one chapter of a complex chronicle of international and

regional conflicts and struggles. The socio-political, cultural, and religious roots of these relevant

struggles predate World War I and have critically shaped the beliefs and perceptions of the

people of the region and their leaders. They have also provided opportunities to regional and

international entities, over many decades, to control the outcomes of these conflicts and to

protect successive world orders favoring their powers and interests. These world orders have

many times created new realities for the Middle East by changing its geopolitical landscape –

despite the opposition of its people.

2.1.1 Views of the Arab World as shaped by historical events

The pre-WWI world order of superpower colonization had left the Arab World under the

domination of the Ottoman Empire for approximately 500 years. This changed in WWI, when

the Allies (France, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Empire) promised the leaders of the

Arab World independence and self-determination in exchange for help defeating the Turks.

However, the Arabs soon discovered that they had been deceived (Knightly, 2003). The modern

Middle Eastern countries with their current borders were carved by the triumphant Allies of

WWI, who divided the region amongst each other under the Sikes-Pico Agreement. Gause

(2005) describes the new arrangement of the mandate system as “a thinly disguised new form of

colonialism.” Syria and Lebanon were taken by the French, while the British took control of

Palestine and three Ottoman provinces of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) (see Seymoure 2004).

Almost immediately after the war, however, Arab resistance movements emerged to challenge

the new European dominance. The League of Arab States was established in 1945 under a

25

Charter declaring its main goal as the attainment and maintenance of independence and

sovereignty of all Arab states. A special annex on the status of Palestine declared that it was

considered an independent Arab state. “The League hoped to win the independence of all Arabs

still under colonial rule and to prevent the Jewish minority in the British-governed territory of

Palestine from creating an independent Jewish state.” (Porter & Vansuch, 2004, p. 1).

Consequently, the Arab-Israeli conflict started with the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948.

The Arab nationalist leaders who had made agreements with the United Kingdom believed that

they had been betrayed with the Sikes-Pico Agreement and the British Belfour Promise to give

the Jewish people Arab land on which to establish the state of Israel (ibid).

The moral credibility of the United States among many Arabs had also been steadily eroding

since 1948 (Gause, 2005). The reasons for the Arabs’ progressively more and more negative

views and feelings towards the United States were explained by Khalidi (1991) to be due to the

double standards of U.S. policies in the Middle East. Firstly, Khalidi believed that negative

views of and mistrust in the United States were mainly due to the number of UNSC resolutions

regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict that were vetoed by the United States, or that, when passed,

remained unenforced by the Council, so that Israel remained defiant without any consequence.

Secondly, U.S. vetos of 33 Security Council resolutions between 1972 and 1990 critical of

Israel’s actions in the occupied territories and in Lebanon were viewed by the Arab people and

their leaders as based on unjust, discriminatory policy. Thirdly, the American disconcern for

Israel’s territorial colonization and annexation of Arab and Palestinian lands, and the forcible

displacement and replacement of the Palestinian people, was considered to blatantly contradict

the formation of a US coalition and the deployment of forces when Iraq annexed Kuwait in 1991.

26

The facts presented in Khalidi’s analysis cannot be ignored: neither as general knowledge, nor as

major factors which influenced the Arab and non-Arab positions on the 2003 Iraq War. As

regards the prewar context of 2003, Said (2002) stated that Israel and the U.S. were widely

perceived in the Islamic and Arab Worlds to be “blithely overriding international law and UN

resolutions in the pursuit of their own hostile and destructive policies in those worlds.” (p.4)

These perceptions are not only recognized by academics such as Khalidi and Said, but also by

journalists such as David Hirst, a Middle Eastern correspondent based in Beirut, who wrote in a

Guardian column that even Arabs who opposed the tyranny of their own regimes would see the

US attack on Iraq as an act of aggression aimed at the whole Arab world, and not only at Iraq,

because it will be done on behalf of Israel, “whose acquisition of a large arsenal of weapons of

mass destruction seems to be as permissible as theirs is an abomination” (Hirst, Sep.6, 2003).

2.1.2 An international crisis transformed into a two-enemies crisis

The President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was set on urgently reconstructing his country’s

economy and its industrial and technological infrastructure as soon as the Iraq-Iran War ended in

1988. This required increasing Iraq’s oil revenues and securing the forgiveness of Iraq’s debts to

the Gulf States, which were reluctant to write off the debt. This is based on his often articulated

belief that the very survival of these states was owed to Iraq for defending the “Eastern

Gateway” to the Arab World in the face of “Khomeini’s horde”; “Iraq’s sacrifices” imposed on

these states a commensurate moral and material debt (Khalidi, 1991). President Hussein also

rejected Kuwait’s incursion into Iraqi lands beyond the borders recognized by the League of

Arab States. He also expressed concerns and objections towards the U.S. public statements in

regards to this dispute. Although Hussein clearly stated that he did not want war, he expressed

27

his hopes that he would not be pushed into it because other solutions were closed to him

(Hitchens, 2003). As Arab efforts did not succeed in resolving the conflict, by the end of the first

week of August 1990, Iraq had invaded and annexed Kuwait as its 19th province.

The United States reacted to the annexation of Kuwait by persuading the UN Security Council to

pass a series of resolutions condemning the Iraqi invasion and demanding that Iraq withdraw

from Kuwait. Severe sanctions were requested to be imposed on Iraq for failure to comply

(Pollack, 2003). These resolutions made it possible for the U.S. to form the “Coalition of the

Willing.”

The American president justified the joint UN and U.S. involvement based on Iraq’s violation of

Kuwaiti territorial integrity, the United States’ responsibility for supporting its important oil-

supplier and ally Saudi Arabia, and the Iraqi mobilization of troops and war machinery near the

Saudi border (Bush, 1990). Other justifications included Iraq’s possession of a nuclear program,

biological and chemical weapons programs, and its history of using the latter on its own people.

The Gulf War of 1990–1991 ended with the Coalition’s victory. The ceasefire agreement

mandated that United Nations weapons inspectors search for prohibited weapons in Iraq and

allowed the Coalition Allies, the US, the UK and France, to enforce no-fly zones over northern

and southern Iraq for the protection of Iraq’s minorities. In order to force Iraq to accept these

restrictions on weaponry, the United Nations and the United States imposed an economic

embargo on Iraq. This embargo devastated the economy and the infrastructure of the country.

Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Denis Halliday wrote in his resignation: “I am

resigning … because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process

of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that ... Five thousand children are

28

dying every month ... I do not want to administer a program that results in figures like these.”

(Pilger, 2000).

As for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), it succeeded in destroying the

majority of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction following its establishment in 1991. However, its

inspection methods were often questioned by the Iraqi government. Evidence emerged in 1997

that the US and Israel had been receiving intelligence from UNSCOM personnel. This lent

support to Iraqi claims that the inspections were infringing on Iraq’s sovereignty and

overstepping UNSCOM’s mandate. This finding also eroded international support for

UNSCOM’s aggressive tactics (Graham-Brown & Toensing, 2003). During the same year,

Russia recommended that Iraq’s nuclear file be closed in order to establish a plan for lifting the

sanctions – echoing a request made by France earlier in 1994, but which the US and the UK had

refused.

In December 1998, without Security Council authorization, the US and the UK conducted illegal

heavy bombardment missions for the declared purpose of degrading Iraq weapons, known as

Operation Desert Fox, in southern and central Iraq. According to a February 19, 2001 BBC

report, critics of the no-fly zones pointed out that Resolution 660 did not properly empower the

Security Council to act under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which provides for enforcement

action. Nor did the Resolution say that all necessary means could be used. France no longer took

part in policing the no-fly zones, and the US and the UK found themselves alone on the Security

Council in insisting that their frequent bombing of Iraqi targets was covered by international law.

France called on Washington to redefine its policy on Iraq. Other permanent members of the

UNSC, notably China and Russia, along with France, condemned the no-fly zones as a violation

of Iraqi sovereignty and insisted there was no backing for the policy under international law or

29

UN resolutions. However, as tensions mounted after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on

the United States, the US escalated violence in the no-fly zones (Graham-Brown &Toensing,

2003, p.167)

2.2 The Evolving Contexts of the UNSC Debate

Preparations for military action against Iraq were undertaken beginning in 2002, including the

provision of 20,000 British troops and American deployment for the Gulf (Hollis, 2006).

According to notes from a meeting in July 2002 between the British Prime Minister Tony Blair

and leading cabinet members, the justification that President Bush wanted to utilize for going to

war against Iraq was “a conjunction of terrorism and WMDs”; the memo also noted that “the

intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” (Sunday Times, May 1, 2005). When

facts are fixed around a policy, the creation, manipulation, and interpretation of facts can be

anticipated to serve the goals and purposes of that policy. Accordingly, American official foreign

policy statements and speeches emphasized Iraq’s possession of WMDs and its connections to

terrorist organizations, in an effort to paint the continued existence of the present Iraqi regime as

a great danger to the region and the world. This was made clear in Bush’s National Security

Strategy of 2002 and in his UN speech to the General Assembly on September 12, 2002, in

which he made clear his position regarding the US expectations of the UN:

We will work with the UN Security Council for the necessary resolutions. But the

purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council

resolutions will be enforced, the just demands of peace and security will be met or

action will be unavoidable and a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its

power. (Official Document System of the United Nations1)

1 Documents.un.org

30

2.2.1 The making of UNSC Resolution 1441

One week prior to the above Bush declaration, in an interview on September 8, 2002, published

by the New York Times, President Chirac announced that following extensive discussion with

Prime Minister Tony Blair, he would promote a new Security Council Resolution on the return

of inspectors within “two or three weeks.” President Chirac was also explicit that “if the

inspectors cannot return, there will have to be a second Security Council resolution to decide the

need for military intervention.” Through many statements and interviews of government

officials, France made clear its opposition to unilateral or preemptive military action. It insisted

that military action must be explicitly endorsed by a UN resolution to be consistent with

international law. France also rejected automatically resorting to military action should Iraq fail

to provide information about its WMDs. France also believed in returning inspectors to Iraq with

an improved inspections regime with a stronger mandate and shorter timeframe than those

previously designed for UNSCOM.

Following Bush’s declarations in the General Assembly, the United States and the United

Kingdom drafted the text of a Security Council resolution that would authorize the use of

military force in the case of Iraq’s noncompliance with UNSC demands. Both Russia and China

had serious doubts about the US’s intentions to use the contents of the draft resolution for its

own purposes when the draft was presented to the five permanent members on October 21, 2002

(Williams, 2006). The resolution was revised to reflect a central role of the UN and a warning to

Iraq to cooperate. It also sanctioned military action preconditioned by a UNSC authorization in

the case of Iraq’s non-cooperation. Iraq accepted the return of inspectors on September 16, 2002

and resolution 1441 was unanimously adopted on November 8, 2002.

31

2.2.2 The UNMOVIC and IAEA progress reports

As required by Resolution 1441, Iraq delivered a declaration of the past and current status of

WMDs in Iraq. . This declaration was to be assessed by UN Monitoring, Verification and

Inspection Commission’s (UNMOVIC) Executive Chairman Hans Blix and IAEA Director

General Mohamed El Baradei with conclusions provided to the Security Council. On January 30,

Blix and El Baradei submitted their first report on the progress of weapons inspections in Iraq

(Official document system of the United Nations,documents.un.org). The proponents of a

peaceful settlement of the Iraq crisis through inspections found that report to support their

position.

The American allegations made in the February 5 UNSC meeting – that Saddam Hussein

allowed training grounds for terrorists in Iraq, and that he ordered the concealment of WMDs

from inspectors – were contradicted by El Baradei’s report on the same day: “we have to date

found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program since the elimination of the

program in the 1990s.” With regard to Iraq’s cooperation, he stated that “Iraq has on the whole

cooperated rather well.” He also made clear that “inspectors’ reports do not contend that

weapons of mass destruction remain in Iraq.” (UNSC February 5th

meeting document, official

UN documents website)

At the outset of the February 14 meeting, Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei delivered another

report on their agencies’ activities in Iraq. Both reports implicitly contradicted most of the

specifics Powell had presented on February 5. However, proscribed missile programs were found

and disabled, and vast stores of chemical and biological agents, which Iraq was known to have at

one point, remained unaccounted for. “This is perhaps the most important problem we are

32

facing. Although I can understand that it may not be easy for Iraq in all cases to provide the

evidence needed, it is not the task of the inspectors to find it” (Blix February 14, 2003).

The March 7 progress report of Hans Blix was far more helpful to Baghdad than to Washington.

Blix reported on Iraq’s improved cooperation, which included the unilateral unveiling and

destruction of weapons, including Al Samoud-2 missiles. Blix likewise reported that Iraq

revealed how it had disposed of its suspected chemical and biological weapons supplies. The

report left Washington and London short of any legitimate argument for war (El-Amir, 2003).

On March 19, brief statements were made by both Blix and a representative of El Baradei on a

proposed work program for the inspections in Iraq. No findings were reported as inspectors were

ordered out of Iraq in advance of the imminent war.

2.2.3 International official and popular reactions

While the war against Iraq was being prepared for and publicly justified, the international debate

turned acrimonious. President Chirac of France and Chancellor Schröder of Germany

emphasized their belief in the UNSC as the only authority that can sanction military action and

stressed that they would block the military option in every possible way. Public opinion in both

countries overwhelmingly opposed the war on Iraq. The American Defense Secretary Donald

Rumsfeld responded to the French and German statements by describing these two countries as

“the Old Europe.” and claiming that they were no longer Europe’s “center of gravity”

(Garamone, 2002). French politicians and critics immediately denounced Rumsfeld’s “contempt

and arrogance” towards the rest of the world and the US’s “totalitarian spirit”. They warned

against its “arrogance in wanting to rule the world in a more and more arbitrary way” (Tresillian,

2003).

33

Following the February 14 meeting of the UNSC, anti-war demonstrations were staged around

the globe. With this development, the American administration could no longer wage war in the

name of the international community. BBC News World Edition reported on February 16 that

750,000 people had taken to the streets of London to protest military action against Iraq. In a

New York Times article published on February 15, 2003, Robert D. McFadden reported (Feb. 16,

2003) on the resistance to America’s countdown to war: 500,000 to 750,000 people rallied in

Hyde Park in London, while 200,000 gathered at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and hundreds

of thousands more protested in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona, Rome, Melbourne, Cape

Town, Johannesburg, Auckland, Seoul, Tokyo, and Manila. Many contended that America’s

interest in Iraq had more to do with oil than disarming a dangerous tyrant. McFadden also

reported that protests unfolded in more than 350 cities around the world including many in the

United States.

On February 24, the US, Britain, and Spain submitted a proposed resolution to the UN Security

Council to authorize use of military force against Iraq. As a response, France, Germany, and

Russia submitted a counter-resolution suggesting an intensified inspection program as a peaceful

settlement of this crisis and to consider military action only a last resort (Fawn, 2006).

Furthermore, French President Jacques Chirac declared on March 10 that France would veto any

resolution that would automatically lead to war. As the majority of UNSC members shared

France’s sentiment, a resolution was not put to the Council (Webster & Watson, 2003). Six days

later, at the Azores Conference of March 16, Prime Minister Tony Blair, President George W.

Bush, and Spanish Prime Minister Aznar announced March 17 as a final, imminent deadline for

complete Iraqi compliance. Speeches by President Bush and UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw

34

on March 17 explicitly declared that no further authorization from the UN would be sought

before an invasion of Iraq.

The decision to launch a war and the actual invasion were sources of deep division amongst

concerned legal, international relations, and political science scholars around the world. The

legality, morality, and the underlying rationale for this war were intensively discussed and

thoroughly analyzed based on international law as embodied in the UN, just war theory, and new

expansionist theories of traditional ethical and moral standards. These views, analyses, and their

applications to the Iraq War of 2003 are discussed in the following chapter.

35

Chapter 3 - Literature Review and

Theoretical Framework ___________________________________________________________________________

Over the past eleven years, a number of studies targeting the Iraq War have emerged to critically

scrutinize the war’s public justifications based on international law as embodied in the UN, just

war theory, international relations theories, and ethical and moral normative orders. The

American justifications for the war on Iraq, unanimously considered by scholars as a part of the

“War on Terror” continuum, have caused deep divides among scholars seeking to explain its

actual causes and motives.

This chapter is concerned, in its first section, with defining the relevant theoretical concepts

underpinning the scholarly debate between international law and international relations experts

and other critics. These include the just war tradition, today’s international law as embodied in

the UN, the concepts of, power, hegemony as the dominant ideology and their modern

conception in international relations. The second section of this chapter reviews linguistic studies

that have targeted the discourse of the “New World Order” as a hegemonic discourse as well as

the few studies targeting the counter-hegemonic discourse following the 9/11 attacks on the

United States.

The third section of this chapter identifies the gaps in the reviewed research on the Iraq War and

therefore the importance of this study. The final section presents the theoretical framework

guiding this research and justifies its selection based on the general purpose of the research, the

multilingual nature of the data, and the research questions.

36

3.1 Resorting to War under the Normative Order vs. the “New World Order”

For centuries, the just war tradition has provided a moral framework within which wars have

been justified by aggressors based on their intentions, goals, and conduct before, during, and

after war. In the Western tradition, just war originated in 44 BC from Cicero’s De Officiis. As an

essay that discusses what is honorable, what is expedient, and the proper conduct when honor

and expediency present a conflict; it was adopted in the fourth century by St. Augustine to

reconcile Christian pacifism with Rome’s need to defend its borders against invaders (Malone,

2004). St Augustine provided comments on the morality of war from the Christian perspective as

did several Arabic-Muslim jurists in the intellectual flourishing from the 9th to 12th centuries,

from the Islamic perspective. Turner-Johnson (1997) provides a comparative reading of the

development of just war theory as statecraft in the Islamic and Christian traditions. In the

Christian tradition, Augustine’s fourth century theological description of history developed into a

positive theory of statecraft as principally a work of the Middle Ages, where the focus shifted

from the inner effect of God’s grace to the normative behavior to be expected of people in whom

grace resided. When Thomas Aquinas entered the picture in the twelfth century, “the idea of

natural law – a universal normative system in concord with church teachings but knowable

through reason and, in principle, able to be observed by all human-kind — further reduced the

functional role of grace in the organization of society” (p. 82).

In Turner-Johnson’s view, this resulted in a conception of normative politics not dissimilar to

that of Islamic juristic tradition. In both these conceptions, the goal of good politics was peace.

Peace, as a condition in human relations, is to be achieved within human societies in the present

but is based on history. “Such societies had to be structured according to a normative ideal, the

37

divine will, for the Islamic jurists; natural justice (originally established by God in creation, but

knowable and achievable by human reason), for medieval Christian political theorists” (p. 83).

Such a structure defined the character of the political order in both traditions where good politics

were expressed as order, justice, and peace. The goal of a good state is peace that follows from

order, but that order is right order only if it expresses justice. Turner-Johnson advances that this

conception remained normative in the Muslim World as, albeit with incorrect uses, but not in the

Christian West, as the development of just war ethics indicates.

The twentieth century witnessed a revival of just war ethics and rules, which were adopted into

international laws, but without reference to divine power. More specifically, they were adopted

into the Charter of the UN and other international agreements such as the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Geneva Conventions on Warfare. According to the above

discussion, international law does neither contradict the Islamic normative order, nor does it

contradict the Christian tradition outlined above. Nardin (2005) advances that international law is

a normative system based on the coexistence of independent states, each enjoying rights of

political sovereignty and territorial integrity as based on an underlying morality. However,

sovereignty is not absolute when the interests of states defy all moral considerations, or if

governments consider themselves as not obliged to respect human rights. It assumes “that civil

societies and the international order have a moral foundation and that moral criticism must take

account of civil and international laws and institutions” (Nardin 2005, p.25). While it maintained

the essence of St. Augustine’s conception of just war and its categories, current international law

eliminated reference to religious institutions or divine power. The three just war categories, jus

ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum remained respectively concerned with when war is

just, the manner in which a war may be legitimately fought, and the justice due after a war. The

38

justice of resort to war, jus ad bellum, provides general outlines of the right authorities to declare

war, the requirements of just cause, right intentions, last resort, and reasonable hope for

achieving goals, relative justice, and an open declaration. The justice of the conduct of war, jus

in bello, requires that noncombatants are given immunity and protection and that military actions

must do more good than harm (Fixdal & Smith, 1998, p. 286). As for the jus post bellum, it

provides for ethical guidelines for the conduct of the victorious party after the war has ended,

which includes occupation, transition to a post conflict society, rebuilding the peace and

respecting self-determination, among many other norms adopted by the UN in its definition of

the rights of a state.

To define current international law governing interstate relations and what is considered a just

war, our current world order relegates the authority for such determinations to the United

Nations Security Council (Chapter 7, Articles 39-51). The UNSC provides the forum to achieve

an institutional assessment and decision regarding the justness of war, its necessity, and the equal

application of shared moral values and rules of law in accordance with its Charter. The

international legal rules governing the use of force are spelled out in the UN Charter, more

specifically in, Paragraph 4, which states: “All members shall refrain in their international

relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence

of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.” Two

exceptions are allowed under the Charter for the use of force by one state against another. The

first is self-defense, and the second is when the Security Council authorizes the use of force to

protect international peace and security (Chapter VII, UN Charter). Both of these exceptions

were considered applicable by the proponents of war to justify the war on Iraq under the supreme

emergency exception, as detailed in the next section.

http://www.worldpress.org/specials/iraq/chapterVII.htm

39

3.1.1 Exemption from international law as hegemonic overreach

The concept of the “Supreme Emergency Exemption” (SEE) was introduced by Walzer (1977) to

describe a situation of very close danger to a political community, which is “of an unusual and

horrifying kind”. Walzer believes that a political community, or a nation, may be exempted from

the traditional jus in bello to ensure its continued survival. Rawls (1999) follows Walzer in

justifying attacks on innocent civilians in “a situation in which the danger to a political

community is both close and serious, most notably when the very existence of a political

community is threatened” (Rawls, 1999, pp. 98-99). The SEE argument was used by President

G.W. Bush when he introduced a new category of self-defense to justify the invasion of Iraq in

the months preceding the war. He claimed that preemptive self-defense is legally justified in the

new post-September 11 world, although no ties between these events and the case of Iraq

existed. Additionally, one of the announced goals of the Iraq War was to free the Iraqi people

from dictatorship. This translated into an argument for a “humanitarian exception” to the ban on

force in international law. Some writers have claimed that in the case of a “supreme

humanitarian emergency,” states have the right to intervene to stop human suffering, and they

also have a moral duty to do so (Arend & Beck, 1993; Teson, 2005). These arguments, however,

are strongly refuted by international law scholars and ethicists who detail the legal and moral

basis of resort to war under international law and find the war on Iraq to be unjustifiable both

legally and morally. For example, Toner (2005) views the endorsement of SEE by liberal

political theorists as a significant turn in just war thinking – and a mistake at that – because the

exemption is a license for governments and the military to ”override the rights of innocent

people for the sake of their own political community.” He criticizes Walzer’s SEE argument by

40

pronouncing: “Supreme emergencies place us under ‘the rule of necessity and necessity knows

no rules’” (p. 256).

Bellamy (2004) argues that the U.S. moral arguments justifying its war on Iraq constitute an

“abuse” of natural law (moral and ethical standards known to all) and a disregard of positive law

(agreed upon and signed international law) in order to “justify a war that is not primarily

motivated by the moral concerns espoused, but by the short-term interests of those instigating

violence”. This author suggests an approach which incorporates natural law and international

law, whereby the only authority above that of the state sovereign is considered to be the UNSC.

This view holds that a council of nations should evaluate the morality and legality of war based

on international law and normative moral standards, taking into consideration the benefit of all

involved. To that Burke (2004) adds that just war and international law allow the manipulation

of their applicability and a sleight-of-hand “which makes powerful claims to universality based

on abstract rules, but then interprets those rules capriciously and insists only on voluntary

adherence to them” (Burke, 2004, p. 352). Lowe (2003) insists that moral justification must be

differentiated from political justification because moral arguments can be universalized while

political arguments cannot: “Rooting the development of international law in the soil of common

morality is necessary in order to sustain its claim to legitimacy: the rooting of international law

in the exigencies of national political objectives, on the other hand, is one of the defining

characteristic of imperialism” (p. 863).

While the above authors opposed President G.W. Bush’s moral arguments on moral grounds,

others showed the contradictions between U.S. war justifications and actions in practice. The

Iraq War is not the only case in which the U.S. has exempted itself from international law.

International law experts such as Zunes (2004), philosophers such as Chomsky (2003) and

41

Derrida (2003), and political theorists such as Nardin (2005) detail the US disregard for

humanitarian atrocities in violations of UN resolutions as a direct evidence of the lack of

credibility of its humanitarian arguments. .

Chomsky (2003) criticizes the US and Israel as the only two states who voted against a 1987 UN

resolution that included a passage that recognized “the right to self-determination, freedom, and

independence, as derived from the Charter of the United Nations, of people forcibly deprived of

that right … particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation” (p.

206). As this resolution was understood to refer not only to South Africa but also to the Israeli-

occupied territories, it was deemed unacceptable by these two states, who subsequently voted

against it.

Derrida (2003) argues that the US construction of “rogue states” has created an artificial divide

between states that are respectful of international law and those that are not. The author views

the power to designate certain states as “rogue” as having created a situation in which “force”

has become “right” (p. 21). Derrida finds this to be extremely problematic, as it has enabled the

US, with its unbridled power in the global arena, to violate the very international law that it

claims to champion. In concurrence with Noam Chomsky (2001, 2005), to whom he refers in his

analysis, Derrida concludes that an impressive body of information exists which supports the

charge that the US is the world’s leading rogue state (2003, pp. 138-140).

Zunes (2004) focuses on the numerous resolutions requiring Israel to cease its illegal

colonization of the Palestinian occupied territories through the establishment of Jewish

settlements, under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Additionally, he cites Resolution 465, which

forbids all member states from facilitating Israel’s colonization drive. The United States,

42

however, funded the construction of infrastructure reinforcing Israeli illegal settlements in the

occupied territories, and violated Resolution 478, which calls upon Israel to rescind its

annexation of Arab East Jerusalem and surrounding areas, when it effectively recognized Israeli

sovereignty over all of greater East Jerusalem. Most relevant to the Iraq case is Israel’s violation

of UNSC Resolution 487, which calls upon Israel to place its nuclear facilities under the

safeguard of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency; which Israel continues to refuse

(Zunes, 2004, p. 290). In the Middle East context, when the international system, namely the

UN, is observed to be applying a double standards policy in implementing its resolutions by

allowing one state to defy its resolutions and another to be punished by military action for the

same offense; that system loses its credibility as a fair and just system which guards the interests

of all states equally in accordance with its Charter.

These discrepancies in the implementations and enforcement of UN Resolutions are rejected by

numerous anti-war authors who used the Iraq War example to argue that international law

requires modifications “to contain American imperialism and to protect the sovereignty of states

– irrespective of their form of government – against unilateral US encroachments” (Kemp, 2009,

p. 207). The objections to and criticism of the Bush strategies and policies following 9/11 mainly

regard the US claim of self-exemption from the rules it expects other countries to observe as one

of the marks of an imperial policy. Nardin (2005, p. 26) contends that the US’s ill-defined

humanitarian rationale and goal of toppling a tyrannical regime as justifications for war indicate

the emergence of a central world government that acts on its own authority to defend what it

perceives to be the welfare of people everywhere:

Humanitarian intervention is concerned with rescuing particular victims of

violence here and now, not with achieving universal liberty in the long run. It is

remedial, not revolutionary. Aiming to reshape the world according to the

43

prescriptions of a universal morality marks a policy that is revolutionary as well

as imperial. (ibid., 25)

Kahn (2004, p. 166) also rejects the humanitarian intervention rationale by arguing that it was

deployed by the American administration only as the weapons of mass destruction (WMD)

rationale began to lose ground because no WMDs were found by inspectors, and no evidence of

their existence was confirmed. Another cause for adopting the humanitarian argument, according

to Khan, was the multiple British and French intelligence reports which indicated that Saddam

Hussein never supported Al Qaeda. Hence, Khan believed that the invasion of Iraq had to be

framed as a war of liberation to lend it an air of legitimacy. Kemp (2009) asserts that anti-war

intellectuals in France were concerned with the American leaders’ inconsistency in how they

approached humanitarian questions. For example, Saddam Hussein’s committed his worst

atrocities in the 1980s during his alliance with the US, but did not do anything comparable in

subsequent years. According to Kemp, this led some French intellectuals, such as Kahn,

Todorov, De´bray and others, to point that “America’s track record showed that humanitarian

intervention was not a genuine concern, but one being used, deceptively, to bolster the imperial

mission” (p. 204). Said (2003) perceives the humanitarian argument as beyond insincere, touting

it as hypocrisy itself in his A Monument to Hypocrisy (Ahram Newspaper, February 13-19):2

How he [Powell] and his bosses and co- workers can stand up before the world and

righteously sermonise against Iraq while at the same time completely ignoring the

ongoing American partnership in human rights abuses with Israel defies credibility. And

yet no one, in all the justified critiques of the US position that have appeared since

Powell made his great UN speech, has focused on this point, not even the ever-so-upright

French and Germans. (p. 3)

2 http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/625/op2.htm

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/625/op2.htm

44

This extensive legal, moral, and ethical analysis scrutinizing the American justifications of the

war against Iraq have pointed out their lack of credibility, their propagation of an imperial policy

aiming to change the governing regime in Iraq according to the US’s own vision and to impose

US hegemonic interest upon an oil-rich country (Zunes, 2004).

Linguists have also taken extensive interest in the discourse legitimating the war against Iraq. In

the next section, I review studies and critiques addressing the ideological aspects of the discourse

justifying the Iraq War as a constituent of the War on Terror discourse, which is in turn a part of

the larger discourse of the “New World Order.”

3.2 Linguistic Features as Hegemonic Devices in the Discourse

of the “New World Order”

A number of linguistic studies have targeted the American and some European leaders’ public

justifications of the Iraq War and its portrayal in American, European, and, to a lesser extent,

Arab news media. A number of linguists have described the post-Cold War era as the era of the

New World Order, manifested through a common discourse shared by a number of

administrations. There is a general agreement that the discourse surrounding the 2003 Iraq War

falls within the context of the “War on Terror” discourse instituted by President George W. Bush

in reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The War on Terror discourse is in turn

perceived as a part of the larger discourse of the “New World Order” (Lazar & Lazar, 2004;

Collet, 2009).

45

3.2.1 Linguistic tools and rhetorical strategies of emotional manipulation as

ideological constituents of the NWO discourse

Following Foucault (1972), Lazar and Lazar (2004) views the discourse of the New World Order

“as comprising a field of related statements – revealed in concrete content across time and

space.” As such, discourse “produces and structures a particular order of reality” (p. 224). These

authors are able to demonstrate, through examining the semantic field of particular

lexicalizations, that the commonalities existing in presidential statements across the three

administrations of the presidents Bush Senior, Clinton, and G.W. Bush were all articulations of

the New World Order discourse. By targeting “out-casting” as a discursive macro-strategy that

constitutes the four micro strategies of “enemy construction,” “criminalization,”

“orientalization,” and “vilification” they find the logic of binarism to be a defining element of the

New World Moral Order discourse. This is in line with Bhatia (2009, p. 287), who mainly

investigates metaphors and other rhetorical devices which showed that the rhetoric of the Bush

administration abounds with binaries that confirm the division between “us” and “them” and

polarize the world into “a white and black matter.” Binarism and membership categorization

were found to be essential constituents of President Bush’s discourse, as well as that of other

U.S. presidents since the end of the Cold War. To that Lazar and Lazar (2204) add that binarism,

in the context of the Iraq War, served as an important hegemonic device that allowed the

depiction of two different “enemies,” Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, as presenting the

same threat. It also allowed the representation of “us” and “them” in polar or binary terms, which

set up the enemies as hyper-signifiers of all that is immoral, and the self as a hyper-signifier of

all that is good and moral. Lastly, it served the American goal of obtaining support and

allegiances from the international community, necessary for a hegemonic ideology (see section

3.5.1.3 below).

46

Lazar and Lazar (2004) also notes a dual strategy of positively portraying the religion of the

Other, and at the same time attacking its followers by describing them as deviant members of

that religion. This allowed avoiding the alienation of Muslims around the world and within

American society, and attended to the values of those who reject discrimination. The authors thus

concluded that “the discourse of the NWO is not couched in terms of a ‘clash of civilizations’”

(p. 239).

Collet (2009) investigates a corpus of presidential addresses where she analyzed the occurrences

of civilization and civilized using a three-fold approach: (a) a Narrative Conceptualization

Analysis of civilization; (b) a Membership Categorization Analysis of the collocation civilized

world; and, to a lesser extent, (c) an analysis of the rhetorical strategies in which civilization and

civilized participate. While Collet (2009) acknowledges Lazar and Lazar’s conclusion that the

NWO discourse avoided framing a war of civilizations between the Christian West and the

Muslim World, her work contends that “as a member of a ‘binary taxonomy’ that opposes it to

terror, civilization is instrumental in the activation of just such a frame” (p. 466). She also argues

that this frame does not explicitly pitch a Judeo-Christian West against the Muslim World, but

that it confirms Huntington’s (1993) “civilization rallying”: “a phenomenon by which

civilizational commonality and not political ideology becomes the main basis for the forming of

coalitions among nations” (p. 471). Her findings are also consistent with those of Graham,

Kennan and Dowd (2004), in which civilization and civilized are shown to partake in the

discursive strategy by which an orator appeals to an external power and attempts to rally national

support and international solidarity and involvement. Both civilization and civilized were also

found to have aided in the construction of the evil Other.

47

Graham, Keenan, and Dowd (2004) identify the four generic features characteristic of calls to

arms in Western societies in the last millennium as: “(i) an appeal to a legitimate power source

that is external to the orator, and which is presented as inherently good; (ii) an appeal to the

historical importance of the culture in which the discourse is situated; (iii) the construction of a

thoroughly evil Other; and (iv) an appeal for unification behind the legitimating external power

source” (p. 201). In each of the cases studied, the external power source was found to be the

ultimate moral force within the societal order as reflected by the reigning discourse of the day.

These generic features reflect the broader social system, and the prevailing order of discourse is

clearly a resource from which political leaders draw to achieve an “unnatural exhortation to kill

and die for a cause external, and, practically by definition, antithetical to that of the individuals

being asked to kill and die” (p. 202). Bush’s call to arms references the global political order

defined after the 9/11 attacks, namely, the New World Order – an order which calls for a

relentless war on an undefined enemy against basic human rights guaranteed by the United

Nations Charter as well as by the U.S. Constitution.

These features of an inherently good legitimate power and the importance of the culture in which

the discourse is situated, are clearly extreme notions that imply the other side of the dichotomy.

The legitimate power appealed to, which is presented as inherently good, presupposes an

enemy’s power source that is inherently evil. This is made clear by the second generic feature:

the construction of a thoroughly evil Other. As for the appeal to the importance of the culture in

which the discourse is situated, this tactic presupposes superiority over the Other’s (inherently

evil) culture. The appeal for unification in support of the legitimate source leaves no option but

to converge with what is presented as general public opinion; otherwise, one becomes deviant. A

good example of this is President G.W. Bush’s declaration in the U.S. Congress on September

48

20, 2001: “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or

you are with the terrorists.” Such a statement is a typical example of the use of binarism and “an

either-or” construction of reality as noted by Coe, Domke, Graham, Lockett, John, and Pickard

(2004, p. 234).

Another aspect of ideological management of the Iraq War discourse, as of most political

discourse is the emotional manipulation used to influence the public. Several studies have found

that emotional manipulation played an important role in swaying public opinion in favor of war

by encouraging hatred towards the enemy, conjuring up fear, instigating anger, and projecting an

abject future if the threat of Saddam’s regime was allowed to remain. According to Altheide and

Grimes (2005), the use of fear is a key aspect of the framing of the Iraq War (p. 620). The

authors’ analysis of news reports on terrorism shows that deep-seated fear of terrorism was part

of a national identity equated with a sense of caring and community. According to Altheide

(2007), this created a context that allowed those in power to strengthen their legitimacy by

emphasizing a threat and linking its reduction to their rule and policies (p. 215). Thus, the self-

serving use of access of those in power to the mass media and of their ability to disproportionally

influence the general public embody hegemonic practices (Altheide, 2007). Based on a

qualitative analysis of media discourse, Altheide concluded that discourse on terrorism is part of

a wider context of a discourse of fear associated with over two decades of negative reporting and

imagery about the Middle East – and Iraq in particular. Altheide argues: “Those experiences

contributed to the dehumanization of the enemy, as well as civilians killed by U.S. troops. The

enemy was portrayed as barbaric ‘gunmen,’ who warranted torture to discover their evil plans,

while U.S. atrocities often were cast as rage or revenge or even as ‘letting off steam’” (p. 303).

49

Dunmire (2005) considers the discourse employed in a speech by President G.W. Bush of

October 7, 2002, with a focus on his policy of pre-emption being used as a rationale for the war

on Iraq. By working within a systemic-functional framework, her study investigates how

representations of the future are “embedded in and projected through political discourse and how

the ‘public’ is implicated in those representations” (p. 481). She bases her analysis on the notion

that texts are sites of struggle and contestation and that they always contain “traces (either

implicitly or explicitly) of ‘alternative realities’ that challenge the version of reality privileged in

the text” (p. 487). Her study examines how one particular vision comes to be privileged over the

others in the Bush speech, based on the view “that texts come into existence in response to a

conflict between competing views of reality and, as such, represent attempts to resolve that

conflict” (p. 487). As such, it understands and examines Bush’s text “as his attempt to attend to

conflicts between different visions of the future and, ultimately, to position his vision as the

vision” (p. 487). Dunmire found that the extensive use of the nominalization “threat” fused the

present and future in order to characterize Iraq/Saddam Hussein as an imminent danger to the

future safety and security of the United States. Additionally, the study suggests that alternative

visions of the future were dismissed, and the modal structure of the speech staged the public as

aligned with the Administration’s vision. Similar findings are outlined by Brookes (2003), as her

study argues “that Bush’s rhetoric projected a uniquely negative vision of the future.” The

abstraction in the lexical composition of Bush’s discourse, such as with the terms “threat, terror,

and evil-doers” created an atmosphere of evil and darkness and “position(ed) the public in a

particularly debilitating way with respect both to the future and to their ability to affect that

future” (Brookes, 2003, p. 21).

50

These studies, among many others, show that linguistic tools fulfill the crucial role of promoting

both hegemonic concepts and planned actions – and their justifications. Ideological arguments

represent another means of promoting hegemonic practices because argumentation is crucial to

persuasion, and ideological arguments “support the legitimacy of a particular political system, to

justify a particular configuration of power relations in society” (Weiler, 1993, p. 16). Hence, the

examination of argumentation strategies utilized in the discourse surrounding the Iraq War can

reveal the belief systems, selected facts, and reasoning patterns according to which particular

decisions and actions were legitimated.

3.2.2 Argumentation and reasoning patterns in the discourses of the Iraq War

Lorda and Miche (2006) conducted a comparative analysis of two televised institutional

interviews of two government leaders, President Chirac of France and Prime Minister Aznar of

Spain, given during the Iraq War debate. One of the main goals of the study was to isolate the

justification strategies used by the two European leaders. The authors found that Aznar’s answers

were inconsistent with the questions posed (i.e., lacked relevance), and were barely admissible

within the norms of sound argumentation because they were premised on his own feelings or

opinions and because his attacks were personally directed against Saddam Hussein. President

Chirac of France, on the other hand, defended France’s position against the war by defining the

multi-polar world he believes in and outlining the role of the UN in it. Chirac gave reasons for

defending peace in this case. He referred to Iraq and the problem it presented at the time, but he

never uttered Saddam Hussein’s name. For Chirac, Iraq represented but one of many cases in the

larger context he described. According to the authors, in so doing, Chirac was able to diminish

the importance of the problem. This is also evident in the French speeches in the UNSC: de

51

Villepin consistently moderated the Iraqi WMD crisis as one of many in the world, which must

be dealt with cautiously and consensually by ascertaining facts and dealing with obstacles

peacefully and constructively.

Perhaps the most relevant studies for this thesis are the two conducted by Chang and Mehan

(2008) and Zarefsky (2007). Chang and Meehan (2008) scrutinizes the argumentation structures

employed in policy documents, interviews, national addresses, and speeches by President Bush

and prominent members of his administration during the period spanning from the September 11

events until the invasion of Iraq. Chang and Mehan also includes Secretary Powell’s speeches in

the UN, which likewise inform this study. The findings isolated several argumentation strategies

that served the War on Terror and the war on Iraq. The character of Saddam Hussein, who was

painted as an evil madman, was a central claim that was included in all arguments. According to

these authors, this claim injected “a regime’s character into the equation of international policy

…, which became an essential component of the Bush administration’s argumentative apparatus”

(p. 460). The administrative argumentative structure was also based on “incorrigible

propositions”. For example, the alleged meetings between Al Qaeda leaders and Iraqi officials

“were unequivocally interpreted as unambiguous evidence for collaborative relations that justify

war”. All other alternative explanations were dismissed based on a rationale that “ambition and

hatred are enough to bring them together” (Powell, February 5 speech). In cases where technical

evidence was required to support the arguments presented, a “tautological explanatory system”

was used instead. An example of that was the insistence that Iraq possessed WMDs, despite the

lack of technical evidence by experts. A self-justifying, circular explanatory system was offered:

The absence of WMDs became evidence of Saddam’s deceitful character, and Saddam’s

deceitful character explained the absence of WMDs. “Oracular reasoning” was also established,

52

most notably in a statement crafted by Perl (one of the Bush administration advisors): “Even if

nothing was found by the UN inspectors, Iraq still must have possessed the weapons and military

action would still be necessary.” (p. 458).

The authors conclude that the reasoning techniques of the Bush administration “ranging from

ignoring contradictory data and dismissing alternative perspectives to oversimplifying issues and

applying circular reasoning, tamper with the fragility of political conventions aiming at a stable

world order” (p. 463). The authors argue that this disregard for argumentative norms upheld in

the international political community is an expression of U.S. dominance exerted to determine

what counts as legitimate knowledge.

Zarefsky (2007) analyzes the strength of Colin Powell’s case in the UNSC speech of February 5,

2003. He focuses on three main aspects of argumentation: structure, reasoning, and evidence. In

terms of structure, Zarefsky observes the order and importance given to certain arguments and

the cursory fashion in which other arguments were treated. This author shows that the major

arguments were dedicated to Iraq’s alleged possession of WMDs and Iraq’s alleged obstruction

of the inspectors’ work monitoring these programs. Saddam’s character and the Iraqi regime’s

connection to terrorists were the two arguments treated in a cursory fashion based on the little

time dedicated to them, and their position toward the end of the speech. Zarefsky explains these

moves to be well planned so that these two less important arguments, if they fail to persuade the

audience, the outcome would not affect the case for the two other major claims. The overall

argumentation structure of the speech is found to be subordinative, where each “step in the

argument depends on the preceding steps, and every step must be established in order to sustain

the ultimate claim” (p.284). Although this structure is disadvantageous because if one argument

could not be established it would negatively impact on all other arguments within this structure;

53

Zarefsky argues that this did not happen in Powell’s speech. Powell’s speech in this author’s

view was strengthened by this structure as each argument gave momentum to the next one. It

should be noted however, that in his analysis Zarefsky did not take into consideration how other

Council members reacted to Powell’s argumentation in coming to the conclusion that this

structure helped Powell’s case. Neither did Zarefsky factor in the worldwide demonstrations

against the war, which followed this speech as strong indications of how unconvincing the

speech was.

In terms of reasoning, Zarefsky argues that the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam found in

the Iraq WMDs argument is “necessarily either valid or fallacious” (P.289). In Zarefsky’s view

by using the argument from ignorance Powell established presumption in his favor. “If there was

an error, it was in not scrutinizing the argument enough, asking whether ignorance was more

likely to mean that Iraq still had the weapons or that Iraq had eliminated them surreptitiously.”

(P.291).

In terms of evidence, Zarefsky offers a discussion of how Powell compensated for the

unreliability of his evidence by using a wide variety of them, and by assuring the audience of its

probative force. Zarefsky concludes that the rhetorical effectiveness in persuading the American

public was evidenced in the 10% increase in support for war within the United States, although

internationally it was received with skepticism to say the least. He also concludes that Powell’s

case was unsound due to its “fatally flawed” evidence which was not noted by neither the

predominant view of the US press or by the American public.

The case for war on Iraq and its relationship to the NWO discourse has not only courted the

interest of Western scholars and intellectuals, but also Arab scholars and intellectuals. In the next

54

section, I review a number of studies addressing the discourses generated in the Arab World in

response to the American policies in the Middle East in general and U.S. justifications of the Iraq

War in particular.

3.2.3 Counter-hegemonic discourse and its representations of the NWO

The observed inconsistencies and partiality in U.S. foreign policies, denounced by many Western

scholars as discussed in Section 3.1.1, constitute a main topic in the discourses of Arab

intellectuals seeking to interpret and scrutinize these policies in the public domain. A study

conducted by Falah, Flint, and Mamadouh (2006) finds that in the period immediately preceding

the invasion of Iraq, articles and cartoons in 65 Arab newspapers across 17 Arab countries

clearly indicated that no government of an Arab country, except Kuwait, supported a war against

Iraq. The authors found five themes to be common to all the newspapers they studied: The first

was the depiction of the war as an imperialist action marked by the immoral use of military

might for selfish reasons. The second was the perceived arrogance of American power portrayed

as dismissive of the interests, concerns, and requests of the Arab people. The third was the

depiction of realist power politics exercised by the US as immoral, paradoxical, and inconsistent

in the sense that the US violated the very moral political geography of sovereign states it called

for, in order to manage its interest. The fourth was the portrayal of the United States as behaving

desperately and immorally, both by holding itself above the world’s most accepted organization

and for its lack of interest in the “truth” sought by the UN inspectors regarding Iraq’s military

capabilities and intentions. The fifth theme was US support of Israel, portrayed more than any

other justification of the anti-war position as immoral, given the U.S.’s veto of almost any UN

resolution condemning Israel’s actions and its support for the killing of Palestinians under the

“guise” of the “war against terror.” The “so-called integrative power” of the United States is seen

55

as a fiction in these accounts, blind to human rights abuses and injustices perpetrated against

Palestinians by Israelis. Any universal message of human rights by the US is portrayed as

inapplicable, but belongs instead to a dysfunctional world of misperceptions and falsehood

(Falah, Flint and Mamadouh, p. 160-161).

These themes are also dominant within the writings of renowned Arab intellectuals, such as

Mohammad Hassanain Haikal (an Egyptian journalist and ex-diplomat), Saleem Al Hoss (a

professor of economics and ex-Prime Minister of Lebanon), Galal Amin (an Egyptian professor

of economics and political writer), and Jihad Al Khazen (a London-based Lebanese journalist),

to name a few. In reviewing the rhetoric of these Arab intellectuals and others, Baroudi (2008)

was interested in the dominant form of these writers’ counter-hegemonic discourse: rhetorical

offensives. Baroudi defined rhetorical offensives as:

politically motivated writings that dwell on the political, economic, social and

moral flaws of the hegemonic power. Significantly, the hegemonic power is

represented as a threat to the core values and interests of the group with which the

author identifies. Furthermore, rhetorical offensives highlight the hegemonic

power’s ill intent and its duplicity in terms of concealing its real intentions behind

lofty slogans e.g. promotion of democracy and human rights), and identify

strategies of resistance. (p. 106)

After reviewing several of each of these intellectuals’ writings and quoting excerpts, across

decades in some instances, Baroudi found several themes and stylistic aspects of rhetorical

offensives to be common to the majority of the targeted intellectuals’ counter-hegemonic

discourse. Stylistically, the rhetorical offensives he found were satire, irony, hyperbole, strong

language (insulting and using absolute terms), and emotional exhortations, usually prevalent in

political discourse, designed to evoke powerful counter-hegemonic sentiments and resistance.

These offensives, according to Baroudi, present the reader with “immutable truths” about the

56

United States, and they join author and reader by affirming the unity of the community, and by

inviting its members to subscribe to the same notions and speak the same language as the writer,

which makes them manipulative.

According to Baroudi’s study, the Arab intellectuals’ shared beliefs and perceptions of the

invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 can be summarized along the following lines:

1- A rejection of the US argument that the war was fought to bring democracy to the Iraqi

people and to remove the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction;

2- A belief that taking over Iraq’s oil was among the most important undeclared reasons for

the Iraq War and that the war was the first step to controlling Arab and global oil markets

in order to achieve US hegemony over the global economy;

3- A view of the US invasion of Iraq inspired by the sinister motive of ridding Israel of a

regional threat and accelerating the process of fragmentation within the Arab World by

sowing discord and encouraging violence among the ethnic and sectarian groups that

make up modern Iraq;

4- A view that Iraq was merely the first major step in the Bush plan to foster creative chaos

in the Arab world in order to facilitate its assimilation into the American Era.

5- A positioning of the Arab world, with its vast oil resources, geostrategic location, and

religious and cultural centrality, especially with regard to the broader Islamic world, as

chiefly important to the American project of establishing global hegemony;

6- A condemnation of the US position that Arab regimes are corrupt, despotic, and spineless

in the face of American pressure. (pp. 106-120)

Such counter-hegemonic discourse is a hegemonic discourse itself (see Section 3.5.1.3), as it

dominates the Arab world through its propagation by Arab media, intellectuals, spiritual leaders,

57

as well as governments (Bazzi, 2009). The latter author’s study provides several examples of the

domination of counter-hegemonic discourse and its propagation on a large scale. Bazzi cites the

Arab Media Declaration signed by Arab information ministers in 2008, which clearly

distinguishes between terror and violence on the one hand and the right of resistance to

occupation on the other. It also directs the media to “respect the religious, ethical and social

values of the Arab community; protect the Arab identity from the negative effects of

globalization; correct wrong information originating from foreign sources; and abstain from

broadcasting subjects which endanger the unified Arab positions” (p. 46). Such directions are

undoubtedly a form of censoring dissenting opinions in the media. The author also drew

examples from the Arab and Islamic Media National Conference, held in Beirut in September

2003, which called for selecting terminology to emphasize a particular use of language when

dealing with the Palestinian issue and to resist biased representations and to promote the

victimization of Palestinians and their heroism in the media discourse. “Prominent figures pointed

out that the media should address the imbalance that Third World victims receive versus Israeli

victims and should resist colonizing terminology that imposes new world orders and distinctions”

(p.47). Bazzi also points to the resolve adopted in the 2002 Kuala Lumpur Declaration by Islamic

leaders to combat terrorism and to also distinguish it from the struggles of resistance carried out

by people under colonial or foreign occupation where the term “terrorism” does not apply.

Similar calls were made by state leaders such as then-President Mubarak of Egypt and Al Assad

of Syria in the Arab Leaders’ Summit held in Beirut and the 14th Islamic Conference held in

Cairo (both in 2002). Al Assad stressed that using Western hegemonic terminology as imposed

by foreign media (suicide bomber vs. martyr; war against terror vs. American aggression in

Afghanistan; US forces in Iraq vs. US occupying forces in Iraq) implies accepting a more

58

dangerous form of foreign colonialism than that of the coercive type. Bazzi concludes that these

examples among many others point to how an ideology of resistance can be regionally propagated

by Arab leaders and Arab media to counter a Western ideology through legitimating the use of

different terminology and censoring other terms and opinions to represent certain events, actors,

and international dynamics.

The above literature review provides multiple perspectives on the ethics, morality, and legality of

the war on Iraq. It also details the crucial role of language use in structuring an order of present

and future realities to serve various types of ideologies in the service of specific political aims. In

the next section, I detail the importance of this study and its justification based on an identified

gap in the literature and the contrastive approach this study takes to critically analyze

argumentative political discourse in a supranational institutional setting.

3.4 CDA: Theoretical Assumptions

CDA originated in Britain as Critical Linguistics with socially concerned linguists such as

Fowler et al. (1979), Kress and Hodge (1979), and Trew (1979), drawing on Halliday’s systemic

functional linguistics (SFL) (1961, 1977). CDA linguists aimed at “isolating ideology in

discourse” and showing “how ideology and ideological processes are manifested as systems of

linguistic characteristics and processes” (Trew, 1979, p. 155). These scholars adopted Halliday’s

view of language as “a social act,” any occurrence of which simultaneously performs an

ideational function (representing the speaker’s experiences of the world and its phenomena); an

interpersonal function (the speaker’s insertion of his/her own attitudes and evaluations about the

phenomena and the creation of a relationship between speaker and listener or third parties); and a

textual function (the structured production of text understood by the listener in the context in

59

which it occurs) (Fowler, 1991, p. 71; Fairclough, 1995, p. 25). Another central assumption of

SFL adopted by CDA scholars is that speakers make choices regarding vocabulary and grammar,

and that these choices are consciously or unconsciously “principled and systematic”; hence, they

are ideologically based (Fowler et al., 1979, p. 188). Choices of vocabulary – as seen above in

Bazzi’s study – can be purposely selected to promote a particular ideology over another by

labeling the person blowing themselves up in order to harm a perceived enemy as possible

either a terrorist or a martyr. Moreover, grammatical features such as passivation or activation

of social actors, for example, have the crucial role of elucidating or obscuring social actors’

responsibility for particular positive or negative actions depending on the ideology being

promoted (see Section 3.5.1.3). Van Dijk (1985), Fairclough (1989), and Wodak (ed.) (1989),

drawing on the preceding work of CL scholars in the 1970s, detailed the main assumptions,

principles, and procedures of critical linguistics (Wodak, 2001). CDA then became a consistently

used label for this approach to linguistic analysis in the 1990s, and its development resulted in

multiple theoretical frameworks or schools that are closely related (van Dijk, 1998). Below, I

review CDA’s common principles, central notions, and major approaches.

3.4.1 Common principles

Most CDA scholars agree on the eight principles of CDA outlined by Fairclough and Wodak

(1997, pp. 271-280). The first is that CDA addresses social problems with a focus on language

use and on the linguistic characteristics of social and cultural processes. This is in order to

identify power relationships that are frequently hidden. Second, because power relations are

discursive, CDA explains how social relations of power are exercised and negotiated in and

through discourse. The third common principle is that discourse constitutes society and culture,

in that every instance of language contributes to reproducing and transforming society and

60

culture, including relations of power. The next principle concerns the ideological nature of

discourse, for one of the means of circulating ideologies is discourse. The fifth principle refers to

the historical nature of discourse, which can only be understood with reference to historical

context. This necessitates taking into consideration culture, society, and ideology in historical

terms (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997; Wodak, 1996, 2001). The sixth principle considers the link

between text and society as mediated. Wodak (1996) and van Dijk (1997, 2001) perceive social

cognition and mental models as mediating between discourse and the social. Fairclough believes

that mediation is assumed by discourse practices – more specifically, text production and

consumption (Fairclough, 1995, p. 59). Another principle of CDA derives from its interpretative

and explanatory goals. In that regard, van Dijk (1998) states that:

Texts are described but need to be interpreted relative to the processes of production,

distribution and interpretation that define discursive practices, whereas explanation (e.g.,

in terms of power or hegemony) needs to be given in terms of discourse as social-cultural

practice in local and global social situations.

The eighth principle of CDA is that discourse is a form of social action that is crucially

influenced by social structure (Wodak, 2001, p. 10). The exercise of power as a social action,

and its linguistic manifestation in discourse, is one of the central topics of investigation in CDA:

… texts are often sites of struggle in that they show traces of differing discourses and

ideologies contending and struggling for dominance. Thus, the defining features of CDA

are its concern with power as a central condition in social life, and its efforts to develop a

theory of language that incorporates this as a major premise. (ibid.)

61

3.4.2 Central notions

CDA scholars also agree on at least three central notions within the CDA approach. Wodak

(2008) provides the shared perspectives of CDA scholars in regard to the three central notions of

discourse, ideology, and power.

1- The notion of discourse: Discourse, as manifested in text and talk, is language use as

social action, which constitutes situations, objects of knowledge, and the social

identities of and relationships between people and groups of people. It helps to sustain

and reproduce the social status quo, and it contributes to transforming it. Discourse may

have major ideological effects by helping to produce and reproduce asymmetrical

power relations between various social groups through the ways in which they

represent things, positions, and people. (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997, p. 258).

2- The notion of ideology: ideology is defined by some of the leading practitioners of CDA

such as Fairclough and van Dijk from different perspectives. Fairclough & Chuliaraki

(1999) speaks of the concept of hegemony as relations of domination, which involves the

naturalization of practices and their social relations as well as relations between practices,

as matters of common sense. For these authors, the concept of hegemony, thus,

emphasizes the importance of ideology in achieving and maintaining relations of

domination (p. 24). As for van Dijk (1998), ideology is an abstract mental system which

organizes socially shared attitudes and indirectly influences the personal cognition of

group members in their comprehension of social action including discourse. “Ideologies

thus form the basis of the social representations and practices of group members,

including their discourse, which at the same time serves as the means of ideological

62

production, reproduction and challenge” (van Dijk, 2001, p.12). Koller and Davidson

(2008) further elaborates ideology in discourse as “an accumulation of mental

models…selectively drawn on in discourse production ” with an “interpersonal meta-

function”, which positions “discourse producers and recipients in relation to each other,

with the former often intending to align the latter’s mental models to their own” (p.310).

CDA is interested in the often obscured ideology of everyday practices, which

presuppose shared ideas and opinions among people, regardless of their diverse

backgrounds and interests. Ideology appears in discourse in various linguistic forms,

many of which allow it to remain disguised, such as conceptual metaphors and analogies,

for example. CDA views dominant ideologies as manifested in taken-for-granted

assumptions that stay largely unchallenged and may be expressed in texts and talk. Thus,

CDA researchers are interested in the function of ideologies in everyday life (see Section

3.5.1.3).

1- The notion of power: Power as the ability to influence people’s behavior by using

authority, social, economic or political status is central for understanding the dynamics

and specifics of controlling action in modern societies – although it remains mostly

invisible. CDA perceives power as a feature of social action, which is crucially

influenced by social structure. Structure is in turn influenced and transformed by

agency manifested in e.g. discourse. Linguistic manifestations of the relationship

between social power and language are one of CDA’s main concerns, because language

can reinforce power but can also challenge it in order to change its distribution

(Fairclough, 1989; Wodak, 1989).

63

3.4.3 Major approaches

Among the key scholars of CDA are Norman Fairclough, Teun van Dijk, and Ruth Wodak,

whose approaches I briefly review here. Fairclough (2001) describes his approach as “a

contribution to the general raising of consciousness of exploitative social relations, through

focusing upon language” (p. 4). His notion of the relationship between discourse and ideology is

that the latter is embedded in features of discourse as common sense practices, which are

backgrounded, assumed, or expected and rarely or never asserted (p. 69). These conventions

have the role of sustaining existing relations of power within society in the service of ideology

(p. 64). The way ideology operates in discourse can be observed through the assumptions it

imposes upon text producers and text interpreters without being aware of it (Fairclough, 2001,

p.69)

A central idea in Fairclough’s approach to CDA is a concept adapted from Foucault’s (1981)

order of discourse, which refers “to ordered set of discursive practices associated with a

particular social domain or institution, … and boundaries and relationships between them”

(Foucault, 1981, p. 12). For Fairclough, discourse involves social conditions that relate to three

levels of social organization: the social situation or the immediate context in which the discourse

occurs, the social institution that provides the wider context in which the discourse takes place,

and the wider society as a whole. The production and interpretation of discourse is viewed as

partly the result of what Fairclough calls “member resources” (MRs), which are shaped by these

social conditions. Cognitively, member resources have to do with representations stored in the

memory of a member of society, who is interacting in a particular social situation where he/she is

producing and interpreting text or talk.

64

These representations are prototypes for a very diverse collection of things – the shapes

of words, the grammatical forms of sentences, the typical structure of a narrative, the

properties of types of object and person, the expected sequence of events in a particular

situation type, and so forth. (p. 9)

Fairclough points out that MRs, linguistic and otherwise – i.e., social beliefs and values, which

are related to linguistic MRS as cognitive concepts are encoded in language, are socially

determined and ideologically shaped, but that their common sense representation in discourse

disguises this fact. This is what makes them “a powerful mechanism for sustaining the relations

of power which ultimately underlie them” (p. 9). Accordingly, these values and beliefs seem to

have the status of ‘common sense’, i.e. they are not unusual, not contested, but seem to be ‘the

way things are’, which makes it easy for such representations to support a certain power set up.

Wodak (2008) describes the discourse-historical approach (DHA) as one which elaborates and

links to the socio-cognitive theory of Teun van Dijk (1998). It views “discourse” as structured

forms of knowledge and the memory of social practices – accrued through accumulated

knowledge of these practices, whereas “text” refers to concrete instances of spoken or written

language use Reisigl and Wodak, 2001). Research on political discourse from a historical

perspective, which also includes present perspective, is one of the main interests of DHA.

Wodak and Meyer (2001, Ch. 4) describes the DHA approach to CDA as following “a complex

concept of social critique” with at least three targeted dimensions. The first, “immanent critique,”

is concerned with discovering inconsistencies in the text or the discourse’s internal structures.

The second, “socio-diagnostic critique,” aims to expose the persuasive, or manipulative,

character of discourse. This is achieved by making use of background and contextual knowledge

and embedding the communicative structures of a discursive event “in a wider frame of social

and political relations, processes and circumstances.” The third dimension, “prognostic critique,”

65

aims to contribute to improving communication in various social institutions by drawing up

proposals and guidelines for language use (p. 65).

Van Dijk (2002) prefers to speak of critical discourse studies (CDS) when referring to his

approach to CDA. In his view, such a term is more encompassing of a critical approach, which

involves critical theory, critical analysis, and critical applications, and avoids the misconception

of CDA as being a mere method of discourse analysis. Van Dijk also conceives of CDS as

premised on the view that “some forms of text and talk may be unjust,” and that CDS aims to

define and expose discursive injustice by formulating norms that define it. These norms are

understood in this study to be international law and moral standards as outlined by the UN

Charter as a universal normative order accepted by all UN member states. Thus, CDS is

problem-oriented and presupposes in its approach a policy of ethical assessment of a discourse

that may be illegitimate according to certain norms and standards. As a criterion, we thus call

any discourse unjust if it violates the internationally recognized human rights of people and

contributes to social inequality (van Dijk, 2003, p. 63)

This makes CDS a socially committed research program that is conducted in solidarity with

groups that are dominated or marginalized in a specific social or institutional setting such as the

UNSC, regardless of their prestige and dominant status in other settings, e.g. regional league

meetings.

The properties of CDS as identified by van Dijk are as follows:

1- The analysis aims to contribute to the solution of social problems, caused or exacerbated

by public discourse, which result in domination and inequality.

66

2- The analysis should be conducted within a defined normative perspective, for example in

terms of international law. This allows a “critical assessment of abusive discursive

practices as well as guidelines for practical intervention and resistance against

illegitimate domination.”(van Dijk, 2003, p. 64)

3- The analysis specifically takes into account the interests and resistance of the victims of

discursive injustice and its consequences.

Van Dijk’s (1995, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2009) socio-cognitive approach is a theory which takes its

principal elements to be discourse, cognition, society, and hegemony as the dominant ideology.

The socio-cognitive approach elaborates these elements’ inter-relationships and their various

observable manifestations in social, and specifically political, life. In this approach, socio-

cognition, constituted by social cognition and personal cognition, mediates between society and

discourse. “Social cognition” is defined as “the system of mental representations and processes

of group members” (van Dijk, 1998), while “ideology” is defined in line with Gramsci as the

overall, abstract mental systems that organize socially shared attitudes that indirectly influence

the personal cognition of group members in their act of comprehension of discourse among other

actions and interactions (ibid). These notions of cognition, ideology, and discourse, among

others, are further elaborated in the next section addressing the theoretical framework of this

study, which combines two approaches to the analysis of argumentative discourse: the socio-

cognitive and the pragma-dialectics approaches.

3.5 Theoretical Framework of This Study

The analysis of the UNSC debate pre-dating the Iraq war requires a combination of compatible

theories to form a framework capable of encompassing numerous complexities. First, this

67

framework should be able to explain the conflicting social, political, cultural, and historically

shaped systems of thoughts, beliefs, and values expressed in the contributions to the debate. It

should also be able to interpret the attitudes, opinions, and goals of the discourse producers in

relation to the outcome of the debate. Second, it must allow for a critical and systematic

evaluation of the arguments and counterarguments presented in the various contributions

according to standardized rules and procedures, here pragma-dialectical rules of a critical

discussion (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 2004). Third, this framework should provide the

basis for explicating the UNSC debate context in all its aspects: multi-national, political, multi-

ideological, and according to the influence of the institutional power structure on the debate.

Thus, a normative critique and evaluative critique of the various speakers’ contributions should

also be included within this framework.

In the next section, I elaborate on how the socio-cognitive approach to CDA can be used as a

framework for a normative critique of argumentation while concurrently interpreting and

explaining the nature of the UNSC debate as multi-ideological.

3.5.1 Situating the UNSC Debate as an object of study within the socio-cognitive

approach to CDA and the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation.

The process and conclusion of the UNSC Iraq War debate of 2003 was defined earlier as

problematic based on two fundamental facts. The first is the interruption of the due institutional

decision-making process by the United States. The second is the institutionally unauthorized

instigation of war against Iraq. The examination of the legitimation of these acts of domination

via the American contributions to the debate is one of the main objects of this study. The other

main object is the examination of the discourse opposing war against Iraq, and hence objecting to

or resisting such domination. It is a discourse which attempts to legitimate its objection to war

68

and hence to delegitimate war as a proposed action. A third objective of this study is to infer the

mental models underlying the various contributions to the argumentative discourse of the Iraq

War debate in the UNSC. Accordingly I define and discuss below the concepts of discourse,

cognition and its representations in discourse, ideology and hegemony as the dominant ideology,

power and its relation to discourse and ideology, and the concept of legitimacy and the act of

legitimation from a critical standpoint.

3.5.1.1 Discourse

The socio-cognitive approach to CDA takes a multidisciplinary view of “discourse” by taking

into account the linguistic, cognitive, social and cultural aspects of text and talk in context (van

Dijk, 1998, p.193). It is thus defined as a specific communicative event involving specific

participants, a specific setting (time, place, circumstances), and context as “the structured set of

all properties of a social situation that are possibly relevant for the production, structures,

interpretation and functions of text and talk” (p. 211). Discourse also refers to the ongoing or

accomplished product, as text or talk, abstracted from the spoken or written communicative act

of the communicative event (p. 194). Also from a socio-cognitive perspective, Koller (2012),

following Fairclough (2010), refers to discourse as language use as social practice, based on and

shaping cognition. However, Koller distinguishes between discourse as a mass noun, which

indicates the “historical context” and the social realm in which it is enacted, and discourses as

count nouns, which can be differentiated by indicating “stance and topic as well as locality,

producer and channel of distribution” (p. 20). Fairclough (2003) describes discourse as

dialectically related to a distinct social, political, and language community. Discourses can thus

be differentiated by their relations to different orders of discourse, considering that “the order of

discourse of each social system with all its institutions, groups, and power relationships

69

determines its linguistic variation and choices” (p. 24). The social domain ‘politics’ can be used

as a designation for discourse as a mass noun for all discourse genres used in the realm of

politics. The UNSC debate on the Iraq war is thus an instant of the discourse genre ‘debate’

within the social realm of international politics. At the same time, from a socio-cognitive view,

each of these contributions, while dialectically related to the social system in which they are

enacted, i.e. international politics, are also distinct in their relations to different social, cultural

and language communities.

In line with van Dijk’s (1998, p. 17) view of discourse as one of the means of ideological

production, reproduction, and challenge; Koller (2012) points out that discourse operates in an

ideological manner as its “participants draw on linguistic resources to encode combinations of

beliefs, values, norms, goals and emotions … in order to gain and/or maintain power and

influence” (p. 21). Accordingly, Koller views the impact of texts and discourses to be concrete

by for example creating and allocating unequal distribution of power and (physical) violence

against objects and people among many other material effects. A discourse as count noun,

according to Koller, can thus be a problematic social phenomenon from a critical standpoint

because it may involve “the unequal distribution of power between discourse participants,

leading to marginalization, discrimination and, ultimately, suffering” (p. 22). Within the socio-

cognitive approach to CDA, ideology is an essential part of the discourse-society-cognition

triangle, to the extent that it has been claimed that discourse analysis is ideology analysis (van

Dijk, 1995, p. 1).

70

3.5.1.2 Cognition

In his socio-cognitive theory of the interrelationships that exist among cognition, society,

discourse, and ideology, van Dijk describes cognition as “the set of functions of the mind, such

as thought, perception and representation” (2002, p. 64). Social cognition is defined as in terms

of a system of mental representations and processes shared by group members. The personal

mental representations of people’s beliefs and life experiences of social practices are called

models (Johnson-Laird, 1983; van Dijk, 1987b; van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983). They are influenced

by the social cognitions shared with other group members, and hence they influence people’s

practices and how they understand the practices of others.

The socio-cognitive approach situates ideology within individual and social cognition defined

above as social representations shared by groups, organizations, and institutions. This theory

holds that as constitutive of ideas, thoughts, beliefs, judgments, and values, which make them a

belief system, ideologies are cognitive. As systems of beliefs, ideologies are acquired gradually

through long-term processes of socialization and the processing of information concerning

group(s) and culture(s). Thus, they control the attitudes of groups, which are the socially shared

opinions or normative beliefs about specific social issues provoking debate or struggle (such as

the war on Iraq); hence, they are also social/political (van Dijk, 1995, 1998).

More recently, Koller (2012) also details the relationship between discourse and cognition. By

drawing on social psychology she notes the notion of socio cognitive representations (SCRs) as

“cognitive structures shared by members of a particular group” (p. 21).They are described as

organized and coherent socially shared sets of knowledge about objects, notions or their

domains. These sets of knowledge combine with affective normative and evaluative dimensions

71

such as norms, values, attitudes and expectations held by members of a discourse community,

and with the emotions that accrue to all of these elements. They are discursively and socially

communicated, and thus they are “partly constituted intertextually, by relevant texts being

circulated within and across discourse communities” (p. 21). Therefore, Koller points out that

cognition is instantiated in discourse while it is also being shaped by it; and that this entails that

representations are culturally bound and come into being at particular historical moments.

Cognition is also related to ideology as detailed by both van Dijk (1998) and most recently

Koller (2014). In the next section I discuss the inter-relationship of ideology, cognition and

discourse by drawing on the views of these two authors.

3.5.1.3 Ideologies, power and legitimation in argumentative discourse

The socio cognitive approach views ideologies as “political or social systems of ideas, values or

prescriptions of groups or other collectivities, and have the function of organizing or legitimating

the actions of the group” (van Dijk, 1998, p. 3). More specifically, ideologies are defined as “the

basis of the social representations shared by members of a group … like a shared framework of

social beliefs that organize and coordinate the social interpretations and practices of groups and

their members, and in particular also power and other relations between groups.” (ibid, p. 8)

Koller (2014) provides an encompassing socio-cognitive view of ideology in discourse,

cognition and society by drawing on a number of theorists and authors, mainly van Dijk (1998),

Augoustinos et al. (2006), Gee (1992) and Moscovici (1984/2001) to offer a coherent concept of

the contents, structure, genesis and functions of ideology. Koller adopts the view that ideology is

rooted in cognitive models formed by the experience of recurrent phenomena in culture and

society. It addresses social and political relationships of power, and also serves to organize social

72

relations, often in discriminatory ways in order to preserve, rationalize, legitimate, and

(re)produce particular self–serving power relations within a society, while opposing the power

and dominance of others. Thus, ideology advances its own tenets at the expense of the interests

of others by epistemically, deontically, and evaluatively classifying, characterizing, and

describing persons, objects, and actions to make sense of experiences. Koller also views ideology

as having a conventionalization function, which is in turn an effect of a generalization function,

with the aim of converging and uniting individuals through beliefs. Based on Moscovici

(1984/2001), Koller views these conventionalizing and generalizing functions to be achieved

through the process of mental representation. Individuals’ encounters of people and events are

gradually established as a model of a certain type in order to make the unfamiliar familiar by

understanding and perceiving new encounters in relation to previously established ones. Thus,

ideology is defined as “a network of beliefs that leads to expectations, norms and values, can

entail emotional effects and is a crucial means of organizing social life” (page number). Koller

further advances that the study of ideology is “the central question of cognitive critical discourse

studies” (Koller, 2014, p. 247).

Hegemonic ideology, as referred to and manifested in the discourses examined in the above

reviewed studies (section 3.2), is understood as a dominant ideology which publicly propagates

its own tenets in both the national and international arenas in order to legitimate its violent

actions, while at the same time obscuring other alternatives and the harmful and illegitimate

consequences of these same actions (c.f. Altheide, 2007; Brookes, 2003). As the Iraq war

discourse generated in the US in the pre-war period has been established as a part of the

discourse of the “War on Terror”, which is in turn perceived as a part of the larger hegemonic

discourse of the “New World Order” , (Lazar & Lazar, 2004; Collet, 2009); its reproduction by

73

the U.S. Secretary of State, General C. Powell in the UNSC, is presumed here as a background

knowledge of the declared US policy on Iraq. Likewise, the opponents of war are presumed to

be reproducing their nationally or regionally hegemonic discourses in order to maintain their

own national or regional prestige and power, yet at the same time resisting the dominance of

another ideology. In the next section I discuss ideologies and hegemony as understood in this

study and their operation in international politics in the context of the UN.

A- Ideology and hegemony in the UNSC

To explain hegemony as exercised in the UNSC debate I start from Gramsci’s work “The

Intellectuals” – as translated and edited by Hoare and Smith (1999). Gramsci identifies two

superstructural levels as corresponding to the function of hegemony. The first is civil society

understood as “the ensemble of organisms commonly called ‘private’”, and the second is

“‘political society’ or ‘the State’”. These two levels of superstructures correspond to the

functions of hegemony, exercised by the dominant group; and direct domination or command,

exercised through the State and “juridical” government. These two functions comprise:

The “spontaneous” consent given by the great masses of the population to the

general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this

consent is “historically” caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence)

which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world

of production. 2. The apparatus of state coercive power which “legally” enforces

discipline on those groups who do not “consent” either actively or passively.

(p.203)

According to a number of scholars, neo-Gramscians and others, (c.f. Fusaro (2010), Morton

(2007), Thomas (2009), Burgio (2003, 2007), Gruppi (1972) and Callinicos (2009)), Gramsci’s

concept of hegemony is understood not only in relation to production, but as “economic, civic

74

and political and defined as dialectical unity between leadership and domination, including both

the moments of consensus and coercion” (Fusaro, 2010, p.1). This author refers to Gramsci’s

formulation in Quadrini 19, p.162 where the term ‘hegemony’ refers to both the unity of the two

moments and to label one of the two moments – as consensus:

hegemony is the dialectical unity between ‘domination’ and ‘hegemony’.

Apparently confusing, this formulation is also present in Gramsci where in some

instances he refers to “hegemonic” as a mixture of “direct domination and

hegemony”(p. 11)

Hegemony for Gramsci can also be exercised by individuals, institutions or groups who function

as agents of either the state or civil society. In both cases hegemony is substantially supported

by the consent of those governed or being led; however, the way consent is formed, and how it is

related to coercion should also be considered. Coercion is not always explicit. Ives (2004, p. 124)

discusses the notion of inexplicit coercion that causes immediate consent and provides the

following example:

You alter your language when those you are speaking to continually ask ‘What do

you mean?’ ‘Explain yourself’... In many instances, no explicit coercion is

necessarily involved here. You consent to change your language. However,

depending on the context, there is considerable coercion at play. If you do not

make yourself understood, you are the one who suffers the consequences, not

your listener.

These consequences could be a bad grade for a student, an unfavorable interview outcome for a

job applicant, hence the position of power the interviewer and the teacher possess necessitate

consent by the student or the interviewee. Adverse consequences can also exist for both the

teacher and the employer if they are not understood, such as a poorly managed class, or the

inability to fill a crucial position.

75

In such circumstances, it may be difficult to demarcate clearly the distinction

between consent and coercion. Such situations also illustrate how resistance is

possible even in subtle ways. Those who are the recipients of force can react in

various ways. (p.124)

In Gramsci’s view, international relations deal with a balance of forces in which any single State

component has only a very limited weight (p. 394). For Gramsci a great power could be

manifested in “the combinations of States in hegemonic systems” (Hoare and Smith, 1991, p.

397). Fusaro (2010) refers to Gramsci’s [Q13, p. 1597-98] definition of a great power as a

hegemonic power which is “chief and guide of a system of alliances and of greater and minor

agreements”. Such a great power may exist on the national or international level. A great power

is characterized by “its ability to impress upon state activity an autonomous direction, of which

other states need to support the influence and repercussion” (Q13 as quoted by Fusaro, 2010).

In today’s world the United Nations represents “the combination of states in hegemonic systems”

where some states are in positions of leading a number of other states in hegemonic alliances

while other states are being led within these alliances based on minor and major agreements i.e.

the NATO, the league of Arab States, African Union, etc. At the same time all these states and

systems of alliances are functioning within international law embodied in the UN, which is

another hegemonic alliance. Member states of regional alliances are at the same time members of

the UN, and as such guard their interests and power status within all alliances in which they

function as members.

Based on the above established view of hegemony as a combination of moral leadership and

coercion that can occur at the same moment, Flint and Falah (2004) explains the US construction

76

of military extra-territoriality as just and morally right in a system of sovereign states. These

authors argue that the cultural power of a hegemon comes from its assumption of the

responsibility of defining and disseminating a particular model of civilization, known as the

prime modernity. Because the dissemination and maintenance of such hegemonic culture can

never be total with ever-present resistance, power maintenance, as Gramsci postulated, is

achieved through either coercion by military action, by consent or by the simultaneous exercise

of both. Flint and Falah therefore argue that the hegemonic power has the imperative to nullify

cultural resistance in order to maintain its cultural universality propagated as desired by all,

beneficial to all, and attainable by all:

Resistance to the prime modernity by any state is a chink in the armor of

universality, inevitability and belief in the ability and desire of all to arrange

their societies along the model of the hegemonic state. For the hegemonic

power, the ‘horrors’ of their different societies must not only be highlighted,

but quashed. (2004, p. 1380)

Flint and Falah consider the US war on Iraq and its rhetorical justification to be an example of a

hegemonic power’s construction of a discourse that presented its beliefs and gave moral

justification to its military actions as morally right. Ives (p.64) notes that Gramsci “was

continually perceptive about how the possibility or threat of coercion and subtle uses of it are

often integral to shaping and organizing consent”. One of the means to organize consent is

persuasion. Ideologies as expressed in language can thus function to influence others in order to

obtain consensus, thus exerting influence on the various levels of discourse structures.

Argumentative structures, as a type of discourse structure, are means for expressing opinions,

beliefs, and attitudes in order to make certain beliefs more plausible (van Dijk, 1993, p. 247).

77

The strategic aspects of speech – when, how, and what information a speaker chooses to express

– is therefore crucial to persuading the audience of a particular course of action.

Resistance to implicit and explicit hegemony in language use may be manifested in the form of

counter-characterization of individuals, groups, events, intentions, actions and consequences.

While a particular hegemonic discourse may have typical representations of the world,

explanations and justifications of beliefs and opinions, a counter-hegemonic or resistant

discourse presents opposite or alternative representations ignored or obscured by the hegemonic

discourse. State representatives in the UNSC debate are expected to propagate their

governments’ foreign policies based on the interests of the dominant groups in power in their

respective countries. The US for example propagates its characterization of the Palestinian

Hamas group as a terrorist group in its public political discourse carried out by various American

government officials. Such characterization is based on a system of beliefs that criminalizes

violent actions against Israel. This particular characterization is used by Powell in the UNSC to

establish Iraq’s connection to terrorist organizations. A counter-hegemonic discourse resists such

characterization, and criminalizes Israel as an oppressive occupier of the “defenseless”

Palestinian people to establish a double standard on part of the US and unjust policy against

Arabs in general and the Iraqis and Palestinians in particular (Al Shara debate speeches of

February 14, March 7 and March 19). While Powell takes for granted this and other

characterizations and uses them as basis for legitimating war against Iraq, other discussants have

counter-characterizations that become bases for other actions they are seeking to legitimate.

Furthermore, when Powell asserts in his February 5 speech “Leaving Saddam Hussain in

possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option —

not in a post- 9-11 world”, he is effectively relying on his country’s military power to oust the

78

president of another country by force. He is also directly rejecting available options the majority

Council may wish to pursue. The two forms of power referred to by Gramsci are being exercised

here. While throughout his speech Powell uses persuasive means to get consensus behind his

position (exercise of leadership through rationalization, moralization, legitimation, presentation

of evidence, etc.), he also refers to his country’s military power capable of preventing Saddam

Hussein from staying in power for months or years. This aspect of a hegemonic discourse is

countered by drawing on other discourses that express rejection to such a unilateral decision and

willful exercise of military power on another state. Aspects of a counter-hegemonic discourse

which can be manifested within the UNSC discourse would, thus, promote the unity of the

Council in making such decisions (the French speaker) or would appeal to international law or

the adverse consequences of military action to the status of the institution, to the innocent victims

of war, to peace and security of the region among others (Syrian and Iraqi speeches). Aspects of

a counter-hegemonic discourse within the UNSC may be observed in seeking to delegitimate the

hegemonic discourse as immoral, based on double standards or as pursuing action contrary to the

institutional Charter and foremost function of the UN (Iraqi, Syrian and French speeches). In that

sense the UNSC could be a site of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic struggle. An

argumentative discourse which seeks to persuade, while making various references to coercive

power could very well be opposed by a counter-hegemonic discourse which seeks to persuade

through rhetorical and dialectical means employing the deontic power of universal ethics,

members’ role, responsibility, obligations, and institutional regulations among others.

B- Power and legitimation

Persuasion as, the function of argument, can serve processes of public legitimation. Van Dijk

(1989, p. 256) defines legitimating discourses as ones that “presuppose norms and values. They

implicitly or explicitly state that some course of action, decision or policy is ‘just’ within the

79

given legal or political system, or more broadly within the prevalent moral order of society”.

From an argumentative perspective, legitimation is viewed as connected with a course of action

that conforms to certain binding norms and values. It “invokes publicly shared and publicly

justifiable, and sometimes even highly formalized, codified, institutional systems of beliefs,

values and norms, in virtue of which the action proposed is considered legitimate” (Fairclough

and Fairclough, 2012, p.109). In this view, legitimation in discourse involves two levels of

justification. The first is to justify an action for a particular reason, and the second is to justify

that reason based on publicly recognized systems of norms, values and beliefs.

Based on the view that “political discourse is fundamentally argumentative in nature”, that “it is

almost always a case of practical argumentation”, and that political decisions are made not only

based on the strength of arguments, but also for other reasons which include power; Fairclough

and Fairclough (2012, pp.112-115) adopts a combination of Luke’s (2005) and Searle’s (2010)

concepts of power for defining and investigating its manifestation in argumentative discourse:

To exert power over an agent is to give him reasons for action that he would

otherwise not have. Such reasons can either be prudential (when people obey

authority to avoid violence) or deontic when people recognize and accept their

external (moral, institutional) force.

According to Fairclough and Fairclough, deontic power can be taken for granted as a

responsibility, an obligation, or necessity that may be due to particular social/institutional

arrangements. However, this sort of power may also be taken for granted as a necessity for

prudential reasons (c.f. Ives 2004 above). These reasons may not rise to the level of avoiding

violence, but to avoid other serious adverse effects such as economic repercussions, social or

professional condemnation, or loss of particular rights, privileges or opportunities to achieve

particular goals. It is therefore proposed that power which uses deontic reasons for actions by

80

oneself, others, or in the case of the UNSC collectively, should be able to withstand critical

scrutiny in order for it to be legitimate, otherwise, it is considered as ideological in nature (Ibid).

Such view of illegitimate use and propagation of power as ideological aligns with the definition

of ideology, adopted from Koller’s (2014), which holds that ideology legitimate self-serving

power relations within society to dominate others while working to oppose and delegitimate the

dominance of others. This is achieved through socio cognitive representations manifested in

language as negative or positive evaluations, characterizations and descriptions of people and

events in order to conventionalize certain beliefs to serve particular interests. Thus deontic

power, which cannot withstand critical scrutiny, may be explained by the goals it is attempting to

achieve, which may include the maintenance of illegitimate and discriminatory forms of

domination. Thus the use of deontic power, e.g. rights (which may be questionable in certain

situations), application of laws (to particular situations that may be exceptions to these laws),

may not withstand critical scrutiny when these situations and exceptions are further explicated

and more accurately defined.

To critically evaluate the UNSC deliberative process and its outcome from a CDA view, as

legitimate or otherwise; I adopt Fairclough and Fairclough’s (2012) “rationalist proceduralist”

conception of a legitimate outcome of a deliberative institutional process. Such conception draws

on the political theorist Peters’ (2010) view that the ideal outcome of democratic public

deliberation is a rationally justified decision, which everyone has reasons to endorse, when

conducted in accordance with the norms that define democratic deliberation. It is also based on

further ideal conditions for a legitimate outcome of public deliberation drawn mainly from

Habermas’ (1990) three principles of discourse ethics as conditions against which the decision

made as a result of public deliberation can be evaluated: whether it is 1- the object of agreement

81

of all parties, 2- that these parties are free and equal, and 3- that the deliberation is free from

deception and the distorting constraint of power in order to embody the general interest of the

public. Although ideal in nature, these stringent conceptual and procedural requirements are

viewed as best suited for combining with pragma-dialectics ideal model of a critical discussion

as proposed by van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992, 2003, 2004) and van Eemeren (2010).

Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) further advances that this is in line with the view of political

theorists who advocate that democratic legitimacy is contingent on the quality of the procedure

and the reasons offered in favor of a particular choice in public deliberation. That choice can

only be considered legitimate if it satisfies standards of argumentation, which is provided for by

pragma-dialectics.

3.5.1.4 Pragma-dialectics’ ideal model of a critical discussion

Within the socio-cognitive approach, van Dijk considers the theory of argumentation as a sub-

theory of a more embracing theory of discourse because properties of argumentation are

inherited from more general properties of discourse (1992). In practice, argumentation takes

place in a context where a difference of opinion arises or is anticipated (van Eemeren, 2009).

Argumentation is thus defined as

a communicative and interactional (speech) act complex aimed at resolving a

difference of opinion for a reasonable judge by advancing a constellation of

reasons the arguer can be held accountable for as justifying the acceptability

of the standpoint(s) at issue. (ibid., p. 73)

From a socio-cognitive point of view, although the participants in such a communicative/

argumentative event have a similar preconceived model about the communicative situation,

its participants, and how to face the challenge of defending their standpoints (van Dijk, 2006,

82

p. 172); they also have individual ‘context’ models with a dynamic nature, which can be

adapted to the requirements of the interaction as it unfolds (van Dijk, 2008). This is in line

with the pragma-dialectical view that:

The need for argumentation, the requirements of justification, and the structure of

argumentation are all adapted to a context in which doubts, opposition, objections,

and counterclaims arise. (van Eemeren, 2009, p. 70)

Pragma-dialectics is an argumentation theory which adopts a normative model of an ideal critical

discussion which is a rule-governed dialectical procedure aimed at resolving differences of

opinion by critically testing the advanced standpoints. This model assumes that meaningful

argumentation is advanced in response to actual, potential or anticipated doubt regarding a

standpoint (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 1984, 1992a, 2004). The critical discussion starts in

the ‘confrontation stage’. This is the point of departure for the critical discussion where a

difference of opinion is externalized and can be subsequently resolved if the discussants decide

on their roles as protagonist and antagonist and on common starting points for discussion in the

‘opening stage’. In the ‘argumentation stage’, the protagonist argues for, or against, a certain

standpoint, while the antagonist acts as a critic who casts doubt on the protagonist’s

argumentation. The difference of opinion is resolved in the ‘concluding stage’ in favor of the

protagonist, if he is able to successfully deal with all the critical reactions from the antagonist.

Otherwise, the antagonist can claim victory by upholding his doubt concerning the standpoint.

This obviously assumes ideal conditions aimed solely at resolving differences of opinion on the

merits. Therefore, it does not reflect actual contexts of argumentative discussions, as ordinary

arguers are not aware of the rules of a critical discussion, which prohibit committing foul

argumentative moves or fallacies; require arguers to be resolution-minded by being ready to

83

accept the better argument even if it means admitting to being wrong; and finally, assume that all

arguers have the equal opportunity to openly and freely defend or criticize standpoints at issue in

an environment free of ideological bias. These rules are intended to enable a principled process

of critiquing the argumentative discourse based on an analysis focused on the study of

“analytically relevant argumentative moves”, which constitute speech acts that play a role in the

process of resolving, or hindering the difference of opinion (van Eemeren & Grootendorst,2004:

Ch. 4). The ideal model of a critical discussion has, thus, a heuristic function as it serves “as a

guide in the detection and theoretical interpretation of every element in, and aspect of, the

discourse or text that is relevant to a critical evaluation” (van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 2004,

p. 59). This process requires the examination of detailed and complex aspects of the

contextualized discourse such as indirectness, implicitness and other discourse structures

relevant to the dialectical function of the discourse.

There are fifteen rules, later reduced to ten, which constitute the standard for a critical discussion

aiming at resolving a difference of opinion. Violation of any one rule is considered a possible

threat to the resolution of a difference of opinion and is therefore regarded as an incorrect

discussion move, hence a fallacy. In Pragma-dialectics the term fallacy “is systematically

connected to the rules of a critical discussion and a fallacy is defined as a discussion move that

violates in some specific way a rule for critical discussion applying to a particular discussion

stage” (van Eemeren, Houtlosser & Henkemans, 2008, p.478). The rules of discussions as

outlined are as follows:

1. Parties must not prevent each other from advancing standpoints or casting doubt

on standpoints.

84

2. A party that advances a standpoint is obliged to defend it if the other party asks

that this be done

3. A party’s attack on a standpoint must relate to the standpoint that has indeed been

advanced by the other party.

4. A party may defend his standpoint only by advancing argumentation relating to

that standpoint.

5. A party may not falsely present something as a premise that has been left

unexpressed by the other party or deny a premise that he himself has left implicit.

6. A party may not falsely present a premise as an accepted starting point nor deny a

premise representing an accepted starting point.

7. A party may not regard a standpoint as conclusively defended if the defense does

not take place by means of an appropriate argumentation scheme that is correctly

applied.

8. In argumentation, a party may only use arguments that are logically valid or

capable of being validated by making explicit one or more unexpressed premises.

9. A failed defense of a standpoint must result in the party that put forward the

standpoint retracting it, and a conclusive defense of the standpoint must result in

the other party retracting his doubt about the standpoint.

10. A party must not use formulations that are insufficiently clear or confusingly

ambiguous, and he/she must interpret the other party’s formulations as carefully

and accurately (van Eemeren et.al., 2002, pp. 109-139) 3

While these rules aim to ensure the practice of ideal argumentation, there is no guarantee that

they lead to the resolution of a difference of opinion – especially in those scenarios when abiding

by these rules may be counter-effective to reaching the preset goals of a particular discussant,

3 If the rules of the pragma-dialectical discussion procedure are regarded as first order conditions for having a critical discussion, the internal

conditions for a reasonable discussion attitude can be viewed as ‘second order’ conditions relating to the state of mind the discussants are

assumed to be in. In practice, people’s freedom to satisfy the second order conditions is sometimes limited by psychological factors beyond their

control, such as emotional restraint and personal pressure. There are also external, ‘third order’ conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to be

able to conduct a critical discussion properly. They relate to the social circumstances in which the discussion takes place and pertain, for instance,

to the power or authority relations between the participants and to the discussion situation. Together, the second and third order conditions for

conducting a critical discussion in the ideal sense are higher order conditions for resolving differences of opinion. Only if these conditions are

satisfied critical reasonableness can be fully realized in practice. (Van E, and G, 2004, ch. 6)

85

which is perceived to be the best result or outcome of the discussion. Therefore, in their attempt

to make things go their way, arguers attempt to present reasonable arguments, while using the

rhetorical means they presume to be best suited for the outcome they desire:

This means in practice that at every stage of the resolution process the parties may be

presumed to be at the same time out for the optimal rhetorical result at that point in

the discussion and to hold to the dialectical objective of the discussion stage

concerned. In their efforts to reconcile the simultaneous pursuit of these two aims,

which may at times be at odds, the arguers make use of what we have termed

strategic manoeuvring (van Eemeren, 2009, p. 82)

Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2007) defines strategic maneuvering as the efforts arguers make in

argumentative discourse to maintain a balance between rhetorical effectiveness and dialectical

standards of reasonableness. They distinguish each of the four stages of resolving a difference of

opinion by a dialectical objective that corresponds to a rhetorical objective. In the confrontation

stage, arguers aim at dialectically achieving clarity regarding the issue at stake and their position

on it. The rhetorical aim is to direct the confrontation towards a precise definition of what they

want to discuss. In the opening stage, the dialectical objective is to clearly establish an agreed-

upon procedural and material point of departure. Rhetorically, a discussant’s aim is to secure an

opportune allocation of the burden of proof, which helps obtain concessions by the other party.

In the argumentation stage, the dialectical aim is to test the established point of departure

identified in the opening stage and the tenability of the standpoint that shaped the difference of

opinion in the confrontation stage. It is at this stage that arguers maneuver strategically in order

to build a rhetorically convincing case or the most effective attack. In the concluding stage, the

dialectical objective is to determine in whose favor the difference of opinion is resolved. This

leads to strategic maneuvering on the part of the protagonist aimed at securing victory by

86

rhetorically advancing a conclusion in favor of maintaining a standpoint despite criticism; for the

antagonist, this means maintaining doubt in light of the argumentation advanced by the

protagonist (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2007).

The study of strategic maneuvering in discourse is directed at the arguers’ choices of topic,

audience-directed framing or persuasion, and presentational devices. An argumentative strategy

is considered to be strategically maneuvered in the discourse when it consistently takes full

advantage of all three areas. Argumentative strategies are viewed as intentional moves aimed to

achieve, through persuasion, the arguer’s objective in both a particular dialectical stage and the

discussion as a whole. The analysis of these three intentional moves can enrich a critical analysis

of discourse within a socio-cognitive framework by using argumentation in practice to show the

ways social actors pursue their goals – including ideological ones – and the linguistic and

rhetorical tools they employ to achieve such goals.

In the next section I aim to argue that the three aspects of strategic maneuvering in

argumentation have direct significance in inferring the mental models of discussants engaged in

argumentation.

3.5.2 Socio-cognition and pragma-dialectics’ compatibility for inferring the mental

models of arguers

To identify socio-cognitive representations/mental models – including ideological ones – in

discourse, Koller (2014) distinguishes several aspects of language use where ideology, as an

aspect of mental models, can be located. Koller takes a top-down approach to discern between

three aspects of naturally occurring language: discourse goals, discourse strategies and linguistic

features. She focuses on how certain categories of discourse strategies and linguistic features,

87

e.g., modality and social actors representations, can help locate ideology in discourse. Van Dijk

(1998) also believes that ideology, as an inhabitant of mental models, can be located within

discourse schemata, structures and strategies. Among the multiple features and strategies he

discusses are global and local coherence, which gives account to structures and strategies beyond

the sentence boundary. He considers topics or semantic macrostructures to be based on

interpretation of events as represented in the mental models of the language users. As semantic

macrostructures or macropropositions are derived from the discourse propositions they define

important discourse structures such as topics, overall coherence, or importance of information.

Most importantly, topics or macrostructures also explain the ideological practice of how the

situation is defined (van Dijk, 1998, p. 207).

For example, in an argumentative discourse such as the UNSC Iraq war debate where arguers’

goals may be conflicting; each of the arguers may define particular commonly known facts in

accordance with the position he adopts, which may be ideologically motivated. More

specifically, each of the four speakers’ contributions to the UNSC debate analyzed in this study

provides his own characterization of the situation and his proposed action based on his own

definition of a unanimously adopted institutional resolution as follows:

Table-3.1-Definitions of R1441

C. Powell

US

M. Al Douri

Iraq

F. Al Shara

Syria

D. de Villepin

France

R1441 is Iraq’s last

chance to comply or

face military action.

It is not about

inspections, it is

about disarmament.

R1441 provided a

means to reach a

solution to the so-

called issue of the

disarmament of Iraqi

weapons of mass

destruction.

The adoption of

1441 meant

proceeding

seriously towards a

peaceful resolution

regarding Iraq’s

disarmament of all

weapons of mass

By unanimously adopting

resolution 1441 (2002), we

chose to act through the path

of inspections. This policy

rests on a clear objective on

which we cannot

compromise — the

disarmament of Iraq; a

88

These definitions become the basis for justifying particular planned actions, concerns and goals,

which are in turn selected as major or minor topics in the discourse and can function as premises

to arguments. These differentiated definitions of the same resolution implicate a number of goals

and values, which are characteristic of each speaker’s mental model when considered together

with other definitions, opinions and beliefs held by the speaker and the propositions he makes

based on them.

Propositional relations, such as implication, entailment and presupposition are also considered

ideologically relevant (van Dijk, 1998). Explicit and detailed assertions may be intended to

emphasize negative/positive characteristics of people, events or aspects of the context to serve

particular goals; while as omissions of commonly known contextual facts may be intended to

obscure particular conditions that are not favorable to the speaker’s goal. As these strategies of

obscuration and elucidations may be managed to serve the interest of the speaker, they may be

encoding self-serving positions that may be ideological in nature.

Rhetorical structures and strategies are other features of discourse, particularly argumentative

discourse, which appear at the semantic level as optional structures and strategies utilized as

persuasive tools to capture the attention of the recipient such as choice of words, irony, rhetorical

questions and sarcasm. According to van Dijk (1998) rhetorical features are geared towards

destruction and not

as a pretext for

waging war

against Iraq.

method — a rigorous system

of inspections that requires

Iraq’s active cooperation and

that affirms the Security

Council’s central role at each

stage; and finally, a

requirement — that of our

unity.

89

persuading others of the speaker’s preferred mental model of the social event and to manage how

recipients understand and evaluate the event. As these structures may be a function of the

speaker’s management of his interest, they are also means for ideological manipulation (p. 209).

These same features may be approached from a pragmatic point of view and examined as speech

acts or components of speech acts partaking in social interaction to accomplish social actions

such as acknowledging, welcoming, threatening, promising, requesting, demanding, obligating,

accusing, etc. Many speech acts presuppose power, such as threatening, which warns the

recipients of negative consequences if they do not do what the speaker wants. Commands,

requirements and obligations also presuppose power which may be of more than one type, such

as when it is related to moral obligations, professional duty or legal requirement, which is

differentiated from the speaker’s position allowing him to exact punishment on the hearers if

they do not comply with his requirements or demands. When such speech acts are rooted in

beliefs of superiority or entitlement to dominate in order to achieve self-serving goals, they are

ideological in nature.

On the micro level of semantics is the selection of words for the purpose of conveying particular

meanings that encode opinions, beliefs and characterizations of people, and events, e.g., the Iraqi

declaration is accurate vs. not accurate and the Iraqi initiatives are important vs. are mere tricks.

Thus, my aim is to identify the speakers’ declared goals and others that remain implicit or

backgrounded in their contributions. It is to likewise identify the speakers’ ideological

underpinnings by extracting beliefs, values, and opinions as expressed and implied as

justifications. These beliefs, values, and opinions together represent various ideologies that may

be at odds with one another, and thus they make the debate a complex site of power struggle for

90

domination, resistance, and challenge. This assumption is based on the institutionally established

power structure of the UNSC, which grants its five permanent members the right to veto a

proposed resolution, while restricting the power of other ten temporary members to one vote

each. Consequently, ten or more votes in the Council can be obliterated by the veto of one

member. This power structure directly influences the positions of the speakers as social actors

acting through their contributions to the UNSC discourse. A publically televised debate to

billions of people across the globe also imposes certain constraints on the speakers’ discourse

which must at the same time be reflective of their corresponding countries’ positions

(government and people), and be persuasive to all people and governments within and outside

their countries and regions. Hence, a delicate situation requiring a sensitive balancing act where

the adopted governmental or regional policies must be presented in a universally appealing

manner in order to maintain or strengthen status of power, prestige and if possible gain public

support for their respective positions. Accordingly, these policies must guide the course of action

proposed by each of the deliberators as the best course of action, or the best alternative to other

proposed courses of action. This is where scrutinizing the validity of the argument supporting the

course of the proposed action becomes crucial to answering the critical questions of whether it is

the best option under the actual circumstances and for achieving the universal goals of the global

organization while respecting its universal values and considering its negative consequences.

Such scrutiny can be carried out by closely examining the structures of the presented practical

argument by each of the debaters.

91

3.5.3 The critical analysis of practical arguments in political discourse

The structure and representation of practical reasoning in political discourse, as applied in this

research to the UNSC debate, is originally proposed by Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) based

on two existing proposals by Audi (2006) and Walton (2006, 2007a). Audi (2006, pp. 92-99)

defines a practical argument as a premise- conclusion structure, which corresponds to a process

of responding to a practical problem or question. The conclusion of a practical argument is an

agent’s practical judgment of how to respond to the practical problem/question. Audi’s scheme

for practical reasoning involves desires and instrumental beliefs as premises, where a major

premise is motivational in nature (expressing the want to do something), and a minor premise is

a cognitive- instrumental one (expresses how the action proposed in the major premise

contributes to achieving the practical goal). The conclusion of the argument is a practical

judgment that the action should be taken. Thus the action advocated in the claim is the means

towards a goal. Walton (2007a) adds to Audi’s concept of practical argument a clear reference to

values, which remains implicit in the latter’s. Walton refers to a value which underlies the

practical goal premise.

Unlike Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) Audi (2006) and Walton (2007a) do not consider the

context of the argument to the extent of including in its structure a circumstantial premise. This

is where Fairclough & Fairclough’s substantial contribution to the structure of practical

argumentation begins. The practical argument schema is hence proposed to be as follows:

Claim for action: Agent presumes that he ought to do action A as a means that will

presumably take him from current circumstances (C) to desired goal/circumstances (G) in

accordance with value (V).

92

(G) Goal Premise: Agent’s goal is a future state of affairs (G) in which Agent’s actual

concerns, or Agent’s value commitments are realized.

(C) Circumstantial premise: Agent’s context of action is composed of facts (natural,

social and or institutional), such as Agent’s values, commitments (duties, promises,

socially recognized moral values and norms).

(V) Value premise: Underlies the goal premise as an Agent’s concern for its realization.

The value can also be an Agent’s commitment.

Furthermore, a negative consequences premise can be used by the agent or his opponent to test

the practical argument by considering actual or likely negative consequences of the proposed

action, which may compromise the goal or makes it impossible to achieve. Negative

consequences, which are detrimental to achieving the goal, represent strong reasons against the

proposed action.

By combining the socio-cognitive approach to CDA, the pragma-dialectics theory of

argumentation, and Fairclough and Fairclough’s (2012) approach to practical argumentation; a

structural analysis of discourse can be carried out based on treating arguments and their

component standpoints, various types of premises and the socio-cognitive representations they

encompass as macro, meso and micro structures of the discourse. As such a socio-cognitive

analysis of the various arguments can be carried out. The operating mental models of the

discussants can thus be inferred from observed linguistic patterns which express particular

attitudes, characterizations of people and events, repetitively expressed beliefs and intentional

obscuration or illuminations of particular facts, which may be ideologically motivated. At the

same time, the analysis and assessment of the soundness of the presented practical arguments

according to the ideal standards of a critical discussion help determine the better argument in

93

accordance with institutional and argumentation standards. Hence, normative and explanatory

critiques of the argumentative discourse substantially enrich the analysis by linking

argumentation analysis to discourse analysis from a critical perspective.

3.6 Research Questions

The research questions posed in this thesis are interested in discovering how the mental models

of the speakers, in terms of their perceptions of the current social event, their social positions,

and their accumulated social/cultural experiences – all taken together –influence their

contributions. Speakers’ legitimations and other justifications of their opinions and proposed

course of actions are investigated for potential ideological underpinnings by determining first,

the norms, beliefs and values they appeal to; second, the sources of knowledge they use and the

stated or presupposed reasons for using them; and third, how their respective ideologies advance

their own tenets based on their representations of actions, events, people and objects. This allows

for contrasting the roots of various members’ perceptions of a supranational event like the UNSC

debate, based on their recurrent experiences with this particular institution, and with other

institutional members, which contributed to shaping their stated beliefs and expressed opinions

and expectations.

On these views, my research questions also investigate the linguistic means by which power is

subtly or overtly exercised in the UNSC debate discourse via various constructions including

deontic expressions:

RQA Which, if any, aspects of the hegemonic ideology of the New World Order are evidently

established in the American contributions to the UNSC debate; and which, if any, aspects

of counter-hegemonic ideologies, or other ideologies are evident in the anti-war

contributions?

94

RQA1. What immediate concerns and goals can be drawn from the macro

propositions and macro-arguments of the speeches which are clearly expressed or

implied in the form of overall discourse topics regarding the Iraq issue by the

American, Iraqi, Syrian and French speakers?

RQA2. How is the Iraqi issue contextualized and what specific aspects of the global

context are emphasized by each of the four speakers throughout the debate?

RQA3. What systems of beliefs and values can be detected at the macro level of the

discourse and what types of actions do these values and beliefs motivate?

RQB In what ways do the overall argumentation plans and individual argumentation structures

of the different contributions serve the explicitly and implicitly reported concerns and

goals of the various speakers? And what other, undeclared goals can be derived from the

contrastive analysis of argumentation in the four sessions of the debate?

RQB1. What specific actions are legitimated/ delegitimated by each of the four

speakers, and what are the bases for these legitimation/delegitimation acts in

terms of systems of values, beliefs, and opinions.

RQB1i. Which state of affairs and facts surrounding the Iraq crisis are

strategically selected as topics of specific arguments, or as sources of

knowledge and which are strategically obscured to legitimate the speakers’

proposed actions with regard to solving the Iraq crisis?

RQB2. Can a relationship be seen between the emerging context, i.e., experts’

reports regarding inspection results, governments’ actions, and worldwide protests,

and the four speakers’ arguments as the debate progresses?

RQC How does an explanatory critique of strategic maneuvering of argumentation of the

American, Iraqi, Syrian and French contributions reveal a power struggle of domination

and resistance based on the intentional selections of topics, audience framing, and

preferred rhetorical and linguistic devices?

RQC1 What differences and similarities can be observed in the use of lexis by the

four speakers, and what conclusions can be drawn from these?

RQC2 What specific argumentative function do deontic expressions serve, what

particular concerns do they express and what goals do they aim to achieve?

95

RQC3 How is indirectness used by the various speakers, particularly, rhetorical

questions, irony and sarcasm, and what strategic function in argumentation

does it serve?

RQD What conclusions can be drawn from descriptive and normative critiques of the process

and outcome of the UNSC Iraq war debate in terms of the wider social and political

implications for Iraq, the Middle East region and future crises in the world?

RQD1 In what ways did the contributions to the UNSC deliberation process

facilitate or obstruct a resolution to the Iraq crisis in accordance with the

normative order set forth by this institution?

RQD2 From a normative perspective, was the institution effective in achieving its

goals and upholding its values of justice, peace, regional and world security,

and human rights in resolving this crisis?

RQD3 Can the UNSC deliberation process be considered a normative process that

promotes itself as one that should be sought after by weak and strong

nations alike?

The next chapter introduces the data analyzed and the rationale for its selection. It then provides

a detailed account of the analytical methods employed. It elaborates the steps taken to conduct a

critical analysis of practical argumentation in political discourse within a socio-cognitive

framework.

96

Chapter 4 - Data Description and Methods

of Data Analysis ___________________________________________________________________________

In the previous chapter, I adopted a socio-cognitive framework for critically analyzing the

American, Iraqi, Syrian and French contributions to the argumentative discourse of the UNSC

Iraq War debate. I also defined the pragma-dialectical theory and method to analyzing practical

argumentation and its ideal model of critical discussion to be the basic guiding theoretical and

methodical principles for conducting a normative critique of practical argumentation.

Here, I start in Section 4.1 by identifying my research data and discussing its source, selection,

relevance to the research topic, and initial treatment. In Section 4.2, I describe the analytical

methods I pursue to answer my research questions using the socio-cognitive approach to CDA as

advanced by van Dijk (1998) and Koller (2012, 2014) and the assessment of practical

argumentation within normative and explanatory critiques as advanced by Fairclough and

Fairclough (2012).

4.1 Data Source, Selection, and Description

This research investigates the discourses generated by various government representatives who

were concerned with the Iraq War debate from February 5 to March 19, 2003, and who opposed

or supported the war on Iraq by taking strong public stands. It is also the aim of this study to

investigate how the war was legitimated by its advocates, and how it was opposed through the

delegitimation of the various war justifications presented in the UNSC, i.e. how it was

deliberated. More specifically, this research is interested in critically evaluating the institutional

deliberative process and outcome and the legitimacy of the US unilateral decision to launch war

97

following such deliberation. Accordingly, this study has taken as its central aim to analyze this

deliberative process based on government representatives presenting views from the Arab World,

Europe, and the U.S.

4.1.1 Data source

There are several reasons why the UNSC meetings dedicated to deliberating the best course for

resolving the Iraq crisis provide the best possible data source for conducting a contrastive CDA

of potentially hegemonic and counter-hegemonic contributions to the same institutional

discourse. Firstly, they provide for a unity in the institutional setting for all speakers. This allows

for the examination of all expressed points of view regarding the same social problem and under

the same institutional constraints and procedures. The unity of the institutional setting allows for

the control of a number of variables that could otherwise influence the discourses in different

ways. These include the audience and institutional rules. In the UNSC debate, all contributions

are generated under the same institutional conditions. They are addressed to the same

institutional audience capable of immediate response in addition to other audiences such as

television viewers from around the world, journalists and specialists. Most importantly, these

addresses are made within the same time frames and in response to the same types of contextual

developments, i.e., inspection reports from Drs. Blix and El Baradei, publicly announced

government positions, new intelligence reports, worldwide protests, announcements and

decisions by various supranational organizations (such as the league of Arab States, the Non-

Aligned Movement, and others), etc. This developing context, including the participants, the

social actors, and their intentions, goals, knowledge, beliefs, and norms, constrains the properties

of text and talk within the interactional event. Secondly, the UNSC debate provides for a unity of

“declared” purpose of debating, followed by successive votes on the next action(s) to be taken in

98

response to the UN expert reports. Thirdly, it provides for “monogeneric” addresses for all

speakers; the UNSC debates can be seen as one sub-genre of political discourse that has a

particular audience, purpose, form, content, and style (Swales, 1990). The addresses also have

particular features, force, and consequences, and they are thus “momentarily stabilized forms of

social action that take what are to some degree regular and predictable, if dynamic and fluid,

forms (Freedman & Medway, 1995; Kress & Threadgold, 1988)” (Luke 2005, p. 15).

Dealing with monogeneric speeches of the same sub-genre also allows circumventing such

problems as collecting data from different sub-genres for different speakers. This would

necessitate factoring in other variables, such as those associated with live or recorded interviews

for some speakers, while only being able to obtain official statements, press conference

transcripts, or document releases for others. The availability of the complete and officially

transcribed speeches of the UNSC Iraq War debate in the United Nations electronic archives,

publicly available online, provides for easy access to such monogeneric data constituting the

participants’ debate.

As is usual for the UN, the speakers delivered their addresses in their native languages to be

instantly translated into the six UN official languages by professional UNSC translators, and

verbally delivered through headsets provided to participants. These addresses are also

simultaneously transcribed in their original languages (texts may have been provided by the

speakers beforehand in one of the six official UN languages). Thus, transcripts in the original

languages and in English are available through the UN website. My analysis concerns the

transcribed then translated versions (into English) of the French, Syrian, and Iraqi speeches and

the transcribed American speeches.

99

As a body of 16 transcribed speeches – delivered from prepared texts and modified during the

meetings (speakers can be seen taking notes) –, my data underwent a process of writing, verbal

delivery, transcription, and (with the exception of the US speeches) translation to English. As

such, the documents I work with as a final product are of two types: the speech texts in their

original languages as transcribed by UN transcribers, and their officially translated versions in

English.

The transcription approach used by the UN professional transcribers is “denaturalism,” which is

a process through which “idiosyncratic elements of speech (e.g., stutters, pauses, nonverbal, and

involuntary vocalizations) are removed” (Oliver et al., 2005, pp. 1273-1274). It has been

suggested that denaturalized transcripts are suited to methodologies such as grounded theory and

CDA (Oliver et al., 2005). Duranti (2007) views transcription as a cultural activity and

transcripts as artifacts that possess “temporal-historical dimensions” (p. 302). Transcription has

also been defined as a political act (Green, Franquiz, & Dixon, 1997) which “reflects

transcribers’ analytic or political bias and shapes the interpretation and evaluation of speakers,

relationships and contexts depicted in the transcript” (Jaffe, 2000, p. 500). Considering the

uniform institutional training received by UN transcribers, the high standards followed by the

UN Department of General Assembly and Conference Management1, the data under examination

can be considered to be reflective of the actual words and meanings expressed by the speakers;

there are minimal variations between the original-language transcripts and the English versions,

which I determined by examining both versions of the documents.

In her discussion of political discourse analysis, CDA, and issues of translation, Schäffner (2004)

points to the need to link aspects of the text to the social and ideological contexts of text

production and reception, because political structures and practices provide the frame of texts

100

and discourses. This connection is usually established on the basis of the discourse in one

language and one culture. Schäffner stresses that, when dealing with translated texts, “textual

features, ideological contexts, and underlying relations of power apply both to the source text

(original language) and culture and to the target text (the text reflecting the translated version)

and culture” and that “translations are to represent glimpses into other worlds where reality is

perceived differently,” just as “‘otherness’ needs to be respected and represented” (p. 135).

Along these lines, Bazzi (2009) proposes a model that can be referred to when comparisons have

to be made between an original text and its translated version. This model addresses the

importance of the translated text being reflective of the source text’s dominant and legitimized

political positions, the “legal” vs. “illegal” subjects, the “worthy” vs. “unworthy” victims, “our”

enemy, relations of solidarity vs. relations of hostility, the suppressed or discredited voices,

authorial stance and relations of dominance over what subjects, the generalized and undisputed

beliefs on cause of threat/struggle, reasons given for acts of violence, whose political face is

being threatened without redress, and backgrounded information about the victims or about “the

enemy.”

By taking these factors into consideration, along with the text strategies (i.e., recurrent and

foregrounded themes, agency, presuppositions, modulated obligations, modal adjuncts, cohesion

and its cohesive devices, among many others), discrepancies between original or source text and

the target text or translated version can be determined (pp. 209-210). The UN official transcripts

of the debate meetings are found to be reflective of these guidelines to a large extent when

comparing the original and the target English texts. Examples of minor adjustments and accurate

translations may be observed in the following excerpts:

Source Text (Appendix C2-Table 2.1, U17): إلى رجل سالم بقدرة قادر شارون وتحول

101

Target Text: And miraculously Sharon has become ‘a man of peace’

The actual translation of the above utterance is: And Sharon was transformed by the power of the

‘Almighty’ to a man of peace. The official translation missed this specific cultural expression

used in Arabic, particularly in the Levant, to refer to impossible deeds that can be only

performed by God himself, whose culturally- known attributes include the ‘Almighty’. Instead,

the official translation is close in capturing the miraculous power without the religious or cultural

reference to the “Almighty”.

An example of translation where agency, foregrounding and modal adjuncts are accurately

considered in the source text and conveyed in the target text can be observed in the following

excerpt:

Source text (Appendix D2-Table D2.1, U98-U99): Dans ce temple des Nations

Unies, nous sommes les gardiens d’un idéal, nous sommes les gardiens d’une

conscience. La lourde responsabilité et l’immense honneur qui sont les nôtres

doivent nous conduire à donner la priorité au désarmement dans la paix.

Target text: In this temple, the United Nations, we are the guardians of an ideal; we are

the guardians of a conscience. The heavy responsibility and the immense honour that are

ours must lead us to give priority to disarmament through peace.

In the above section I have described the nature of the data, its transcription and translation. In

the next sub-section I provide the rationale behind selecting the speeches I analyze and their

descriptions.

4.1.2 Data selection and description

The data under consideration was collected based on a certain time frame that starts with the first

meeting of the UNSC dedicated to discussing the use of force against Iraq, following the passing

of Resolution 1441 in November 2002. Six UNSC meetings fell between the passing of the

102

resolution and the start of war in March 2003. Only four of these meetings consisted of debates

among UNSC member-state representatives. The other two meetings were held at the request of

UN member states who did not, at the time, have representation in the Council and who wished

to express their positions regarding the Iraq issue. Therefore, the data informing this research

study consists of the English transcripts of the four UNSC meetings dated February 5, February

14, March 7, and March 19, 2003. The discussions were most intense between the two sides in

the debate during the first three meetings, when the US was arguing for war and France, Syria,

and Iraq were arguing against it. The March 19 meeting took place after the announcement of the

start of hostilities, and the addresses in this session all deal with the new reality of war. In sum,

the addresses delivered during these four UNSC meetings should provide a representative sample

of the discourse surrounding the principles, beliefs, and attitudes underlying the legitimation of

the leading debaters’ positions regarding the Iraq issue.

There are a total of 15 member representatives who form the UN Security Council and

participate in all its debates, five permanent members, and ten who get elected for a two-year

period. The debate participants come from various cultural, political, ideological, and language

backgrounds and belief systems. The scope of this study does not include the contributions of all

fifteen members of the UNSC. Its concern is to critically analyze the different views of world

order put forward and the ideological struggle involved in imposing such an order; as such, I

select four key participants who have a distinct interest in the Iraq issue. The first is the US, the

main advocate and initiator of the war. The two leading European countries that supported the

US position were the United Kingdom and Spain, the former a permanent member and the latter

a temporarily elected member. However, the Spanish and British representatives presented

broadly the same arguments to legitimate the war as did those of the US. Hence, they are

103

excluded from the analysis in order to avoid redundancy. I selected France, a regional power in

the European region, to represent a European counter-ideology to that of the US. Syria, as the

only Arab country represented on the Council and as a nation bordering Iraq, is selected for these

particular reasons – and for its representation of a different level of power within the institution

than that enjoyed by a permanent member, i.e., with its ability to vote, but not to veto. The fourth

country I selected, Iraq, was allowed to participate in the meeting based on its request, and in

accordance with an institutional rule that allows any immediately concerned country to speak in

the Council, as consistently referred to at the opening of each UNSC meeting. The Iraqi

contribution to the UNSC debate is considered crucial given its position as the target of war, its

expected self-defense against accusations launched by the U.S. government representative in the

UNSC (related, for example, to its supposed possession of WMDs, continued illicit production,

and intentions to use such arms), and its interest in revealing the contradictions in the American

arguments and their inconsistencies with the moral and legal order.

Thus, the selected body of data includes addresses made by the representatives of the US, which

represent the discourse of the leading proponent of the war and one of the most powerful

institutional members in the UNSC; the addresses of the representative of Iraq, which represent

the view of the Iraqi government, the target of the potential war at the time and the main

adversary to the US; and the addresses of the Syrian and French representatives, representing

Middle-Eastern and European anti-war positions, respectively, from two different interested

parties.

All French addresses were delivered by Dominique de Villepin, Foreign Minister of France, and

all Iraqi addresses by M. Al Douri, Iraq’s Ambassador to the UN. For the American addresses,

U.S. Secretary of State General Colin Powell delivered the first three addresses, and John

104

Negroponte, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, delivered the fourth address. The Syrian Foreign

Minister, Farouq Al Shara, offered his regrets for not being able to be personally present at the

first meeting through his country’s UN Ambassador, Wehbe, who made it clear that he was

reading Al Shara’s written speech.

The table below details all speakers’ names, dates of addresses, and the word count of each

address:

Table 4.1. Word count of targeted speeches

Date U.S. Iraq France Syria

February 5 11,225 (P) 1,399 (D) 1,273 (V) 1,396 (W)

February 14 2,814 (P) 1,495 (D) 1,871 (V) 1,246 (S)

March 7 2,601 (P) 1,650 (D) 2,471 (V) 1,240 (S)

March 19 778 (N) 1,385 (D) 1,437 (V) 1,780 (S)

Speakers: For the U.S., Powell = P, Negroponte = N; For Iraq, Al Douri = D; for France,

Dominique de Villepin = V; for Syria, Wehbe = W, Al Shara = S

The various roles of these participants can be addressed through Goffman’s (1959) three main

aspects, or roles, of a given speaker in a verbal interaction: the “animator” as the producer of

words, the “author” as the person who selected and encoded the message, and the “principal” as

the person committed to the beliefs expressed. Although animator, author and producer may

label different aspects of the same speaker, there are interactional situations where the speaker

may assume only one or two of these roles. In line with Goffman’s aspects, I define the UNSC

speakers’ interactional roles during the four targeted meetings as follows: In the February 5

UNSC meeting, Wehbe posed as the animator and the principal, as he stood in for Al Shara and

105

made clear that he was reading the Syrian minister’s speech. Hence, Al Shara was principal and

author, and Wehbe was both animator and principal. Both Al Shara and Wehbe were acting as

official members of the Syrian government. Accordingly, they may be said to belong to the same

political group and can be presumed to share commitments to policies based on particular belief

systems and experiences. The US address of March 19, it was delivered by Negroponte as an

official member of the American State Department and hence of the US government. His

commitments to the same policies of his “political group” can be reasonably presumed. Thus, all

three roles identified by Goffman can be said to have converged in Negroponte’s and Powell’s

cases. The same can be said for the French speaker and the Iraqi speaker. I combine van Dijk’s

concept of a particular group’s shared mental models of their group identity, based on their

shared experiences and beliefs, to justify attributing these roles to the speakers: namely,

Goffman’s animator, author, and principal.

Colin Powell’s authorship of his own speeches (within American policy guidelines) is known by

his closest circle. He is said not to have relied on any words written for him, but to have spent

many hours refining his presentations himself (Hitchens, 2004). As for Dominique de Villepin,

the French Foreign Minister, his penchant for poetic lyrics and romanticism has been said to

characterize his addresses and most of his published writings alike (Bremner, 2005). His

authorship of his own speeches is also established, but with the assumption that he writes within

the guidelines of his government’s foreign policy towards Iraq. The Iraqi ambassador to the UN,

Mohammad Al Douri, is presumed as the author of his own speeches, or at least a co-author who

writes in accordance with his country’s positions and policies. When examined, his speeches

clearly respond to specific contents of other member speeches delivered in the same meeting,

which he could not have prepared for in detail prior to the meeting itself. Hence, the Iraqi

106

speaker is presumed to fulfill all three roles identified by Goffman. It should be noted that, when

examined, all speeches reflect responses to other speakers either implicitly or explicitly to

varying degrees – a point addressed in the analysis.

As Table-1 above indicates, the first three American speeches had the highest word counts

among all other targeted speeches on a given day, particularly the February 5 speech, which had

a total of 11,225 words, equivalent to the word count of almost 6 speeches, if we take the

average number of words for the rest of the speeches delivered on that day to be less than 1,500

words each. This may be attributed to the number of audio recordings played, re-quoted and

explained, to the number of satellite images, charts and diagrams displayed and interpreted, and

to the high number of examples, stories, and the amount of information provided on February 5.

The above average length of the other two speeches delivered by Powell can also be attributed to

Powell’s dwelling on Saddam Hussein’s history, and his numerous provided reasons for rejecting

progress in inspections and the cooperation shown by Iraq. It is also notable that the last

American speech delivered by Negroponte on March 19 (after hostilities began) was by far the

shortest speech of all delivered during the entire debate. This can be explained by the goal of the

speaker whose interest lies in outlining his country’s humanitarian relief plans for the people of

Iraq and not in justifying its act of war against them. Additionally, persuasion is not a goal of the

speaker’s under the circumstances.

4.1.3 Initial treatment of data and building the corpora

I obtained the targeted UNSC speeches by downloading, from the UN documents website, three

transcribed copies (Arabic, English, and French versions) of each of the four targeted meetings in

their entirety, from opening to closing. Next, I extracted two versions of each of the three non-

107

English speakers’ speeches in their original language and in English. The two versions of each

speech were then lodged side-by-side in a table, after being parsed into single utterances

(sentences), each in a row in consecutive order. The last utterance in a paragraph was marked by

(EP) to indicate the end of each paragraph. This makes the next utterance that follows the first in

a new paragraph (left unmarked in the table). Paragraph endings in English did not always match

the paragraph ending in the original language. Hence, I adjusted the English version to reflect the

original language paragraph endings while working with the assumption that either a copy of the

speech in its original language was provided for translation, or if transcribed from the delivered

speech, the native transcriber observed the pauses that indicated paragraph endings. Further but

fewer corrections were made to the omitted discourse markers acting as cohesive devices in the

surface structures of texts. These were added to the English versions of the speeches to match the

original transcript (see Appendices A1-A4, B1-B4, C1-C4, D1-D4; first and second columns of

each table.

Following this process, I created the corpora I worked with to obtain key words for each of the

16 speeches to be analyzed and for each speaker’s addresses over the course of the four

identified debate sessions as follows:

Table- 4.2. Created corpora

Text under study Reference corpus Purpose

- U.S. Feb. 5 speech

- U.S. Feb. 14 speech

- U.S. March 7 speech

- U.S. March 19 speech

All other speeches delivered on

the same day, excluding

statements by the U.S., Blix,

and El Baradei

Extracting the most

significant key words, i.e.

those with the highest log

likelihood score

- Iraq Feb. 5 speech

- Iraq Feb. 14 speech

- Iraq March 7 speech



statements by Iraq, Blix, and El

108

- Iraq March 19 speech Baradei

- Syria Feb. 5 speech

- Syria Feb. 14 speech

- Syria March 7 speech

- Syria March 19 speech



statements by Syria, Blix, and

El Baradei

- France Feb. 5 speech

- France Feb. 14 speech

- France March 7 speech

- France March 19 speech



statements by France, Blix, and

El Baradei

All U.S. speeches All meetings, excluding U.S.

speeches and statements by Blix

and El Baradei

All Iraqi speeches All meetings, excluding Iraqi


and El Baradei

All Syrian speeches All meetings, excluding Syrian


and El Baradei

All French speeches All meetings, excluding French


and El Baradei

The reports of Blix and El Baradei were omitted from all reference corpora as these actors were

technical experts, not politicians, and were non-debating participants in the debate. Key words

were obtained for each of the speeches.

In the next section, I detail the methods I employ for data analysis and the aims of such analysis

within a socio-cognitive approach to CDA and a pragma-dialectical approach to analyzing

argumentative discourse.

109

4.2 Methods of Data Analysis

The analysis of the American, Iraqi, French and Syrian contributions to the UNSC debate seeks

to examine aspects of this institutional deliberative process at a particular moment of

international crisis in order to arrive at explanations of this institution’s failure to uphold its

principles and pursue its purposes as set forth in its Charter, despite the extensive deliberative

process intended to conclude with a vote on the action to be adopted.

The analysis also seeks to normatively critique ideological arguments, understood here in

accordance with Weiler (1993, p.15) as arguments that legitimate the claim that “those who

wield political power represent the interest of all” and that the existing social order “is natural

and inevitable in light of human nature”. They are also arguments which obscure their partiality

under claims to universality. In the next subsections I detail the theoretically grounded methods

and analytical parameters I use for operationalizing my research questions and the structure of

the three analytical Chapters 5, 6, and 7.

4.2.1 Deriving macro structures: Topic Selection and sequencing as indicators of

speakers’ mental models and strategic maneuvering of argumentation

In his socio-cognitive approach to CDA, van Dijk (1983, 1995, 1998, and 2002) refers to the

importance of analyzing semantic macrostructures, which represent the global meanings, topics,

or themes of a discourse. Likewise, van Dijk often advocates starting the critical analysis of

discourse with an analysis of macropropositions (2002). He views these macrostructures or

semantic macropropositions as relevant to an ideological analysis of discourse because they

subjectively define the information in a discourse that speakers find the most relevant or

110

important. Topicalization is thus subject to ideological management, as macropropositions

express evaluations, opinions, beliefs, and general principles encompassing certain ideologies

that are the basis for legitimation (van Dijk, 1998, p. 255). Thus, extracting topics is instrumental

in deriving aspects of the speakers’ mental models.

From a pragma-dialectical perspective, the analysis of strategic maneuvering of argumentation

must consider the discussant’s/arguer’s selection of his topics, the presentational devices

(linguistic and rhetorical devices and strategies) employed for presenting such arguments, and

must also address audience framing in order to persuade his audience of the presented

standpoints (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004). This makes topics an essential analytical

category in a critical analysis of argumentative discourse within a socio-cognitive approach that

employs a pragma-dialectical theory and method.

While the analysis of topics in the form of macropropositions addresses the meaning of chunks

of discourse, and of a discourse as a whole, the interactional dimension of discourse is also

considered relevant in a socio-cognitive approach to CDA, particularly in a debate context (van

Dijk, 1998, p. 209). It is also crucial in a pragma-dialectical analysis of argumentative discourse,

which must consider all verbal moves (speech acts) relevant to the resolution of a difference of

opinion (van Eemeren, 2009, p.75).

When examining the global meaning of a discourse as a set of semantic macropropositions, it

must also be examined for its global function as a set of speech acts, or macro speech acts. The

notion of a macro speech act is related to the socio-cognitive element of mental models (van

Dijk, 1999, 2003, 2006), according to which the context of the communicative event is defined

in terms of each participant’s context model, defined as the specific mental model of each

111

participant already formed regarding the communicative situation he or she is participating in.

Context models, as types of mental models, control macro speech acts which may be, for

example, macro acts of legitimation based on beliefs, opinions, or culture-specific evaluations.

They may also be acts of demanding, accusing, prohibiting among many other possible acts,

which are based on justifications rooted in specific ideologies.

The notions of topic and topicalization are viewed here as means of organizing the informational

structure of a fragment of discourse (van Dijk, 1985, p. 113), where the topic function and the

comment function are viewed as a way of organizing the informational structure of discourse.

These two functions are understood as textually dependent and as assigned to fragments of the

semantic structure (propositions) of the sentences in a discourse. The topic function is assigned

to the semantic information that is old (theme). This means that the information has already been

introduced by the text or can be contextually presupposed. The old information is placed in the

foreground as the base for the new information. The sentence provides further information (the

comment or rheme) about an object, event or person that has been mentioned before. Other

positions of topic are also possible when the preferred ordering is not followed. In such a case,

topic function is assigned special stress or organized in cleft sentences (ibid.).

Van Dijk (1981) suggests that discourse macrostructures are derived through using semantic

mapping rules, called macro rules. These rules are: deletion, generalization, and construction.

The objective is to construct local information into more general, more abstract, or umbrella

concepts. Semantic macrostructures derived from propositions expressed in the text represent a

summary of discourse that may express some or all of the macropropositions that form such

macrostructures. Although there are several possible summaries of a text, depending on what

details are being left out or kept, there are steps that can be taken to ensure the preservation of

112

the most relevant or essential information from the speaker’s perspective. Van Dijk emphasized

that the use of macro rules must have as their input the speaker’s textual proposition,

presupposed knowledge, and sets of beliefs. Thus, the derivation of macropropositions requires

knowledge of relevant and important information of the communicative context, how to group

individuals, and the common aspects involved in global events and actions, “so that the analyst

or any hearer or reader can activate the relevant scripts and have a global representation of the

communicative context and goals of the speaker” (van Dijk, 1981, p. 178).

By starting at the sentence level in determining its topic and its semantic relation to the sequence

of sentences that form one paragraph, the paragraph topic can be determined and maintained

despite the deletion of details. Van Dijk (1981) suggests that there is a “meso-level” in between

the unit of a clause or sentence and the unit of a discourse as a whole. The notion of “paragraph”

or “episode” is conceived as a coherent sequence of sentences of a discourse. It is linguistically

marked for beginning and end, and is defined in terms of “thematic unity such as identical

participants, time, location or global event or action” (1981, p.176). His work also makes a

theoretical distinction between an episode and a paragraph: “An episode is properly a semantic

unit, whereas a paragraph is the surface manifestation or the expression of such an episode”

(p.177). An episode of a discourse is a specific sequence of propositions, which is globally

coherent by being subsumable under a more global macroproposition (van Dijk, 1977, 1980).

Van Dijk further proposes that such a macroproposition explicates the overall unity of a

discourse sequence, as it is intuitively known under such notions as “theme,” “topic,” or “gist.”

To arrive at such macroproposition/ macro-speech act, I follow a procedure of summarizing the

speeches of each speaker starting with the utterance and ending with combining two or more

paragraphs serving the same function. Paragraphs that are conventional acknowledgements or

113

repetitive in nature with no additional function are deleted in the upper level macroproposition.

After lodging each speech into a table that parses its utterances in individual rows, I start the

reduction process for each speech by identifying the topic each utterance expresses. Using the

macro rules of deleting, generalizing, and constructing, each group of utterances forming a

paragraph is then reduced to one macroproposition. I keep in mind the function of each speech

act as an argumentative move, which may or may not contribute to the resolution of the

difference of opinion at issue. Additionally, only paragraphs and sentences that are relevant to

the overall topic of the discourse are included in the upper level macropropositions.

Each speech is further reduced by grouping paragraphs that can be subsumed under the same

macroproposition/macro speech act. The derived macro propositions are then lodged in Table 2

of each appendix as an essential part of the speaker’s argumentation plan with its function(s)

identified as a complete argument, a premise, a number of premises, a standpoint or as further

explanations. The macropropositions are kept in their original sequence, which diverts from the

recommendation of van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004) to re-arrange the order of speech acts

in accordance with what stage they may belong to (confrontation, opening, argumentation, or

conclusion). My rationale for maintaining the original sequence of speech acts, and the derived

macrostructures, is rooted in the notion of the preconceived discourse plan of the speaker, based

on his context model, and based on the notion that the sequence in which information is

presented in the discourse and the ordering of verbal acts are also planned and timed to achieve

maximum potential to reach the goal of argumentation. Based on van Dijk’s theoretical notion of

context models, in an institutional action such as the UNSC debate, speakers may partially

construct their context model prior to each session as “plans.” Hence, their prepared speeches

prior to the sessions, the modifications that may be made to them during a session, and their

114

verbal delivery during their prescribed speaking turns are all parts of representing their

preconceived and concurrent constructions of their plans (van Dijk, 2006).

The reduction process of the targeted UNSC addresses as explained above can be found in the

first table in Appendices A1-A4, B1-B4, C1-C4, and D1-D4. The derived summaries/

argumentation plan can be found in the second table of each of the above appendices.

In taking a socio-cognitive approach to a critical analysis of the targeted UNSC speeches, the

derived topics represent the main concerns and goals of the speakers as expressed within the

macroproposition. By starting the analysis on this level, each speaker’s subjective assessment of

the most relevant and important information can be identified and examined within each

speaker’s specific evaluations, opinions, beliefs, and general principles, which may be reflecting

certain ideologies. Strategic maneuvering in argumentation on this high level can be analyzed in

terms of topic selection for both dialectical and rhetorical goals. Starting with the macro level of

discourse allows for identifying the speakers’ implicit as well as explicitly declared goals. Other

socio-cognitive elements of the discourse can also be extracted at this level through identifying

the expressed beliefs, opinions, facts and values that may represent a coherent view of the world

in accordance with a particular ideology (Column 2, Table-2 of each appendix). The elucidation

and obscuration of particular topics that may be specific to one speaker can also be determined

on the macro level of the discourse, and so can legitimation strategies, which may span a number

of macropropositions as specific types of premises, standpoints or both in argumentative

discourse.

115

Other characteristics particular to each speaker’s contribution to the discourse can be observed

on the meso and micro level of discourse through examining linguistic strategies and their

functions.

4.2.2 The strategic role and ideological function of the use of lexis and aspects of

indirectness as reflecting meso and micro level SCRs in argumentation

When extracting key words for each of the speeches, the reference corpus used includes all

speeches delivered by UNSC representatives on that day, excluding the targeted speech under

analysis. This allows for a comparison between the speaker’s speech and all other Council

members’ speeches delivered on the same date, in the same context, at the same particular stage

of the debate. The identified keywords with the highest keyness are then sorted based on their

keyness. “Keyness” refers to the statistically significant higher frequency of a particular word or

cluster of words in the corpus or text (in this case a speech) under analysis, when compared with

another reference corpus (all speeches delivered in the UNSC on the same day). Scott (1999)

describes the purpose of key words as indicating the “aboutness” of a text or homogeneous

corpus, which is its topic, and the central elements of its contents. Accordingly, I use high

keyness key words, as indicators of the topics of the macro arguments, and as examples of

prevalent lexicalization in the contributions to the UNSC discourses by also considering their co-

text through the concordance tool in Word smith. The concordance tool presents a word or

cluster in its immediate co-text. It allows for the number of words on either side of the

word/cluster in focus to be expanded up to the level of an utterance, paragraph, or greater.

Corpus studies have been proven to be instrumental within a CDA framework in quantitatively

identifying discourse markers with various functions, including ideological propagation (see, for

116

example: Orpin, 2005 and Moore, 2002, among others). Partington (2003) summarizes the

benefit of combining a CDA approach with a corpus linguistic analysis:

At the simplest level, corpus technology helps find other examples of a

phenomenon one has already noted. At the other extreme, it reveals patterns

of use previously unthought of. In between, it can reinforce, refute or revise a

researcher’s intuition and show them why and how much their suspicions

were grounded. (p. 12)

The purposeful selection of words is directly involved in the construction of arguments and their

components as well as in other presentational strategies such as indirectness, as manifested in the

use of, for example, rhetorical questions, irony and sarcasm. Also of interest is the use of deontic

expressions, usually associated with power originating from social/political conventions,

institutional rules, procedures, laws, official roles, and recognized normative values and common

goals. These strategies, when examined within particular topics for their rhetorical roles in

appealing to particular or general audiences, may be determined to be strategies of persuasion

that aim at balancing rhetorical effectiveness and dialectical reasonableness. Thus, they may be

part of strategic maneuvering in argumentation.

4.2.2.1 The use of lexis

The examination of lexicalization, known as a major domain of ideological expression and

persuasion (van Dijk, 1998, p. 266), by focusing on the speakers’ choice of words which carry

ideological values and certain beliefs and opinions (Fairclough, 1989, p. 97), is carried out by

first obtaining the keyword lists and examining their use in a selection of arguments to determine

the lexis ideological and persuasive functions manifested in the particular opinions or attitudes

they convey within the argument. A negative or positive mental concept about a group, for

117

example, is expressed by selecting the most “appropriate” word within a particular context to

refer to the group and at the same time convey the opinion held about this group. According to

van Dijk (1998), opinions may be “conventionalized and codified in the lexicon, as the respective

negative and positive meanings of the well-known pair ‘terrorist’ versus ‘freedom fighter’

suggest” (p. 205). The different meaning conveyed by each of these two words to refer to the

same person is an example of lexicalization that shows the ideological effects on the choice of

words being made.

Deontic modal expressions are also investigated on the micro level of the discourse as aspects of

lexicalization. Such expressions indicate the speaker’s attitude to the degree of obligation,

responsibility, and necessity of making certain decisions, or taking particular actions. In the

French speaker’s case, for example, they can be associated with his institutional position of

power which allows prescribing or prohibiting actions in accordance with institutional rules.

Generally, depending on the position of power, a speaker may make demands vs requests, give

instructions or suggestions, require or simply hope for action. Since deontic modality may be

expressed through a variety of linguistic forms (Fowler, 1985, p. 73); such expressions may

include certain types of main verbs, such as ‘require’, ‘necessitate’, and ‘demand’, among others.

It can also be expressed through modifiers such as ‘necessary’ and ‘required’, and through

adverbs such as ‘responsibly’, and nominalizations such as ‘obligation’ or ‘responsibility’.

Hence, the variation in lexical items, or lexical style, of a speaker is influenced by his/her mental

models of people, situations, and events. So, when comparing two or more contributions to a

discourse produced in a multicultural speech event such as the UNSC debate, the lexical style or

lexical variation associated with each of the speakers’ contribution can reveal ideological

118

expressions accepted as common sense for particular audiences yet distinctly perverse for other

audiences. Interesting phenomena can be observed in a discourse as a result of lexicalization. For

example, Powell’s position in the UNSC Iraq War debate is one that advocates the urgency of

taking military action against Iraq, in other words, of launching war. However, the word “war” is

not mentioned even once in the 11,225-word speech of February 5; rather, the euphemism

“serious consequences” is used. The negative, aggressive connotation of the word “war” is

avoided by its replacement with “serious consequences,” which carries a legitimately legal

connotation as it is the expression used in UNSC Resolution 1441. This choice has the function

of shifting the responsibility to Iraq. After all, the war would be a consequence of Iraq’s

noncompliance. Hence, lexical choices can also have a rhetorical function: to emphasize a point

of view and what is most relevant or remarkable for the speaker. The examination of

lexicalization in the four UNSC contributions should uncover ideologically based expressions.

These expressions may also have rhetorical functions as presentational devices, such as avoiding

the negative connotation of war by referring to it as “the current situation” or as “serious

consequences” to give it an air of legitimacy, and to make a consequence of the action of

someone else.

4.2.2.2 Irony and sarcasm

In analyzing indirectness in general, I take into consideration that it is a discourse feature that

varies from one culture to another (Tannen, 1984, 1986, 1994). Tannen’s studies warn of the

confusion and misunderstanding it can cause when speakers have different habits with regard to

employing indirectness. This is particularly relevant to a multicultural interactional speech event

such as the UNSC debate, in which each speaker’s use of indirectness may differ from others’.

119

Indirectness is also a conscious choice made by the language user. It is purposeful and motivated

by certain intentions, goals, and desires (Dascal, 1983). It may be used to make the language

more interesting, to increase the force of one’s message, or to promote friendship and intimacy

(Ghim, 1992). It may also be used to express sarcasm (Slugoski & Turnbull, 1988) and to convey

meaning about a topic thought of as a taboo in a particular speech community, while common

and embraced in another (Morgan, 2010). In the UNSC setting, the formulated context model of

a particular speaker may lead him to expect other more powerful or equal participants to be

hostile towards his beliefs, and hence the speaker may find indirectness to be an indispensable

discourse strategy to manage the potential disagreement or hostility to the speaker’s expressed

opinions. In this case, indirectness can be used to gain audience collaboration, and to reduce or

eliminate hostility. Thus, the evaluation of indirectness should consider both the speaker’s intent

and audience’s inference and interpretation (Morgan, 2010).

One form of indirectness is irony, which is a figure of speech according to which the intended

meaning usually opposes the one expressed by the words used. Irony sometimes takes the form

of sarcasm or ridicule, in which praise expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt

(Amante, 1981, p. 79). Pragmatically, Amante describes ironic speech acts as indirect speech

acts that communicate their covert negativity using seemingly positive speech acts as vehicles.

He describes two types of ironic speech acts: statements and rhetorical questions, with which the

speaker subverts the normal illocutionary force of his/her own ends. The essential feature is that

the speaker utters a counterfactual speech act and hopes that the audience will recognize and

decode its intended counterfactual nature. In strategic argumentation, irony can have the

rhetorical function of drawing the audience into making deductions and inferences about the

120

intended argument advanced. As for sarcasm, Amante describes it as a the most blatant form of

irony, which is often pithy and cruel (p. 78)

4.2.2.3 The multiple functions of rhetorical questions as indirect speech acts

Indirectness can also be expressed in the form of rhetorical questions. The literature on rhetorical

questions is vast, and it is approached from multiple perspectives in terms of the device’s

definition and many functions. In this study, I adopt the definition of rhetorical questions as

utterances whose form does not match their function because they have the structure of a

question, but the force of an assertion. They neither seek information nor elicit an answer

(Rhode, 2006; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985). Rhetorical questions have formal

indications such as adverbials, modal verbs, conjunctives and conditionals (Schmidt-Radefeldt,

1977). Their linguistic characteristics include hosting strong negative polarity items (NPIs), the

modals could and would, the weak polarity item ever, and wh-phrases that may be extended by

expressions such as on earth, in the world, etc.(Egg, 2007). According to this author, NPIs in

rhetorical questions give them the function of emphatic negated statements. As for yes-no

questions and wh-questions with NPIs, they can function as request, a statement, a command, a

warning, a threat, advice, rejection, etc. As such, they are evaluated against the common ground,

and not the hearer’s background. Rhetorical questions are also common means of proposing to

adopt a proposition as a starting point and for advancing standpoints (van Eemeren, 2008). They

are also means to induce, reinforce, or alter assumptions, beliefs, or ideas in the addressee’s

mind, which give them a more powerful persuasive function than a regular claim (Ilie, 1994;

Frank, 1990, Feng, 2004). Furthermore, Ilie (1994, p. 128) stresses the possible multiple

functions of rhetorical questions, such as of challenging, warning, and promising among many

others, particularly in argumentative discourse, where the main discursive functions of rhetorical

121

questions are to induce, reinforce, or alter assumptions, beliefs, or ideas in the mind of the

hearer. Thus, the interpretation of the functions of rhetorical questions requires knowledge of

both the speaker’s intent, and the hearer’s interpretation. This can be arrived at through analyzing

rhetorical questions as speech acts with illocutionary and perlocutionary effects (p. 43).

4.2.3 Argument evaluation

The pragma-dialectical method for evaluating arguments in practice recognizes three main

classes of argument schemes. In each of these classes, there is a different type of relation

between argument and standpoint. The soundness of an argument in each of these schemes

requires critical questions to be asked to determine its defeasibility. The argumentation schemes

and their defeasibility criteria are as follows:

1- A symptomatic argument introduces a sign or characteristic to be the relation between

stand point and argument. For a symptomatic relation, with a general scheme that Y is

true of X, because Z is true of X, and Z is symptomatic of Y, the most important

questions are:

a. Is Z really symptomatic of Y?

b. Are there also Ys that do not have the Z symptoms?

c. Are there also non-Ys that equally have Z’s characteristics?

2- An analogical argument presents a comparative relationship. The general argument

scheme of an analogical argument is: Y is true of X, because Y is true of Z, and Z is

comparable to X. The two crucial critical questions concerning argumentation with a

comparative relation are:

a. Are there significant differences between Z and X?

122

b. Are there significant similarities between Z and X?

3- A causal argument presents the cause of a certain effect or the other way around, or

presents a means to a certain goal as the relation between standpoint and argument.

Unexpressed premises should be made explicit in each case. Causal arguments present a causal

connection between the argument and the standpoint. In this scheme, something is introduced in

the argument as the cause of an effect mentioned in the standpoint, as a means to a certain goal

or as a course of action with a certain effect. The general argument scheme of the causal relation

is Y is true of X, because Z is true of X and Z leads to Y. A crucial critical question in

argumentation that is based on a causal relation is: Does Z always lead to Y? (van Eemeren et al.,

2009)

Further to the above questions, I adopt Fairclough and Fairclough’s (2012, pp. 66-67) conception

of practical reasoning as involving arguments which take the situation arguers find themselves in

as circumstantial premises, the situation they would like to achieve or a particular goal as goal

premise, and the action they recommend taking or believe must be taken to achieve the goal, as a

means-goal premise. The values which underlie arguers’ circumstances and goals are used as

value premises. Within this conception of practical reasoning, arguments can be critically

assessed by questioning the rational acceptability of the presented goals and values. It can also be

critically assessed by examining the representations of the actual current circumstances, the

relations of all the premises with the claim, the existence of other alternatives to the proposed

action (as means to the goal), and the presented consequence premise against other negative

consequences of the proposed action, which might have been obscured by the arguer or proposed

by his/her antagonist. Such critical questioning can thus challenge the argument based on its

123

premises to show its unsoundness or invalidity by addressing the truthfulness of the premise or

challenging the inference from the premise to the conclusion. The claim of an argument can also

be rebutted based on questioning its negative consequences on the legitimate goals of others.

In the UNSC, the ultimate goal of each of the debating Council members is to legitimate one of

two proposed actions; peaceful disarmament or disarmament through force. In deliberating the

institutional course of action which should be adopted by the Council, debaters are expected to

interject their opinions and analysis of events, state their beliefs, elucidate particular facts,

obscure or deny the importance of other facts, provide information, emphasize the importance of

protecting or abiding by particular values, ethical standards and institutional laws or rules. All

this is done in an attempt to legitimate their proposed action as the right action under the

circumstances, in view of common goals or goals that the speaker believes should be common

and in order to protect the moral and legal order which must be upheld.

Accordingly, the critical analysis of arguments, as structures of discourse, also involves the

critical evaluation of how reality in all its aspects, as sets of knowledge, evaluations, norms,

values, attitudes and expectations, is represented in the various contributions to the debate

discourse and the significance of such representations. When determined to be socially shared

and communicated by members of a particular discourse community, these representations can

be determined to be socio-cognitive in nature. In turn, when these representations, collectively,

serve to organize social relations in order to maintain and justify self–serving power relations

within a society and among societies, while promoting the opposition of power and dominance

of others; they are considered ideological in nature.

124

To evaluate arguments’ soundness and validity, and to determine their nature as ideological or

otherwise, I carry out a normative and explanatory critique within a socio -ognitive CDA

framework as outlined in the next section.

4.2.4 Normative and explanatory critique of argumentation within a socio-cognitive

approach to CDA

The socio-cognitive approach to critical discourse studies presupposes the need to reveal the

illegitimate aspects of a discourse through an ethical assessment according to recognized norms

and standards. It aims to contribute to the “understanding and the solution of serious social

problems, especially those that are caused or exacerbated by public text and talk, such as various

forms of social power abuse (domination) and their resulting social inequality” (van Dijk 2002,

p. 64). On these bases, my analysis is carried out within a normative perspective, defined in

terms of the current international moral and legal orders embodied in the Charter of the UN. In

principle, UNSC members are expected to provide a fair appraisal to the issue under

consideration in accordance with the institutional Charter and due process. A resolution of the

crisis can only be achieved by equalizing the entitlements and obligations of all concerned under

the same law. Thus the Council is expected, based on its Charter, to deliberate among various

perspectives and make a collective judgment through its normative democratic debate and voting

processes. A decisive action is expected in accordance with the will of its majority members

which ideally guards the reasonable and just interests of all involved.

These assumptions, grounded in the universal normative order, are taken as normative standards

for evaluating the UNSC political discourse in addressing the Iraq crisis of 2003. Furthermore,

relevant discourse structures such as arguments advanced by the four speakers are evaluated

against standards of reasonableness grounded in the theory of pragma-dialectics to determine

125

their conduciveness to resolving the existing difference of opinion peacefully, as the presupposed

common objective of all members of the Council. Thus their internal structure is examined based

on the three argumentative schemes recognized by pragma-dialectics (symptomatic, analogical

and causal) within a practical argumentation framework.

An analysis of other discourse structures relevant to a normative critique is integrated in order to

relate representations of particular coherent systems of beliefs, promoted by the four speakers in

the UNSC, to their origins in dominant discourses in particular regions or cultures. The

establishment of the nature and goals of such relations between ideological discourses and the

contributions to the UNSC debate can reveal a particular intra-discourse dynamics created by

clearly opposing forces imposed by conflicting views of the world in its present and future order.

Accordingly, evidence of aspects of the hegemonic ideology of the New World Order are

investigated in the American contributions, and evidence of aspects of counter-hegemonic

ideologies, or other ideologies, are also investigated in the anti-war contributions (RQA,RQB,

RQB1, RQC, RQD1-2). The examination of expressions of aspects of ideological discourses

prevalent in their own socio-cultural environment in the UNSC discourse, which aims to achieve

ideological goals of maintaining and opposing particular power structures in a supranational

institutional forum, can reveal how the argumentative goals of each speaker interconnect with his

socio-cognitive representations of reality. This results in ideological arguments, which have a

common sense nature to both the speaker and certain audiences, specifically because each

speaker’s arguments draw upon a particular discourse. Such analysis can also explain the

dysfunctional nature of the UNSC power structure as a universal institution, which more often

than not has failed to perform its foremost function and role, particularly because of members’

prioritization of their governments’ self –interest over the interest of all (RQD3).

126

4.3 Structure of analytical chapters

In this chapter, I have identified my data and my initial treatment of its transcripts as spoken data

that was first written, modified, and then verbally delivered. I also presented my analytical

methods and their theoretical basis as compatible with the goals of the analysis as formulated in

my research questions. My analytical categories were identified along with the rationale for their

selection.

The next two analytical chapters aim to analyze the overall argumentation plans of the American,

Iraqi, Syrian, and French speeches in the first 3 sessions of the debate and point to unique and

shared aspects in topic selection and employment of rhetorical devices and speakers’

representations of current and foreseeable realities. Chapter 5 is dedicated to the first session of

the debate, which took place on February 5. Chapter 6 discusses the influence of the emerging

context on the argumentation plan and other discourse structures in relation to the goals and

priorities of the four speakers. In Chapter 7, I engage in a normative and explanatory critique of

the argumentative discourse within a socio-cognitive framework which uses for its tenets the UN

normative legal and moral orders and the pragma-dialectical rules of critical discussion.

127

Chapter 5- Analysis of the Cognitive Models as Manifested in Argumentation in the First

Session of the Debate ___________________________________________________________________________

The analysis of the cognitive models informing argumentation in the first session of the debate is

carried out by considering multi-level discourse structures. It starts with an analysis of topic

selection, sequence, and their significance to the argumentation plan of each of the four speakers

– presented in Table-1.2 of Appendices A1, B1, C1, and D1. This analysis addresses one of the

three aspects of strategic maneuvering in argumentation addressed on the macro and meso level

of the discourse. It is based on the derived macropropositions in the above mentioned

appendices, Table 1.1 of each. An analysis of features of audience framing and presentational

devices, as the two remaining aspects of strategic maneuvering in argumentation, are also

analyzed within the overall analysis of the cognitive model of argumentation of each of the four

contributions to the first session of the debate. I thus answer RQC1, RQC2 and RQC3 by

examining the linguistic aspects of rhetorical devices and strategies such as the use of lexis,

deontic expressions, and strategies of indirectness, particularly, rhetorical questions, irony and

sarcasm.

Topic selection and sequencing reflect aspects of the speakers’ socio-cognitive representations

indicating their top concerns and goals, their definitions of past, present and future contextual

facts and actions, and their stated beliefs and values that guide and justify their positions

(Appendices A1, B1, C1 and D1, Tables 1.2, column 2 of each). They are thus viewed as

rhetorical strategies intended to present particular aspects of the event context without others in

order to serve their argumentative goals. Macro topics also have an interactional dimension

128

through which speakers make commitments to or reject institutional decisions, specific

agreements or laws, responsibilities and obligations inherent to their roles as members of a group

of political elites in their respective countries, and as temporary or permanent members of the

elite group of the UNSC, and the wider group of State members of the UN.

In its first section, the analysis of the speakers’ mental models as manifested in argumentation

thus answers RQA1, RQA2, and RQA3 by addressing speakers’ representations and

contextualization of their immediate concerns based on expressed beliefs and values, which in

turn motivate these representations and contextualization. This analysis also addresses the ways

in which these systems of beliefs and values motivate the overall argumentation plans and

individual argumentation structures, particularly those with legitimating functions, and the ways

they serve the explicitly and implicitly reported concerns and goals of the various speakers

including their proposed actions with regard to solving the Iraqi crisis (RQB, RQB1 and RQB1i).

This chapter is divided into four main sections, each addressing one speaker’s cognitive model of

participants, actions and events as it informs his argumentation. Each section is further divided

into two subsections. The first analyzes topic selection and sequencing and their significance to

the argumentation plan. The second analyzes audience framing and persuasive devices by

focusing on overall strategies of lexicalization, use of indirectness and deontic expressions. In

the first section, I start with Powell’s presentation of February 5.

5.1 The cognitive model informing Powell’s argumentation of

February 5th

The meeting on February 5 was called for by Powell, who delivered a speech of 11,225 words in

90 minutes. Other addresses over the four sessions of the debate averaged between 900–1700

129

words per speech. Powell’s was also the only address that utilized audiotapes, videotapes, visual

projections of satellite images, and description-based diagrams as material evidence brought into

the Council chamber. The significance of Powell’s choice of topics, arguments and presentation

of material evidence is discussed in the next subsection. Also discussed are his selection and

representations of aspects of the context including events, actions, people and facts based on

Table A1.2, Appendix A1.

5.1.1 The significance of Powell’s topic selection and sequence to the argumentation

plan

The first topic Powell addresses in his speech is Resolution 1441. A selection of the contents of

this resolution are highlighted to characterize Iraq as “a convicted regime of many UNSC

resolutions”, and to define the unanimously adopted R1441 as Iraq’s “last chance to comply” or

face military action, referred to metonymically as “serious consequences” (MP1). Such

characterization of the resolution emphasizes its authorization of military action, while omitting

an important stipulation of returning to the Council for the next action to be taken, should Iraq

breach this resolution (Paragraph 12, R1441).

In the next macroproposition, the American speaker continues to selectively interpret R1441 by

stating that this resolution placed the responsibility on Iraq to meet tough standards of

cooperation and not on the inspectors who “are not detectives for concealed weapons” (MP2).

This macroproposition reflects the belief that Iraq possesses and conceals weapons of mass

destruction, and that it is Iraq’s responsibility to show its weapons and not for the inspectors to

find them. This is also in contradiction with Paragraph 2, R1441 which states: “… decides to set

up an enhanced inspection regime with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the

disarmament process…” and with paragraph 7, which details the extensive authorities granted to

130

the inspection teams of unrestricted access, search and inspection of sites, and seizure of

material, equipment or documents.

From a practical argumentation point of view, Powell’s selection of R1441 as his first topic and

his reinterpretation of its nature and detailed inspection procedures is a strategic attempt to shape

the Council’s main point of reference for action in accordance with his aims. He is thus trying to

establish a common ground (main premises) that is most helpful to his case, which is revealed in

his next two macropropositions.

The third macro proposition is concerned with the speaker’s two purposes for calling the

meeting. Powell specifies which parts of Blix and El Beradei’s assessment he wants to support:

“Iraq did not understand its disarmament obligations” and “its declaration lacks relevant

information to outstanding issues” of disarmament. He defines his second purpose as providing

information from what he represents as credible sources concerning Iraq’s possession and

continued production of WMDs and its connection to terrorism as a subject of R1441 (MP3).

Such selectivity in information presentation obscures other positive aspects of these experts’

assessment, such as Blix’s welcoming of new information presented by Iraq in its declaration

and his request for clarifying the destruction or maintenance of some programs. In practical

argumentation this is interpreted as establishing an argument from the authority of Blix and El

Baradei as acceptable (characteristic of the opening stage). Such a procedure is acceptable as

these two experts are designated and recognized as such in R1441, however, not by obscuring

other aspects of their reports.

In the fourth macroproposition, Powell identifies the nature and purpose of the information he

will be providing and makes his intention clear of not sharing everything he or his government

131

know about Iraq, but only information that shows Saddam Hussein and his regime’s continued

production and concealment of WMDs instead of making efforts to disarm (MP4). In addition to

his selective approach to presenting contextual facts from his point of view, Powell projects a

unique and superior position as a possessor of exclusive information unavailable to other Council

members or to the experts. He also grants himself the authority to present such information in

contravention with the procedures set by paragraph 10, R1441, which requires information to be

presented to inspectors for verification and not directly to the Council. From an argumentative

perspective, Powell’s intent to present facts taken from material and sources unknown to

Council members and unauthenticated by the UNMOVIC and IAEA is an attempt to gain

acceptability for such a new procedure, an attempt to establish a common premise, possibly

because of the presupposed power position his country enjoys in the Council. Nevertheless, this

attempt failed at making this procedure acceptable to other discussants, as we shall see from the

analysis in sections 5.2.1, 5.3.1 and 5.4.1 below.

The above four macroproposition elucidate carefully selected and ordered contextual facts and

reflect the speaker’s intention to establish his representations of contextual facts as a common

ground for the discussion and hence as contextual premises for supporting his case. At the same

time, from these premises, a hearer can easily infer an implicit conclusion: Iraq is in material

breach of R1441 and must now face military action. This remains implicit in the first part of the

speech; however, later in the speech, three claims for military action are made in MP9, MP22

and MP24.

The Iraqi policy of deception is the first topic of argumentation. Powell makes the claim that the

Iraqi regime has a policy of deception which goes back over 12 years to deceive both the Council

and the inspectors. To support this claim, Powell presents unverified material evidence and refers

132

to human sources providing confirmation that concealment of weapons and hiding of material

and people have been taking place in Iraq on orders of high officials. He further supports the

claim with a symptomatic argument which incorporates an implicit claim for action by stating

that Iraq had placed itself in danger of serious consequences based on its violation of R1441 with

three examples of hiding material and people and obstructing inspections (Table A1.2 MT1

(MP5-MP8) - Appendix A1, MP5).

An argument for the urgency of taking action follows. It is justified by an expressed concern for

the relevance of the institution, as Powell clearly assumes that his presented evidence is

irrefutable and hence must be acted upon. It is also justified by the threat Iraq’s weapons

continue to pose to the world. What we see here is the multi-level justification typical of

legitimating a proposed action as defined by Fairclough and Fairclough (2012, p. 109). The first

level of justification includes authorized examples by various sources, albeit their lack of

credibility, including the speaker’s own analysis, and presenting (unverified ) images claimed to

support the examples as being true (circumstantial premises: reported facts and material

evidence). The second level of justification is the description of these examples as constituting

numerous violations of the unanimously adopted R1441 (institutional requirement). Considering

these two levels of justification, the immediate action is deontically proposed with further

justifications based on universal values such as eliminating the threat of WMDs to the world, and

preserving the relevance of the Council (value premises). Although Powell does not specify the

type of action; it is clearly the “serious consequences” he has referred to more than once so far in

his speech. Accordingly, this is Powell’s first legitimation of military action against Iraq.

Powell’s choice of starting his argumentation with the topic of deception allows him to establish

right at the start that the Iraqi regime’s cooperative actions cannot be trusted (MP5-MP8). It also

133

preempts the credibility of inspectors’ findings and conclusions as based only on what is

apparent to them while unaware of what is hidden. The claim of deception undoubtedly proposes

that a direct violation of R1441 has indeed taken place. The implications of proving such claim

allows Powell to consider any reported Iraqi compliance – if indeed the claim was proven – to be

deceptive. The other and more serious implication is directly related to the inspectors’ work and

conclusions: Powell can always respond to the inspectors’ findings as reported by Blix and Al

Baradei by claiming that the inspectors have been deceived, rendering their reports invalid.

Deception is the macro topic in the first section of the speech (MP5-MP8), with WMDs being

used as examples among others of such deceptive policy. However, in the next section of the

speech, Powell shifts the focus to the dangers of WMDs with the Iraqi deception being referred

to more subtly in various ways to provide an unstated explanation of why these weapons have

not been found by the inspectors so far. This is also to point to the possibility of never finding

them in the future while emphasizing their presence. This serves as another justification for

military action based on the knowledge that such weapons exist even if they cannot be found by

inspectors.

The macro topic of the dangers of WMDs is detailed under several topics, each with its own sub-

topics (MP9-MP19). This is to show, not only how dangerous these weapons are to the world,

but also Saddam Hussein’s intentions to use them while ingeniously creating means to keep their

continued production from detection. The importance of this macro topic in general is to support

the speaker’s explicitly declared goal of establishing Iraq’s continued possession, development

and concealment of WMDs stated in MP3, and his main standpoint that Iraq is in material breach

of resolution R1441. The various sub-topics are carefully and systematically selected to support

the dangers of each of these weapons separately. The speaker argues that biological weapons

134

exist based on the lack of proof of their destruction and his country’s intelligence reports. He

argues their concealment by claiming that Iraq has mobile production facilities undetectable by

inspectors based on the descriptions of an eyewitness who allegedly saw these facilities and can

describe their engineering details; so a diagram was drawn and presented for lack of pictures.

The third claim about biological weapons is related to their dispersal methods through illegally

ranged ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which make them transportable

beyond Iraq and thus a danger to the world. The arguments for the dangers of chemical weapons

follow the same pattern and sequence of presentation as for biological weapons: first, an

argument for their existence, then for their continued production in illicit facilities that “on a

dime” can turn “from clandestine to commercial and then back again” without being detected by

inspectors (U299), hence Iraq’s deceptive production systems. Secondly, the speaker

consecutively presents arguments for chemical weapons procurement through clandestine

networks, their illicit transportation methods, environment decontamination efforts, and the

already given orders by Saddam Hussein to use them. The arguments for both biological and

chemical weapons detail Iraq’s concealment efforts as built in explanations of why inspectors

and other countries’ intelligence do not have the evidence Powell has. Details of biological and

chemical agents’ effect on humans are also graphically elaborated through examples to escalate

the sense of threat and the perception of an unsafe world as long as these weapons remain

undestroyed. .

The argument for the existence of nuclear weapons in Iraq is the topic of MP16-MP18. Powell

claims, based on his sources, that Iraq has a complete nuclear program and is only lacking a

bomb. Ballistic weapons and UAVs are used as causes for major concerns to the speaker, being

means for launching biological, chemical and nuclear weapons beyond Iraq to its region and to

135

the world. Another concern is expressed by suggesting a third possibility for these weapons to be

transported beyond Iraq and its region: terrorists.

Thus the macro topic in MP21 is Iraq’s connection to terrorism. Powell turns the possibility of

Iraq’s weapons falling in the hands of terrorists into a highly likely probability by claiming that

Iraq is currently harboring a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist and his cell, that it is facilitating this

cell’s terrorist activities around the world and training terrorist to use poison gas. This is all

based on detained terrorists’ reports and information from US intelligence connected through the

speaker’s analysis. Obviously, such sources cannot be considered reliable due to the duress

detainees could be under, and the bias of both Powell and his country’s intelligence. The

escalated sense of threat and danger due to the combination of WMDs in Iraq and the alleged

collaboration between the Iraqi regime and terrorists is designed to completely shift the attention

to these two topics while obscuring the existence of other countries’ intelligence reports e.g.,

France and Britain, that eliminate the existence of a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and

deny the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq (see Mason,2003). The speaker anticipates a counter claim

to that connection and offers a personal view by arguing that ambition and hatred are enough to

bring Saddam and Al Qaeda together. He concludes with another claim for action delivered in

the form of warning about confronting a more frightening future unless the Council acts.

Although the then president of Iraq is characterized in negative terms throughout the speech,

Powell in his last topic particularly focuses on Saddam Hussein’s evil character, actions and

present and future intentions to use these weapons. The danger presented by Saddam’s intentions

is premised on his history and already given orders to do so, according to Powell’s sources.

136

Powell’s presentation ends with an argument that legitimates action by the Council as an

obligation to the people of the world and as an institutional obligation to enforce UNSC

resolutions. Although Powell does not explicitly name the type of action in this argument, he had

made clear that “serious consequences” is the desired action, about which no Council member

has any illusion that it means military action.

While the argumentation plan is structured to maximize its rhetorical effects through the

selection and sequencing of separate topics; several macro and micro presentational strategies

connect all the arguments and topics of the speech to create a network of arguments. In the next

subsection I identify these strategies and discuss their roles in strategic maneuvering of

argumentation.

5.1.2 Audience framing and persuasive devices

In addressing strategic maneuvering in Powell’s February 5 presentation I specifically target

arguments that employ rhetorical questions, irony and lexicalization as means to avoid

directness. These arguments are examined in terms of their argumentative structure, the linguistic

elements they employ in constructing their indirect expressions, and the rhetorical function such

indirectness serves. The function of indirectness is examined based on the opinions and beliefs

its construction conveys and the specific facts it attempts to elucidate or obscure. The evaluation

of arguments is based on answering the corresponding critical questions applicable to the

argumentation scheme in use. Lexicalization is discussed in terms of its part in an overall

strategy or one more specific to the topic of the argument.

137


One of Powell’s essential strategies to his argumentation plan is selecting the Iraqi deception as

his first topic. Although the first section of the speech is dedicated to this topic, the concept of

deception is never abandoned throughout the speech. It is reinforced through a variety of

semantically related words utilized to subtly re-emphasize the claimed policy of deception within

different macro topics and sub-topics. Words related to deception such as hiding, hide,

clandestine, concealed, concealment, evade, evasion, underground, covert, undetectable, deceit,

deception, and lies are used to represent Iraq’s activities, weapons production facilities and

operation style. Certain words related to this macro topic can be found in the keyword list of the

speech, including some of the most significant keywords, such as the word hide (K=12.14, F=7).

Another prevalent strategy in Powell’s presentation is his extensive reliance on unverified

material evidence and on the authorization of suspicious sources such as terrorists, detainees,

Iraqi defectors and some others identified only as intelligence sources. This strategy is reflected

on the lexical level in highly significant keywords such as sources (K=26.58, F=22), source

(K=12.14, F=7), and the second most-used key word in the address: know (K=63.76, F=45), with

68% of its occurrences (31 times) co-occurring with we in the construction we know and

preceding a variety of claims regarding Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s past and present actions and

intentions. The authorization of “sources” and “we” presents the main problem with the

acceptability of Powell’s arguments, particularly because they contradict experts’ technical

findings, other Council members’ intelligence reports, Iraq’s denials, and their own vague or

suspicious nature.

138

The topic of the dangers that Iraq’s alleged WMDs present to the world is the major topic in

Powell’s presentation with the most arguments dedicated to its establishment as a reason for the

Council’s action. Chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic weapons of mass destruction are all

subtopics of the main topic of the dangers and threats these weapons and the Iraqi regime and its

President present to the region and the world. This macro topic is reflected on the lexical level in

the following keywords:

Table 5.1 – Keywords related to the topic of dangers of weapons and the Iraqi regime

It is notable that the name of the then President of Iraq is ranked fourth in keyness and the

second in frequency among the speech’s keywords when compared to all other speeches

delivered in the debate session of the day. This reflects the importance placed on representing

Saddam Hussein in the most negative terms, particularly as a danger to the world. Negative

representations of Saddam Hussein and his regime function to construct an utterly evil enemy

whose dangers must be eliminated. These representations are not only salient in the last part of

the speech, but pervasively so in Powell’s entire presentation. Constructions propagating the evil

character of Saddam Hussein include expressions such as “Saddam Hussain will kill him if he

finds him” (U231), “Saddam Hussain has no compunction about using them (WMDS) again

against his neighbours and against his own people” (U277), “Saddam Hussein’s inhumanity has

no limits” (U352), “Terrorism has been a tool used by Saddam for decades.” (U535). Other

Rank KW Frq. Keyness

4 Saddam 72 39.94

22 Agents 24 26.07

26 Biological 36 23.31

34 Nuclear 24 20.42

42 Chemical 38 16.43

83 Deadly 6 10.41

139

depictions of Saddam Hussein include his committing “one of the twentieth century’s most

horrible atrocities” (U547) and his “dangerous intentions” pointed to by “his calculated cruelty to

his own citizens and to his neighbours” (U554). Saddam Hussein is also represented as an

ambitious man, whose intentions are “to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East, using the

only means he knows: intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his

way” (U556).

Other topicalized dangers and threats include the threat of the claimed relationship between Iraq

and terrorist organizations. Powell’s lexicalization propagates and reinforces these dangers

through semantically related words – some of which do not appear in the keywords list, but still

feature in the speech, such as death, deadly, lethal, executions, kill, killed, chilling, dangerous,

danger, dangers, horrible, horrific, diseases, poisons, and evil. Some examples of the

propagation of the dangers these weapons and Saddam Hussein present include constructions

such as: “deadly weapons programmes”, Saddam Hussein “has the ability to dispense these

lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction”, “ If biological

weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling”.

One aspect of legitimation in argumentation is the use of normative values and principles that

impose moral, political, or other types of obligation on the speaker or other discussants to take

particular action. Hence, words such as the modal markers must, obligation(s), responsibility

(ies), duty (ies) and requirement(s) were concordanced for their immediate context of use in the

text. While Iraq’s obligation to comply with the Council’s resolutions, and its non-compliant

status of not meeting this obligation is elaborated on ten occasions (U2, U5, U162, U166, U193,

U361, U435, U438, U439 and U563), the Council’s obligation, duty and responsibility relate to

140

taking military action against this country for the sake of the institution itself and the citizens of

the countries represented in it.

U572- We must not shrink from whatever is ahead of us.

U573- We must not fail in our duty and our responsibility to the citizens of the countries that

are represented by this body.

U567-We have an obligation to our citizens — we have an obligation to this body — to see that

our resolutions are complied with.

The propagation of Iraq’s deception, the threat and dangers of its weapons and president, and its

non-compliant status with its obligations, which is achieved through careful and pervasive

lexicalization throughout the text, is a powerful persuasive device. Lexicalization, which uses

semantically related words and expressions, functions here to sustain an idea or a concept in the

mind of the hearer through the frequent reception and cognitive processing of words and

expressions that re-emphasize the same or similar concepts. Interestingly however, the concept

of war against Iraq, while it is the main goal of the speaker, is never used in the Iraq context. It is

used 7 times to refer to other past wars (4 times to the first Gulf war, Afghan war and WWI) and

one time to say “we wrote Resolution 1441 not in order to go to war”. The concept of war is

sustained through the expression “serious consequences” used five times, and in the deontic

expressions above (U567, U572 and U573) which represent war as an obligation as in “see that

our resolutions are complied with”, “not shrink of whatever is ahead” and “not fail in our duty

and our responsibility”.

Other indirect or subtle structures that function as persuasive devices are irony and rhetorical

questions. Examples of the use of these devices in Powell’s presentation are discussed in the next

subsection.

141

5.1.2.2 Rhetorical questions and irony

There are 28 questions posed by Powell in his February 5 speech. They are often followed by

answers, or their answers have already been given either directly or indirectly in the text. In the

following example, questions are posed with the rhetorical function of strengthening the force of

an argument by explaining and clarifying the meaning of an observable image projected on the

screen:

U117- Here you see 15 munitions bunkers in yellow and red outlines.

U118- The four that are in the red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers.

U119- How do I know this?

U120- How can I say this?

U121- Let me give you a closer look.

U122- Look at the image on the left.

U123- On the left is a close-up of one of the four chemical munitions bunkers.

U124- The two arrows indicate the presence of sure signs that these bunkers are storing

chemical munitions.

Utterances 117-124 constitute a symptomatic argument which can be reconstructed as follows:

- The four bunkers in the red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers.

I know this, and I can say this because the two arrows indicate the presence of

sure signs that these bunkers are storing chemical munitions.

The argument has circular reasoning as it offers no evidence, but another claim that amounts to

the first claim made. The arrows on the photographs are not the “sure signs,” but the audience is

expected to think of them as indications of the sure signs. As for the sure signs, they are nowhere

to be seen in the photographs. This is an attempt to give the illusion of the existence of technical

proof that nevertheless remains elusive. The two questions within the argument come in

142

anticipation of the opponents’ doubt about the speaker’s claim; hence, they are posed as a

preface to justificatory explanations intended to alleviate the doubt. They alert the audience to

the visual evidence to be provided. The photograph presented by Powell is expected to raise the

credibility of the claim, however, it fails to present the sign it claims to be presenting. Another

example of the use of questions for rhetorical effect in a weak argument can be observed in

Powell’s attempt to prove that Iraq continues to produce chemical weapons. Powell provides a

list of items Iraq is trying to procure according to his sources (mentioned in U316-319). As these

items can be used for legitimate purposes, the speaker anticipates his opponents’

counterarguments and preempts with two arguments that incorporate two questions:

U319- Now, of course, Iraq will argue that these items can also be used for legitimate

purposes.

U320- But if that is true, why do we have to learn about them by intercepting

communications and risking the lives of human agents?

U321- With Iraq’s well-documented history on biological and chemical weapons, why

should any of us give Iraq the benefit of the doubt?

U322- I do not, and you will not either after you hear this next intercept.

The rhetorical nature of the question in U320 is indicated by the integration of the conditional if

preceded by the adversative conjunct but, the integration of the modal construction have to, and

expression risking lives to indicate extreme negative measures. This makes the intention of the

question a negated assertion: ‘This is not true because…’. In U321, the integration of the modal

should and the negative polarity item any also indicates a negated assertion. Accordingly, the

two arguments can be reconstructed as follows:

- If Iraq possessed these chemical agents for legitimate purposes, we would not have to

find out about them by intercepting communications and risking the lives of human

agents.

143

- With Iraq’s well-documented history on biological and chemical weapons, we should not

give it the benefit of the doubt. I do not, and you will not either after you hear the

following intercept.

The first argument is an argument from sign (symptomatic argument). It takes a two-part claim –

that the way the U.S. found out about the chemical weapons was through intelligence work, and

this work endangered the lives of U.S. agents – to be a sign of the illegitimate use of chemicals.

By answering the critical questions that assess the reasoning of this argument, it becomes clear

that the way the U.S. found out about biological agents is wholly irrelevant to how they are used.

As for the second argument, it presupposes that the history of Iraq’s weapons and its actions are

evidence of its present actions. This type of argument does not offer the evidence for current

action, and hence cannot be accepted. The manner in which these biological and chemical agents

are being used by Iraq at the present time, if they even exist, can only be established by technical

evidence, or by some officially designated technical authority, both of which are not available to

Powell.

While the two questions are not directly answered, they are in effect mitigated negated

statements intended to avoid the direct negation and to give the hearers the impression of

working out the answers for themselves. One’s own conclusions are more likely to be adopted as

truths than the conclusions of others.

Irony with a specific rhetorical function can be observed in Powell’s use of language in the next

example. Powell introduces the Iraqi Higher Committee for Monitoring the Inspection Teams as

the Iraqi regime’s tool for deceiving and hindering inspections (linguistic devices with particular

roles in realizing the irony are underlined):

144

U62-U64- We know that Saddam Hussein has what is called “a Higher Committee for

Monitoring the Inspection Teams”. Think about that — Iraq has a high-level committee

to monitor the inspectors who were sent in to monitor Iraq’s disarmament. Not to

cooperate with them, not to assist them, but to spy on them and keep them from doing

their jobs.

This excerpt is marked with an indirect strategy of irony intended as a condemnation. It starts

with an indirect expression of disapproval realized by the speaker distancing himself from the

designated name of the committee. The unnecessary, but purposeful, use of the expression “what

is called” before saying the name of the committee conveys a negative opinion of this committee.

This is affirmed by the imperative “think about that,” which conveys the need to contemplate

what may be hidden in the designation of the committee and its implied function. The imperative

serves as a mental preparation or thought directing technique similar to the one used in the

rhetorical question in, for example, U38, where the speaker asks about the Iraqi officer’s concern

to bring it to the hearer’s attention after playing a recorded conversation. He then presents what

he thinks their concern is. However, in this case, what follows is a descriptive ironic speech act

constructed to imply the willful incongruity in monitoring the monitor and the role reversal

intended by the Iraqi regime. According to Partington (2007), the implicit accusatory intention of

willful self-contradiction holds “an ulterior imputation of dishonesty, double-dealing, or deceit,

sometimes openly expressed.” In this case, an open expression of imputation immediately

follows: “Not to cooperate with them, not to assist them, but to spy on them and keep them from

doing their jobs.” Indirectness here, in the form of irony, serves the powerful persuasive function

of indirectly leading the hearer’s mind into progressively developing the same attitude and belief

as held by the speaker. Irony has the specific role of revealing the contradiction indirectly –

through what is seemingly only descriptive language.

145

Dialectically, the argument constituted in these utterances has a symptomatic structure, which

considers the designation of the committee as a sign of its job to deceive and spy on the

inspectors. The critical question is whether there are other explanations for the name of the

committee and its purpose besides those offered by Powell. Based on the plausibility of a number

of alternative explanations, the argument is not convincing, particularly in the presence of the

following statements in Blix’s February 14 report to the Council, which provides a positive

opinion of two commissions working under this higher committee:

The Iraqi side also informed us that the commission, which had been appointed in the

wake of our finding 12 empty chemical weapons warheads, had had its mandate

expanded to look for any still existing proscribed items. This was welcomed. A second

commission, we learnt, has now been appointed with the task of searching all over Iraq

for more documents relevant to the elimination of proscribed items and programmes. It is

headed by the former Minister of Oil, General Amer Rashid, and is to have very

extensive powers of search in industry, administration and even private houses.

The well-structured and rhetorically strong argumentative plan of Powell’s proved to be

unconvincing to other Council members who maintained that the use of force is an option, but a

last option, such as the French representative, and to those who were against the idea of war

altogether, such as the Syrian representative. As for the Iraqi representative, his reaction goes far

beyond considering Powell’s presentation as unconvincing. He considers the evidence presented

by the American representative as concocted and fabricated to serve the goal of destroying Iraq

and occupying it as his contributions to the debate clearly indicate. Al Douri’s response to

Powell’s presentation in the February 5 session is discussed in the next section.

146

5.2 The cognitive model informing Al Douri’s argumentation of February 5

While Powell’s argumentation plan is elaborate with multiple topics, subtopics, and multiple

examples, Al Douri’s argumentation plan is simple and to the point (Appendix B1-Table B1.2).

Al Douri’s contribution to the UNSC session of February 5 can be said to be entirely dedicated

to refuting and attacking Powell’s allegations. The Iraqi speaker makes clear at the onset of his

speech (MP1-MP4) his main standpoint that Iraq is free of WMDs and that Powell’s presentation

is untruthful. His argumentation plan proceeds to support this standpoint; Appendix B1- Table

B1.2, column 2, also provides insight into the operating mental model of the speaker, which can

be summarized as follows:

- Institutional procedures: unfair in allocating time to speakers and in allowing

Powell’s transgression of presenting unverified material.

- Opponent’s characterization: untruthful, impolite, fabricating evidence, and

implementing a set policy of war against Iraq.

- Speaker’s presented values: fairness, truth, politeness, and following institutional

procedures of determining Iraq’s compliance or lack thereof by technical evidence

verified and presented by experts.

Al Douri’s goals, concerns, proposed actions and their legitimation are addressed in the

following subsection.

5.2.1 The significance of Al Douri’s topic selection and sequence to the

argumentation plan

Al Douri’s first priority in MP1 is to express an open objection to the institutional procedure of

disparately allocating unequal speaking time to respond to Powell’s speech (90- minute

147

presentation vs. less than 10 minutes of response). This objection is followed by a commitment

to provide “detailed” and “technical” answers to his opponent’s “allegations,” and to be “polite”

and “brief.” Al Douri’s first commitment can be seen as an attempt to establish the credibility of

the intended “explanations” by characterizing them as detailed and technical, particularly in the

presence of technical experts. His second commitment can be seen as intentional yet unnecessary

emphasis on brevity and politeness. This interest in expressing his intention to be both brief and

polite can be understood as an underlying evaluative opinion of Powell’s presentation as being

lengthy and impolite. From an argumentative standpoint, Al Douri identified what he perceives

as acceptable procedures for conducting this discussion: equal allocation of time to speakers to

briefly and politely present detailed and technical information.

In MP2 Al Douri asserts his main standpoint, which constitutes an attack on Powell’s allegations

and a confirmation of a long held position by the Iraqi government that Iraq is completely free of

WMDs: Powell’s allegations are false, his evidence cannot be confirmed as genuine and the

allegations are all in line with a policy of war. Iraq is completely free of WMDs. In MP3 Al

Douri presents a number of contextual facts with implicit imputations:

- Powell could have presented his allegations to UNMOVIC and IAEA as R1441 calls

for = Powell did not. Therefore, he transgressed institutional requirements.

- He could have left the inspectors to work in peace and quiet without media pressure =

Powell intended for the media and the public to pressure the inspectors by presenting

his allegations publically.

- The validity of these allegations will be tested by Blix and El Baradei on February 8

and 9 = Powell did not wait for experts’ testing for three or four days.

148

- Ongoing inspections have proven previous US and British allegations and reports to be

false = Powell wanted to present his allegations before their refutation by experts.

Al Douri is in effect presenting a circumstantial premise which implicitly supports the claimed

policy of war Powell is said to be propagating by implying that Powell intentionally presented

his allegations publically before they are proven false by UNMOVIC and IAEA as previous

allegations were. The Iraqi speaker’s presentation of these facts are clearly intended to reject

Powell’s transgression of set procedures, considers his presentation as untruthful and anticipates

that upcoming inspections will prove him wrong. He also implies Powell’s noncompliance with

the very resolution he is requiring Iraq to comply with. As such, Al Douri mounts a

counterattack, rather than a defensive, in response to Powell’s accusations. His goal is clearly to

prove the falsity of Powell’s presentation using the same authority his opponent claims to be

supporting: the investigations of Blix and El Baradei.

Al Douri chooses to argue from technical facts, experts’ reports, scientific test findings,

American and British reports and officials to refute and to attack his opponent’s allegations

throughout his speech. For example, in MP4 Al Douri refutes Powell’s accusation that Iraq is

lying about its WMDs by citing UNMOVIC and IAEA’s experts’ findings following inspections

throughout Iraq with sites including those specified by the British and American government

officials. Al Douri also refutes Powell’s allegations that Iraq possesses biological, chemical and

nuclear weapons by referring to the findings of technical test results of an extensive variety of

samples taken from numerous parts of Iraq (MP5). Other allegations made by Powell concerning

Iraq’s movement of proscribed material, sending Iraqi scientists out of Iraq to avoid interviews

and the presence of mobile units are refuted by Blix’s confirmation that inspections do not

support these allegations (MP6). To refute Powell’s accusation that Iraq is in breach of R1441 by

149

refusing the inspectors’ U2 flights, Al Douri takes the opportunity to point to the illegal

imposition of no-fly zones over Iraq by American and British planes, which, in his government’s

opinion, jeopardize the U2 missions. He explains that Iraq’s objection is not to the U2 flights, but

to being held responsible for their safety. His next refutation of Iraq moving prohibited material

and weapons in illicit mobile factory in MP8 is based on empirical facts of actual inspection

findings, inspectors’ resources, and the inspection procedures in place. Advancement in

technology which allows fabrication of voice recordings is used as a premise to counter attack

Powell’s material evidence of sound recordings (MP9). Al Douri then uses as authorities his

President, a US official and a British intelligence report to refute Powell’s allegations of a

relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda (MP10). Al Douri’s refutation of the Iraqi

regime/Saddam Hussein committing the Halabjah massacre against the Iraqi Kurds is dealt with

by referring to a CIA official’s statement (MP11). A confrontational standpoint follows in MP12

in which Al Douri directly states what he has been implying all along:

MP12- The goal behind holding this meeting and the presentation of false allegations was

to sell the idea of war and aggression against my country without legal, moral or political

justification in order to persuade public opinion of launching a hostile attack against Iraq.

In his last macro argument Al Douri echoes Powell’s request for the implementation of Council

resolutions, but in a comprehensive and not in a selective way. He calls for the implementation

of all resolutions concerning WMDs in the Middle East to guarantee the security of the region

and that of his country as well. This is intended to expose an obscured issue in Powell’s

arguments concerning the security of the region and the unequal implementation of Council’s

resolutions as it highlights the discrepancies in both Powell’s and the institutional positions in

terms of treatment between Iraq and its neighbor, Israel, regarding the WMDs issue.

150

The analysis of Al Douri’s macro arguments reveals a systematic refutation of Powell’s claims

and a number of counter attacks, often indirect, to accuse the US of fabricating evidence, lying,

self- contradicting, discriminating in requiring implementation of UN resolutions and insincere

about its concerns for the safety of the region. Additionally, Powell is represented as having one

objective: selling his country’s policy of war against Iraq.

In the next section I examine more closely the role of indirectness and lexicalization in strategic

maneuvering of argumentation and provide some examples.

5.2.2 Audience framing and persuasive devices in Al Douri’s speech

The above analysis of the argumentation plan has shown a number of instances of implied

meanings through constructions which avoid the use of direct language. Although there are no

rhetorical questions in Al Douri’s contribution to the February 5 session, other linguistic

strategies of indirectness are prevalent in representing facts, events and people.

5.2.2.1 Surrogate arguers and passivation as strategies of indirectness

One of the noted strategies of indirectness in Al Douri’s contributions is shifting agency from

people to things. This can be observed in U37-U38 where Al Douri avoids directly accusing the

American speaker of fabricating evidence by placing the responsibility (agency) of fabricating

evidence on technological progress and not on Powell or his government. In another instance

(U27), Al Douri does not accuse the US and Britain of obstructing the U2 flights mission, rather

it is these two countries’ planes that are compromising the U2 flights. Again in U17 Al Douri

refers to the president of the US and the Prime Minister of Britain by names, however, in U18 he

avoids saying that their allegations were false by referring to “those reports” not being true.

151

In these cases indirectness serves the function of a politeness strategy. It also allows the speaker

to manage his attacks on Powell, President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, British or American

governments of having fabricated the recordings, lied in their reports, obstructed inspections, or

sold a policy of war to the public by passivating their agency or shifting it to things such as

technological advancement in order to depersonalize these attacks and to project an air of

diplomatic professionalism. Additionally, such strategy allows the speaker to avoid being in a

defensive position of denying accusations by rationalizing e.g., that these “voices could belong to

anyone, anywhere, and at any time”.

Another strategy of indirectness is noted in Al Douri’s consistent reference and quoting of

authorities explicitly recognized by his opponent, particularly American authorities such as the

CIA, U.S. officials, and U.S. Administration members. The arguments are noted to be

intentionally presented by these authorities and not by the speaker himself, thus revealing

contradictions among American government officials’ statements – making them the agents of

refuting Powell’s claims in place of the speaker. For example, to respond to Powell’s arguments

regarding Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against its own people, Al Douri counters in U43 that

he “was surprised” with Powell’s assertion that Iraq used chemical weapons against its own

people considering the publication in the New York Times “just a few days ago” of a fact

reported by the CIA. While Al Douri never accuses Powell of lying, the implication is strongly

present. However, Al Douri only expresses surprise given the argument presented by the CIA

official:

U43-….he stated that the United States Administration has known since 1988 that Iraq

did not use chemical weapons against its own people for one simple reason: it does not

have the chemical weapon that was used in the Halabjah incident.

152

The same strategy is used to attack American administration officials using the CIA analysts:

U41- I would like to refer to a recent statement by a US official as reported in the New

York Times exactly three days ago: Analysts at the CIA have complained that

Administration officials have exaggerated reports on Iraq, and particularly on Iraq’s

presumed relationship with Al Qaeda, in order to bolster their case for war.

In this circumstantial premise, there is a causal argument carried out by the CIA analysts:

“Administration officials have exaggerated reports on Iraq … in order to bolster their case for

war”. In these two examples and in many other cases, Al Douri uses surrogate arguers to refute

his opponent’s claims such as UNSC experts, and in the above two examples, by using the CIA

and U.S. officials. The speaker’s main goal behind the use of this strategy is to point to the

inconsistency of Powell’s argument with statements given by official members of his own

government, and by his own country’s intelligence agency. Through this strategy, Al Douri is

able to avoid using his own sources, opinion, or judgment, which may be less credible to his

opponents in the Council and to the public audience.

Even when the Iraqi speaker uses an Iraqi authority to deny or refute an accusation, as in U9,

these denials and refutations are further supported by the agreed-upon expert authorities, as well

as American and British authorities, as in U13-U18.

Al Douri also uses indirect sarcasm to make a technical point regarding WMD production

facility requirements and size while avoiding directly stating that his opponent’s accusation is

absurd:

U34- It must be said that weapons of mass destruction programmes are not an aspirin pill,

which can be easily hidden.

U35- Rather, they require huge production facilities for research and development,

weaponization and deployment.

U36- Such facilities cannot be concealed and inspectors have crisscrossed all of Iraq and

found no evidence of their presence.

153

The sarcasm in U34 is achieved in a negated statement which implies the absurdity of Powell’s

argument regarding the ease of concealing WMD facilities. The disparity in size and function

between the two objects creates the absurdity of the comparison. The issue of size as the main

object of the comparison is confirmed in U35 with the construction: “…rather they require huge

facilities”. To further support his argument, Al Douri rationalizes the denial of such ease by

using technological facts and by authorizing inspectors’ findings. The rhetorical effect of the

negated comparison is intended to imply that Powell purposefully ignored technical facts, while

at the same time maximizing audience support based on both the disparity between the two

objects compared, and the authorization of the inspectors’ findings. This also achieves the

dialectical goal of refuting Powell’s argument of the existence of WMD mobile production

factories.

5.2.2.2 The use of Lexis

In examining the word list of Al Douri’s speech, it is noted that no deontic expressions are used.

Neither are there any rhetorical or other questions in the Iraqi speaker’s contribution to the

debate on February 5.

The propagation of the falsity of Powell’s evidence can be observed on the lexical level in the

highly significant keyword allegations (K=47.39, F=8) and the word false (K=6.94, F=3) along

with other semantically related words found in the text such as exaggerated, fabrication, not

genuine, incorrect, and presumptions. As for his second strategy of authorizing consensual

authorities to refute Powell’s claims, it can be observed on the lexical level in keywords such as

CIA (K=17.76, F=3); York (K=17.76, F=3), with all three occurrences collocating with new and

154

times to form the expression New York Times; and teams (K=12.31, F=5), to refer to the

inspection teams..

The above strategies of shifting agency and using surrogate arguers guaranteed to be recognized

by his opponent and his supporters have both rhetorical and dialectical benefits. First, Al Douri is

able to appeal to all types of audiences by not directly attacking his opponent as lying,

fabricating evidence, contradicting to his own country’s intelligence agency and officials. The

speaker stands to gain more empathy for his case from opposing or neutral audience by using

other authorities to argue his case. This strategy also places Powell in a precarious position of

having contradicted his own intelligence officials. This approach also serves the purpose of

pointing to the inconsistencies present in the American evidence against Iraq and threatens the

already weak credibility of Powell’s unauthenticated sources. Thus these strategies serves the

double purpose of refuting his opponent’s arguments while maintaining a position of presenting

available facts from authorities while at the same time exposing the contradictions, and thus the

unreliability of the American claims.

In the next section I analyze the Syrian speaker’s argumentation plan and strategies with

comparisons to those of Al Douri’s.

5.3 The cognitive model informing Al Shara’s argumentation

of February 5

The Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouq Al Shara, assumes a position of completely opposing war in

accordance with his president, who had described the war as a flagrant aggression against Iraq

with no moral or legal justification. This position, as Al Shara advances, is based on the

unanimously adopted resolution 1441 and the Charter of the UN, which promotes resolving

155

crises peacefully. Table C1.2- Appendix C1 presents the Syrian speaker’s argumentation plan

and representations of contextual aspects as well as presented values and beliefs, all of which are

reflected in the analysis that follows.

5.3.1 The significance of Al Shara’s topic selection and sequence to the

argumentation plan

At the onset of his speech the Syrian speaker expresses his belief in resolving the crisis

peacefully, rejects Powell’s evidence as unreliable and asserts the position that war is a

collective failure of implementing R1441 and a failure of the international system in

implementing its Charter (MP1-MP4). While Al Shara’s first macroproposition is a conventional

opening statement; his main position on the Iraq issue is made clear through his statement of

support for France’s peaceful efforts for resolving the crisis. The first topic on the Syrian agenda

(speaker’s top concern) is Powell’s presentation, which Al Shara describes as “information and

opinions”. This constitutes a rejection of considering the presented material as evidence. His

description of what the process and procedure for obtaining “irrefutable evidence” entail is an

implicit characterization of Powell’s presentation as lacking verification and as neither

“reliable” nor “accurate” (MP2). In MP3 Al Shara recounts the circumstances in which R1441

was adopted by pointing to the unanimous understanding amongst Council members that R1441

is a peaceful resolution, and to the guarantees offered to Syria by Council members that R1441

will not be used as a pretext for war. This recount is not merely to remind the audience of what

happened. Al Shara intentionally lays out contextual facts that are not part of Powell’s recount of

the same period involving the circumstances of adopting R1441. While Powell emphasizes what

“serious consequences” clearly meant to everyone who was present during the adoption of the

resolution; Al Shara emphasizes the intent for that resolution to be a peaceful way to resolve the

156

crisis and not to be used as a pretext for war. Each speaker thus highlights what he perceives as

supporting facts to his main position of being an opponent or a proponent of war.

The Syrian speaker, then, reviews additional contextual facts related to the successful

implementation of R1441 and points to the looming war despite the accomplishments of these

steps as required by R1441 (MP4). Next, Al Shara clearly expresses his main standpoint that war

is an institutional failure and that the Council is capable of doing a lot more than it is doing to

ensure a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi crisis in accordance with its role and function. Both parts

of the standpoint are advanced in the argumentation stage to follow.

In MP6 Al Shara presents an analogical argument to compare the institutional treatment of two

states in the same region where war is being discussed against the one who complied with the

enforcement of UN resolutions (no longer occupies others’ territories and threatens its

neighbors), and the other who continues its threats and occupation in defiance of the Council’s

resolutions. The case of Israel here is intended to support an implicit claim of a policy of double

standards. It also supports the main standpoint that the Council can do a lot more.

Al Shara deals with Powell’s claim that obstacles to inspections constitute a breach of R1441,

which should lead to military action by presenting the argument in MP7. For the Syrian speaker,

these issues can be resolved peacefully and do not “warrant a destructive war”. He supports this

claim by presenting a plan which in his view not only leads to a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi

crisis, but also, in parallel, must lead to removing the sanctions on the Iraqi people, and to

freeing the Middle East of all WMDs. Al Shara is thus implying that not only R1441 should be

implemented, but all resolutions concerning WMDs in the region should be implemented without

“excepting any state, including Israel”. This can be seen as intended to challenge the legitimation

157

of war advanced by Powell and premised on enforcing UNSC resolutions and eliminating the

threat of WMDs from the region and the world by calling into question the absence of Powell’s

interest in enforcing other resolutions Israel is obligated to comply with in order to eliminate the

same threat he claims to be interested in eliminating. This is also intended to highlight the

Council’s inconsistency in enforcing the same resolutions on different states, particularly on

those in the same region.

In MP8 Al Shara presents an argument against war by appealing to the support of Iraq’s

neighbors for a peaceful solution and at the same time to emphasize their perception of Iraq as a

non-threatening neighbor. This juxtaposes Powell’s views of the Iraqi threat to the region and the

world with the views of Iraq’s immediate neighbors. Al Shara goes on to talk about Israel’s

threats and wars in the region, its historical and current policies of destructions and occupation

against the Palestinian people and the sufferings it continues to cause to argue against yet another

war. This is intended to again show the insincerity of Powell’s expressed concern for Iraq’s

neighbors. Al Shara ends his speech in MP9 with an argument for a peaceful resolution that

would save thousands of lives and is in line with the UN Charter.

While Al Douri launched an attack against Powell’s allegations as lies and fabrications intended

to support a preset policy of war; Al Shara takes the approach of calling Powell’s stated goals

into complete and not partial action. The implied questioning of the disparity in dealing with

Israel’s WMDs vs. dealing with Iraq’s alleged WMDs is clearly illustrated in calling for

implementing all resolutions pertaining to WMDs through peaceful means. The Council’s

sincerity in implementing its resolutions in order to maintain international peace and security is

also called into question by the Syrian speaker.

158

Al Shara’s topics selection and sequence reflect a rhetorical strategy of first rejecting Powell’s

presentation, evidence, and representation of R1441 as a war resolution, which leads

immediately to rejecting the “mere thought of war” as an institutional failure. The Syrian

speaker challenges the institution and the United States, although indirectly, based on their own

declared goals. His selection of contextual facts as main premises constitute those obscured by

Powell, such as the intent of Council members to resolve the Iraqi crisis peacefully when they

voted on this resolution, the mission of the Council of maintaining international peace as

opposed to authorizing launching a war, and the policies of double standards of both the US and

the UN. This strategy, which is aimed at exposing inconsistencies that have moral and legal

implications, is further investigated on the micro level of the discourse by examining

lexicalization and strategies of indirectness.


Al Shara’s two strategies of attack and rejection are managed through indirectness. Starting with

his rejection of Powell’s allegations, the Syrian speaker never says that Powell’s evidence is not

factual and verified; rather he chooses to describe the way facts are obtained, which

Powell did not follow. His rejection of considering the reported obstacles to inspections to be a

sufficient reason for war is mitigated through the only two questions used in the speech:

U19- Nevertheless, after listening to the reports of Blix and El Baradei, we ask whether

the obstacles to which they referred are insurmountable.

U20- Do they truly warrant a destructive war against Iraq?

The question in U19 constitutes a suggestion with “whether” leaving the option open for

“surmountable”. The second question in U20 is carefully lexicalized with the adverb truly to

159

indicate the speaker’s disbelief that the obstacles warrant a war. The negative attitude towards

the war is encoded in the adjective destructive to imply its rejection. The speaker could have

easily asserted his position that the obstacles do not warrant a war and to proceed with the same

justifications. However, the question has the rhetorical effect of stirring audience thoughts to

share in finding the answer, and to reflect a positive image of an evaluator of possible

alternatives. The question also functions to mitigate the rejection by implying it and not directly

expressing it.

Al Shara’s strategy of attacking the US’s and the UN’s paradoxical policies is also mitigated by

using indirectness and careful lexicalization.

U16- And during a time when the Council is adopting multiple statements to save

innocent victims in more than one area of the world, it is very strange to be discussing

war against Iraq which no longer occupies others’ territories or threaten its neighbors,

while (implicit: while on the contrary) Israel still occupies Lebanese, Syrian and

Palestinian territories in violation of UN Charter and many of its resolutions and

threatens its neighbors every now and then.

The above utterance constructs an analogical argument with the aim to contrast the non-

compliant status of Israel with UNSC resolutions with a comparatively compliant status of Iraq.

The presentation of the Council’s discussion of war as “very strange” is the first indicator of a

contrastive relationship within the argument, with the second indicator being “while”, here

functioning implicitly as an adversative conjunction. The elucidated disparity between the

selective implementation of UNSC resolutions with acts of war against one and not the other

denotes a discriminate treatment of member states according to different standards. Such

discriminate treatment is in violation of the UN Charter, which guarantees equality amongst all

states. The role and function of the UN in implementing its Charter is raised as an issue for

consideration. It would have been possible for Al Shara to use the word “unjust” instead of

160

“strange” when he referred to the paradoxical treatment of UNSC resolutions violation. It would

also have been possible for the speaker to ask why war is not being considered against Israel.

However, considering the speaker’s position of advocating peace in accordance with the UN

Charter, Al Shara refrains from directly asking about war against Israel. Additionally, instead of

issuing a judgment by using the word “unjust”, which is strongly implied, Al Shara uses

attenuation to present the UNSC and the US actions as strange instead of morally dubious. The

above utterance represents an explicitly marked irony intended to accuse the US and the UN of

having contradicted themselves willfully. This constitutes an indirect accusation of double-

dealing (Partington, 2007), thus it delegitimates the act of war based on normative standards

propagated, although not applied, by the UN.


Lexicalization plays an important role in representing a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi issue as

the best option by using words such as settlement (K: 19.40, F: 7) with peaceful (K: 15.37, F: 8)

and just. The benefits of the option of peace are emphasized through appealing to universal

collective and personal values of saving the lives of people - saves lives (F=2) and save the

innocent (F=2) - and by referring to the return of soldiers to their families. Peace (K: 10.34, F:8,)

as the preferred option for resolving this crisis is emphasized through its use together with other

words to form expressions such as “we can attain peace”, “let’s work for peace”, “ensuring that

peace prevails”, all of which makes peace a goal and “our commitment to peace”, favoring

“peace over war”, and maintaining “international peace and security”, making peace a legal and

moral obligation. War, on the other hand, is mentioned more times than peace along with other

semantically related words and word forms such as conflict, conflicts and wars to refer to its

abhorred consequences in expressions that describe war as “destructive”, as “a failure of the

161

international system” and point to its repercussions. Other words associated with war are meant

to elicit feelings of rejection such as scourge, disaster, suffering and suffer. The Syrian speaker’s

lexicalization points to his intent to appeal to universally valued human concerns and legal

obligations, which appeal to all types of audiences.

Deontic expressions such as necessary, must, duties, required, and requires are used in claims

for action or to legitimate action to resolve the crisis peacefully. In the following example,

deontic expressions are in italics and references to values are in bold:

U13- … the choice of war is not only a proof of the Council's inadequacy to carry out its

duties, but also a proof of the failure of the international system which more than ever,

must now rely on the charter of the UN as a reference for maintaining world peace and

order.

U22- That (eliminating obstacles to inspections) requires that both parties — Iraq and the

inspectors — build a common denominator of trust ….

U26- In parallel, the Council must take necessary measures to lift the sanctions imposed

on the Iraqi people under paragraph 22 of resolution 687 (1991) and must activate

paragraph 14 of that resolution,…

Deontic markers are mainly associated with values such as peace, respect for the UN Charter and

equal implementation of Council’s resolutions. Al Shara’s main strategy is to premise all his

arguments on normative values and institutional commitments understood by all members to be

in place for maintaining world order.

In the next section I examine the cognitive model informing de Villepin’s argumentation in the

February 5 session and contrast its response to Powell’s arguments with those presented by the

Iraqi and Syrian speakers.

162

5.4 The cognitive model informing de Villepin’s

argumentation of February 5

Like all UNSC representatives, the French speaker reflects his government’s position, which

staunchly supports the terms of R1441 and the unity of the Council as the guiding force for the

actions to be taken by the institution. France maintains that the use of force remains an option but

only the last one. Before all other options are exhausted, the use of military force is not

legitimate, particularly so, for as long as the peaceful disarmament efforts are achieving results.

These conditions are the pillars of de Villepin’s argumentation plan and the bases for his

representations of the context.

5.4.1 De Villepin’s topic selection and sequence and their significance to the

argumentation plan

The French speaker’s reaction to Powell’s presentation is his first topic of discussion, as it is for

the other two antagonists. In his first macroproposition (MP1), he expresses the opinion that the

elements in Powell’s presentation “deserve further exploration” by the inspectors who are

responsible for assessing facts. While de Villepin takes an apparently positive approach to these

elements, he effectively underlines his deference of making an explicit judgment until these

elements are verified by experts in accordance with the unanimously adopted Council resolution.

This is made clear in his construction “as envisaged by R1441”.

De Villepin’s next concern is to carefully define the unanimous adoption of R1441 as a choice

taken by the Council with the goal of disarming Iraq peacefully, and to spell out the means to do

so through a rigorous inspection regime with a central role of the unified Council (MP2). As

such, he begins a process of evaluating both the achieved progress and the encountered obstacles

163

towards disarmament based on chief inspectors’ reports. In MP3 de Villepin particularly

highlights the importance of the improved access to numerous new sites and the results of the

tests inspectors conducted on samples taken from Iraq that indicated no traces of prohibited

substances. In MP4 he provides examples of the remaining unanswered disarmament questions

as reported by Blix in his January 27 report to conclude with a standpoint, which constitutes a

claim for action:

We must clarify and better define the issues reported by inspectors through a demanding

demarche anchored in R1441. Should this path of rigorous inspections fail, we rule out no

option, including the recourse to force.

The French speaker’s above contribution to the opening and confrontation stage is carefully

managed to provide what was omitted from Powell’s presentation, a comprehensive definition of

the unanimously adopted resolution, its goal and the means by which this goal may be achieved

without omitting any part including the option of resorting to war, although delayed until after

outlining the progress and obstacles towards disarmament. Hence, de Villepin’s standpoint

comes as a completion to the terms of this resolution by ruling in military action, but only after

inspections reach a dead end.

The speaker follows by setting the conditions (procedures) under which war may be

hypothetically considered as an action by the Council, based on R1441. These conditions are

defined in accordance with the ethics of war and the Charter of the UN. They include

guaranteeing the justness of war and proportionality of force as ethical standards to be observed,

the unity and central role of the Council as the circumstantial conditions under which such act ion

is considered, the protection of civilians, the security of the region and preserving Iraq’s

territorial integrity as additional goals to that of disarming Iraq (MP5). De Villepin, thus,

presents a conditional argument for a legitimate use of force.

164

Based on the circumstantial conditions outlined above, de Villepin asserts his claim for the

action, which should be pursued by the Council at this point in time (MP6):

We must move to a new stage of strengthening an inadequate inspection regime for lack

of Iraq’s cooperation.

This plan outlines the course of action to be taken by the parties involved in accordance with

R1441, which includes the inspectors’ role, Iraq’s obligations and Council’s responsibilities

(Argument 3, Table D1.2, Appendix D1).

In this speech, de Villepin presents three consecutive arguments aimed to present the action

already taken by the unified Council of adopting R1441, recourse to war as a hypothetical

situation, and the action the speaker supports based on the adopted resolution. The French

speaker’s main strategy is to adhere to analysis of technical facts provided by experts in

considering all actions of the Council in accordance with the rule of law and moral obligations.

The advantage of this strategy lies in the difficulty of attacking its universal logic. Opposing

ethics of war, or acting in contravention with a unanimously adopted resolution is to divert from

the universal order committed to by member states. De Villepin refrains from emotional appeals

such as fear, threat, empathy or instigating anger against any person or government including

Saddam Hussein. He also refrains from presuming the intentions of the Iraqi regime or the US

government and only addresses what is detailed by the inspectors. He recognizes Powell’s

concerns but only within the institutional frame by deferring addressing them to experts, and

advising Iraq to answer them by February 14. He also refrains from attacking the American

allegations like the two other antagonists did implicitly or explicitly.

In the next subsection I examine strategies of indirectness, the use of deontic expressions and

lexicalization as aspects of strategic maneuvering in argumentation.

165


It is notable that the argumentation plan and the representations used in the French speaker’s

language are of a legal and moral nature (Appendix D1-Table D1.2). Even when a subjective

opinion is given, it is always based on consensual contextual facts and normative values. This is

evident in the absence of irony and sarcasm in the French speech and in the speaker’s preferred

lexicalization as noted in the next section.


The linguistic elements of the French argumentation plan reflect an intensive use of deontic

modality, employed primarily to emphasize the principles and values the French speaker expects

all Council members to adhere to when considering war or other proposed actions. One other

distinct characteristic of the French contribution is the consistent emphasis on the unity of the

Council in adopting any course of action as a prerequisite for its legitimacy. The most highly

significant keywords of the French February 5 contribution reflect an uncompromising attitude

through the use of deontic words and the speaker’s preoccupation with the unity of the Council

in taking a decision within the normative order:

Table 5.2- The French keywords of the February 5th

session

Rank Key Words

Frq. Keyness

1 Must 15 27.62

2 Demanding 4 24.28

6 Démarche 3 18.21

7 Recourse 3 18.21

10 Force 4 13.59

12 Path 3 11.68

14 Unity 5 10.94

166

The deontic modal operator must is the most significant keyword in the French speech of

February 5, followed by the word demanding. These two top keywords reflect the distinctly

uncompromising characteristics of the French arguments, which often refer to obligations,

responsibility, and duty. A variety of deontic markers can also be observed such as priority,

requires, requirement, requisite, responsibility, duty and the imperative expression let us (F: 6).

The adherence to the inspection regime, as a demanding demarche, and the unity of the Council,

as an emphasized requirement for any action decided upon by the Council, are central topics in

the French contributions to the Iraq War UNSC debate, as will be observed in other sessions of

the debate as well. These two concerns are reflected in the keywords unity and demarche in this

argumentation plan. The recourse to war, or the use of force, as a last path to be attempted, is

another central topic in the French speeches and is reflected here in the keywords recourse, force

and path or demarche. Other semantically related words are also noted for their collective

frequency, although they do not appear in the keyword list. For example, related to the unity of

the Council, the words together (F: 2), e.g. in the sentence “This is the demanding démarche that

we must take together towards a new stage” (U60), collectively (F: 1) in “Let us collectively

establish” (U47), and collective (F: 2) in the expressions collective responsibility and collective

demarche. The word demarche used in the expression demanding demarche relates to another

keyword path and its literal synonyms option (F:3), choice (F:1), choose (F:1) and chose (F:1).

The above examples indicate that lexicalization in the French contribution to the February 5

session reflects a commitment to the option of peace as an obligation imposed by the already

adopted R1441. The other targeted rhetorical strategy in the French speech is rhetorical questions

and the purposes they serve.

167

5.4.2.2 Rhetorical questions as means to impose new collective goals

There are five questions in this speech, four of which are used to impose legal and moral power

and control on taking a decision to use military action against Iraq. MP5 presents a deontic

argument which takes for its premises institutionally imposed and universally upheld moral and

legal principles. In this argument, the French speaker is willing to consider the use of force, but

only as a legitimate action which meets ethical and legal guidelines. Utterances 31-35 are

reconstructed by slightly modifying their original formulation as a deontic argument which

imposes new goals and new means as prerequisites for resorting to the last option of acting

through military force. U31 constitutes a standpoint which imposes the circumstances in which

force is considered. The utterance starts with “in such a hypothetical scenarios”, which is a

referent to reaching a dead end with inspections (U30), and continues with the need to provide

answers to questions that are in effect ethically and institutionally imposed conditions on the use

of force as utterances 32 and 33 clearly indicate. Providing answers is an action to be taken, and

hence is a new means to certain goals. The two questions in utterances 32 and 33 impose the

conditions and ask only about a particular aspect related to each of the two conditions. In U32

the speaker presupposes the condition that the threat must “justify” the use of force and asks only

for an answer regarding the extent to which it does so. In U33, the requirement of controlling the

considerable risks of the use of force is presupposed, while the manner in which to keep it under

control is to be provided. Hence, the two questions are rhetorical devices used to emphasize the

speaker’s taken-for-granted requirement for adhering to the ethics of war and to hold his

colleagues responsible for their application, as utterance 34 advances. In this utterance, the

adverb “obviously” indicates that the centrality of the UN role in such a situation is a well-

known institutional provision; the verb “requires”, the noun “responsibility”, and the modal

168

operator “must”, and “will have to” in utterance 35 are all deontic expressions presenting this

argument as a deontic argument which takes for its premises the ethics of war and the UN

Charter (Argument 2, Table D1.2, Appendix D1). The standpoint is essentially stating that if our

only means for achieving disarmament (our common goal) is through military action, then we

have the obligation of limiting the risks and uncertainties associated with this means.

Consequently, there are other goals that should be met in addition to disarming Iraq, which are

not compromised through peaceful disarmament and, which are dictated by our values – ethics of

war and the UN Charter. These new goals can only be achieved by taking certain actions

(means). These actions constitute providing answers regarding the justness and proportionality of

using force. Additionally, the only circumstances in which the use of force can happen are those

where the UN can be at the center of the action to be taken. This is to ensure addressing

important concerns such as guaranteeing Iraq’s unity, ensuring the region’s stability, protecting

civilians and preserving the unity of the world community.

This reconstruction reveals the intensity of the use of deontic expressions to emphasize the legal

and ethical nature of the French arguments, which is presupposed in its original form. This

makes the refutation of such an argument difficult as the opponent’s refutation will have to be a

breach of these standards or to prove that all the conditions provided for in R1441 are met and

that the inspections had in fact reached a dead end.

5.5 Summary of analysis

The analysis of the four contributions to the February 5 session of the Iraq war debate has shown

four different approaches to the issue under discussion. Powell’s lengthy and elaborate speech

with its numerous topics and subtopics is specifically designed to present all possible reasons

169

that may remotely or closely relate to being justifications for launching a war against Iraq. This

approach resulted in two main weaknesses in Powell’s presentation. The first is that the vast

majority of Powell’s arguments relies on unverified material evidence and third hand reports of

unknown or highly dubious authorities, which contradict experts’ findings. The second is that

some of Powell’s arguments lack relevance to Iraq’s current status of compliance with Council’s

requirements. The character and actions of Saddam Hussein, for example, is not very different

than the character and actions of other dictators in the region and the world. The family members

of certain Iraqi committees, and the massacres alleged by Powell to have been committed by the

Iraqi regime are as horrific as those committed by the neighboring Assad dynasty against the

Syrian people and their neighbors in the city of Hamah in the early 80s and in Lebanon from

1975 to 2005 with the full knowledge and complicity of Powell’s succeeding governments and

the UN. These could be seen as main reasons for his presentation’s failure to impress the

majority of Council members he needs for a UNSC authorized military action. Additionally,

Powell’s topic selection reflects the same themes propagated by the American president and

members of his administration in the discourse of war on terror and the New World Order

discourse (see Ch.3, Sec.3.2). The macro propositions also reflect several presentational

strategies of constructing an immoral and criminal enemy, of threat an immediate danger

presented by that enemy and those he associates with (terrorists).

The Iraqi speaker’s presentation can be said to be the opposite of that of Powell’s. The Iraqi

speaker adopts a strategy of succinct refutations based on institutionally recognized expert

authorities, or other official authorities of his opponents’ governments. His main goal is proving

the falsity of all allegations made by Powell and to come back with his own accusations against

his opponents as seeking to legitimate an illegitimate policy of war.

170

The two remaining antagonists, Al Shara and de Villepin, reject war based on the unanimously

adopted R1441, which outlines the path of inspections as the means for achieving the

disarmament of Iraq. However, while the Syrian speaker takes an attacking posture towards his

opponent by making accusations of an American double standard policy in the Middle East; the

French speaker resorts to appealing to the letter of law, institutional unity, Council’s role and

commitments. Both speakers also appeal to the negative consequences of war in order to justify

pursuing peaceful disarmament. It is notable that the three speakers who adopted attack strategies

have used rhetorical questions, irony and sarcasm as linguistic means for carrying out such

attacks; while as the French speaker, who argues from institutional rules and a normative moral

stand has used only rhetorical questions to mitigate his negative opposition to the opponent’s

main standpoint.

In this Chapter, I carried out an analysis of the cognitive models of argumentation of the four

speakers and pointed down the differences and similarities in their mental constructions of the

issue at hands and what they perceive to be important facts, interpretations and opinions that

justify their proposed actions. This analysis constitutes a part of the basis for conducting a

normative critique of the deliberation process in Chapter 7 as well as the descriptive critique of

the ideologies operating in the four contributions. In the next chapter my focus is on the

influence of the emerging historical context on the arguers’ positions in view of the new

developments and emerging new events and facts surrounding the issue of debate.

171

Chapter 6- Influence of the Emerging

Historical Context on Topic Selection

and Sequence ______________________________________________________________________________

In Chapter 5, the analysis has shown various aspects of the four speakers’ mental models of the

Iraq crisis and its surrounding context. These aspects include the careful selection, emphasis and

sequencing of particular topics, specific contextual facts, past events and excerpts of experts’

reports and findings. Another aspect is the speakers’ different attitudes as reflected in their

evaluations, analyses and interpretations of actions and events related to the work of inspectors

and the Iraqi efforts. Lastly, the speakers’ arguments, which are based on these representations,

reflect concerns for values and the achievement of particular goals that are important to some

speakers but not to others despite the presupposed unified goals adopted by all speakers as

institutional members.

In this chapter, I examine the influence of aspects of the emergent context on the speakers’

argumentative plans and the way they adapt strategies in support of their proposed course of

action as new events unfold. The chapter is divided into five main sections where each of the

first four sections is dedicated to the February 14 and March 7 contributions of one country’s

representative. In each section I discuss the speaker’s management of historical and emerging

contextual facts and the influence these facts have on topic selection and sequencing as the first

aspect of strategic maneuvering (RQA1-RQA3, RQB, RQB1-RQB2). I then support this

analysis with examining changes in the meso and micro strategies of indirectness as manifested

in the use of irony, sarcasm and rhetorical questions. I also point to new strategies of

172

lexicalization, use of deontic markers and discuss their role in argumentation thus answering

(RQA2 and RQB2).

In the February 5 session El Baradei reported a lack of evidence for Iraq’s reconstruction of its

nuclear program since its elimination in the 90s, that Iraq has “cooperated rather well”, and that

“inspectors’ reports do not contend that weapons of mass destruction remain in Iraq.” (UNSC

February 5 meeting document, official UN documents website).

In the February 14 session both Blix and El Baradei’s reports contradicted the majority of

allegations made by Powell on February 5. However, they also pointed to the discovery and

destruction of a proscribed missiles program, and identified the most important problem to be the

lack of evidence for the destruction of biological and chemical agents Iraq was known to have

possessed in the past. Blix recognized the difficulties Iraq is facing in providing such evidence,

but insisted that it is Iraq’s responsibility to do so (Blix February 14, 2003).

Other aspects of the emerging context include the anti-war demonstrations taking place around

the globe in more than 350 cities following the February 14 Council meeting. Additionally, on

February 24, the proponents of war submitted a proposed resolution to the Council to authorize

use of military force against Iraq. As a response, France, Germany, and Russia submitted a

counter-resolution to the UNSC to intensify the inspection program to ensure the peaceful

settlement of the crisis and to consider the military option a last resort.

In the following section I examine the influence of these aspects of the evolving context on

Powell’s topic selection and sequence and his management of the unhelpful emerging facts and

activities to his case.

173

6.1 The legitimation of the use of force: Enforcing compliance

with R1441 and eliminating the dangers of WMDs.

In Chapter 5 the analysis has shown Powell’s selected topics for his February 5 presentation as

the Iraqi policy of deception; the dangers, continued production and concealment of various

weapons and material; Iraq’s historical and current connection to terrorism; and Saddam

Hussein’s evil character. Powell’s main arguments on February 14 and March 7 responded to

the reported progress by the inspectors regarding the status of weapons and Iraq’s compliance,

and the plans proposed by the French and Syrian speakers for continued peaceful disarmament

by representing all of these developments as incapable of bringing about disarmament as

required by R1441 (Appendix A2 and A3-Tables A2.2 and A3.2). Based on these representations

the speaker’s main claim for action progressed from a request for considering the option of war

on February 14 to an insistence on military action being the only solution to the Iraqi problem on

March 7.

6.1.1 Powell’s treatment of the emergent context on the topic level

In the February 14 session, Powell’s topic selection and sequence directly reflects his strategy of

redefining the emergent context in a way which provides further support to his original position

of promoting military action in order to achieve the commonly agreed upon goal of disarming

Iraq. His first topic constitutes a morally upstanding characterization of his country as a model

democracy, including its past and future willingness, seen as a responsibility, to perform values-

driven military actions on the world stage against those who challenge its values. He also

describes its membership in organizations such as the UN to be for the purpose of maintaining

world order and peace (MP1). The values noted by Powell include rejection of threats and

174

dangers presented by nations to their neighbors and to the world because of their development of

WMDs. Considering Powell’s emphasis on the dangers and threats Iraq presents to the region

and the world and its readiness to use them in his first contribution to the debate, he is effectively

delivering a threat of acting militarily against Iraq based on the values of democracy and meeting

the responsibilities and challenges he refers to in (MP1). This is a clear projection of moral and

military superiority and threat to exercise force over whoever is identified as an enemy.

Although the topic in MP2 through MP3 is the chief inspectors’ reported progress and

improvements in Iraq’s cooperation, the speaker uses each aspect of the reported progress as an

example of Iraq’s lack of genuineness to comply by pointing to its particular deficiency in either

lacking in substance, being incomplete, too late, lacking credibility or unable to achieve

disarmament. In MP4 the speaker argues that it is not more inspections and more access that is

needed rather it is immediate compliance as stated by Blix. Thus, the argument stretching from

MP2 to MP4 is one which eliminates the alternative to using force by using Iraq’s deficient

compliance activities as premises to support both the implicit claim that inspections are not

productive and the externalized argument in MP4. The next main topic (MP5-MP6) is Resolution

R1441 and Iraq’s response to it. This topic serves to define the circumstances surrounding its

adoption and Iraq’s compliance with its requirements as not out of a desire to comply, but for

other, devious ulterior motives. So far, the speaker’s strategy is to acknowledge previous and

emergent contextual facts only in relation to Iraq’s compliance and to redefine them as actual

examples of its lack of willingness to comply and of its trickery. Iraq’s cooperation in allowing

the inspectors back in, and its submitted declaration, are presented as a response to military

pressure and to the international community’s rejection of its continued possession of WMDs,

when in fact Powell does not know the Iraqi motivation which could very well be a response to

175

the political pressure. Thus the speaker continues to support the same argument by providing

more examples of Iraq’s lack of willingness to comply in order to eliminate the option of further

inspections as an alternative to using force. In MP7 Powell presents an argument for immediate

action with the goal of preventing the killing of tens of thousands of people considering the

previous noncompliance and continued possession of WMDs. An additional premise supporting

Iraq’s lack of willingness to comply is made by representing the speaker’s personal, his country

and Council members’ extensive efforts to produce R1441 as an attempt to get Iraq to comply to

no avail. Although MP9 starts with the speaker’s expressed pleasure with Iraq’s new efforts to

consult with South Africa, it is only to lead to dismissing these efforts by stating that everybody

knows how to comply. The topic of Iraq’s lack of will to comply in MP9 is presented in a

symptomatic argument which provides examples of what actions Iraq should have taken to show

its compliance in accordance with the speaker’s expectations. This is taken as the first premise in

a macro argument, which extends to the end of MP10 to argue for the use of force to obtain

compliance. In U81, the speaker starts the macroproposition (MP10) with ‘Not withstanding all

of the lovely rhetoric, the questions remain’. This is an explicit dismissal of the opponents’

proposal for a tighter inspection regime and an indication of the upcoming emphasis on the

remaining issues of disarmament the inspections failed to resolve. The speaker presents the

circumstantial premise that the questions regarding chemical and biological agents, continued

production, lack of accuracy of the Iraqi declaration, the unacceptable level of Iraq’s cooperation

and the possibility that the inspectors may never find these weapons – all of which are opinion

based – are given as reasons for why the pressure of force must continue and more pressure must

be applied on Iraq. In MP11 the speaker presents the argument that force is the only solution to a

complex problematic situation where the Council must decide between the two solutions of using

176

force or providing more inspectors with more time. The latter is rejected based on Iraq’s

deceptive and irresponsible actions such as issuing decrees and forming commissions suddenly

and on a day the Council is meeting. This is further justified by Resolution 1441, which in the

speaker’s opinion deems these actions along with a false declaration a breach of its requirements.

Consequently, this necessitates considering the use of force by the Council. The second solution

is thus already justified. Based on the above circumstances and the terms of the Resolution a

claim for action is made: Force must be a resort. This claim is further justified and legitimated by

two circumstantial premises: This process cannot be endlessly strung out while Iraq is getting

away with noncompliance – a future state of affair which could be taken as an undesirable goal –

and more inspections and more time do not solve the problem (already justified). MP12 presents

an argument which legitimates the use of force based on all the presented arguments as detailed

in A2, Table- 2.2, MP12.

In the March 7 session Powell’s contribution to the debate completely ignores the international

popular and government unions, alliances and leagues, and religious institutions’ public

opposition to war. He continues with the same strategy of attacking the Iraqi intentions as

deceptive and to attribute its reported compliant efforts to these deceptive intentions. As for the

progress achieved by inspectors, Powell continues to represent it as short of achieving

disarmament, misperceived and as nothing more than delay tactics by Iraq. This strategy can be

observed in topical selection and sequencing.

Powell first topic defines the issue of discussion as whether Iraq made a strategic decision to

comply and not the technical issues of “unanswered question” which prove or disprove the

existence of Iraq’s WMDs, the main reason for the crisis (MP1). Such a selection steers the

discussion to the mental state of the Iraqi regime, which the speaker attempts to reflect through

177

his interpretations of facts such as the Iraqi efforts as coming in a grudging manner. From MP2

to MP9, he goes on to present various premises supporting his main standpoint, externalized at

the beginning of MP10, stating that Iraq did not make the strategic decision to disarm. First, the

speaker characterizes Iraq’s cooperation as coming in grudgingly (MP2). He then deploys a

symptomatic argument in which he gives examples of what Iraq should be doing if it was truly

genuine about compliance (MP3). In MP4, the experts’ reported acceleration of Iraq’s initiatives

are renamed “small steps” that do not constitute cooperation because they came under the threat

of force, which Powell has been adamant about applying. Hence, this constitutes an unfair set up

for a double bind, which Iraq cannot escape. In MP5, the intention of the Iraqi regime not to turn

in its weapons is represented as unchanged based on the speaker’s previous experiences with

South Africa and Ukraine and the view that its cooperation is coerced and not voluntary. In MP6,

the Council is reminded that IAEA can be wrong about its conclusions by bringing up a near

mistake in 1991 to steer the audience’s attention to the ever disputed aluminum tubes issue

determined by the inspectors not to be related to weapons reconstruction. This is to keep the

issue of the dangers of Iraq’s WMDs as the main reason for the war being advocated. In MP7,

and immediately following his warning of the possibility that experts could be wrong, Powell

refers to the conclusiveness of the UNMOVIC document that Iraq is not genuine about

disarming. The UNMOVIC document is represented as outlining a history of lies and deceit by

the Iraqi regime proving a pattern of behavior. This is carried through MP8 to outline what the

document should have included had Iraq genuinely wanted to cooperate. In MP9, more evidence

of Iraq’s past deceit and lies is offered and then related to the present Iraqi efforts represented as

partial and misleading. In MP10 Powell concludes his first macro argument and start another for

178

legitimating the use of force by passing a newly introduced draft resolution to the Council

(MP10-MP12).

As an aspect of strategic maneuvering, topic selection and sequencing, in the February 14 and

March 7 Powell’s contributions to the debate reveal a powerful selective strategy of addressing

only aspects of the evolving context which relate to specific aspects of the reported progress by

the inspectors. The policy of deceit introduced and repeatedly emphasized in the February 5

presentation continues to be one of the main strategies of attacking Iraq’s reported compliance as

well as the reported progress in inspections. In both speeches Powell implicitly refers back to

that policy metonymically as Iraq’s lack of genuineness in compliance, as a strategic decision not

to comply, lack of will to disarm, lack of intentions and as a continued behavior that stretches

over a period of 12 years. The selective strategy of emphasizing partial facts from the inspectors’

reports is also noted to continue. A subtle strategy of marginalizing the inspectors’ authority on

having the final “technical” word about the presence or absence of WMDs in Iraq is also

persistently observed in the speaker’s continued provision of information opposing that of the

inspectors. These strategies culminate in one overall strategy of using one own definitions of the

context and setting the goals of the debate in all their aspects irrespective of the present opposing

majority to such definitions. These strategies and others are carried out through specific

presentational devices discussed in the next section.

6.1.2 The linguistics of redefining the context and constructing the enemy

The two main strategies under examination in this subsection are the linguistic means by which

Powell is able to redefine the emerging context of the Iraq crisis and to construct the Iraqi regime

as an enemy and a danger to its people, the region and the world. Some of the top 20 keywords in

179

Powell’s speeches of February 14 and March 7 point to several linguistic strategies that directly

contribute to both macro strategies.


On both February 14 and March 7, Powell selectively addressed aspects of the emerging context,

which was not favorable to his position, as first order of business by redefining some of its

aspects and ignoring others. The keyword lists below point to strategies in which lexicalization

plays a crucial role.

Table- 6.1 Powell’s keywords of Feb.14 and March 7

First, a strategy of negation through the use of not is indicated by this high keyness word in both

speeches. In examining the role of the negator not in the two speeches, another strategy is

revealed as crucial in the February 14 contribution. The speaker sets up antithesis with the

adversative conjunct but to first acknowledge the reported areas in progress one by one, and then

to point to their deficiencies and lack of substance. The keywords not, pleased, I, and the

adversative conjunct but (F=15, K=7.11) are deployed to realize a specific strategy of redefining

contextual facts constituting progress as merely procedural and as tricks being played on the

Council in accordance with personal opinions and judgments to contradict inspectors’ findings:

February 14 March 7

N Keywords Frq. LL N Keywords Frq. LL

2 Not 48 32.74 1 Not 46 32.36

5 Improvements 6 22.15 2 Know 12 28.04

6 Declaration 14 21.20 3 Bombs 10 27.86

9 Pleased 6 16.76 4 Document 7 23.00

10 Comply 8 15.64 7 About 13 17.91

11 Problem 8 15.64 11 Immediate 7 12.45

12 Am 9 15.11 14 Thousands 3 12.32

17 I 31 11.15 15 Initiatives 4 11.70

13 About 13 14.49 17 We 59 10.86

180

U11-U12 I am pleased that there have been improvements with respect to not having five

minders with each inspector, but fewer than five minders with each inspector. But I think

they are still being minded; they are still being watched; they are still being bugged. They

still do not have the freedom…

U14- U15 I am pleased that …. But not all the people who should be coming forward for

interviews are doing so…

U16- U17 I am glad that …. But that is all process — it is not substance.

U18- I am pleased to hear that decrees have now been issued that should have been

issued years and years ago.

U19- But does anyone really think that a decree from Saddam Hussein — directed to

whom? — is going to fundamentally change the situation?

U21- U22 These are all process issues. These are all tricks that are being played on us.

The above excerpt presents a symptomatic argument in which the standpoint is expressed in

U21-U22 and the premises are from U11-U19 (see Table A2.2, Appendix A2). In examining the

linguistic elements of this argument we note that expressing pleasure or gladness with the actual

contextual elements cited by the speaker is followed by the adversative conjunct but to redefine

each of the contextual elements as not sufficient. The speaker strategy is to portray a slightly less

negative present situation than before. The lexical selection here uses both precision and

vagueness to serve the speaker’s argumentative goal of redefining the context by undermining

the reported progress. The expression of pleasure with not having five minders with each

inspector implies excessiveness in proportionality of the number of minders assigned to each

inspector. Being precise with the number of minders emphasizes the negative. When reporting

the new improved situation, the speaker uses fewer than five to obscure the actual, precise

number: one minder, in fact, as reported by Blix. This obscuration keeps the excessive number of

minders in the forefront of listeners’ minds. It also leaves the new number of minders open for

181

guessing. Most importantly, as a construct, vagueness paints a slightly less negative situation

than before; it does not go so far as definitively describing the positive situation of one minder to

one inspector.

On March 7, Powell starts his speech with a question, which functions as the defining standard

for measuring all steps taken by Iraq based on its intention. The Iraqi intention, however, is

always defined by the speaker as a part of his overall strategy of constructing the enemy. The

topicalization of the Iraqi regime’s intent to cooperate allows the speaker to attribute all reported

improvements and cooperative activities by Iraq to a myriad of reasons that exclude, with the

negator not, genuine intent. It is a strategy that permeates all the arguments that follow the

question posed at the onset of the speech (U5). It serves the important persuasive function of

redirecting the audience’s attention away from the positive conclusions presented by chief

experts, and towards the speaker’s negative analysis and evaluation of events. The “question” is

the topic of five consecutive utterances. The close management of how the hearer should

consider the question, by deciding what it is about and what it is not about, and what qualifies as

a source for the answer and what does not, is a linguistic means of ideological control exercised

in order to change the opinion of the hearer (utterances 4-8, Appendix A3-Table A3.1).

In concardancing the modal operator must in the February 14 American speech, it is found to be

associated with the obligation of Iraq to comply (U38), with the continued application and use of

force (U91, U108, U111) and with the Council’s obligation to face the issue of using force

against Iraq to bring it into compliance (U114, U115, U117). On March 7,

U64- We cannot wait for one of these terrible weapons to show up in one of our cities

182

U112- We cannot allow this process to be endlessly strung out, as Iraq is trying to do right now:

U113- My friends, they cannot be allowed to get away with it again.

6.1.2.2 Irony, sarcasm and rhetorical questions (as indirectness strategy for redefining

the context)

On February 14, in U18-U19, a strategy of sarcasm and ridicule can be detected in attacking two

recent initiatives taken by Iraq as prompted by the inspectors’ request. This again typifies the

pattern of recognizing progress and then attacking it. A hint of irony can be detected in the

contradiction between the speaker’s expressed feeling of pleasure that decrees have now been

issued, and his expressed belief that they should have been issued years and years ago. This

implies that Powell’s true feeling is not as positive as is stated. This is confirmed by the

rhetorical question which follows, given that it starts with the adversative conjunct but, which

creates antithesis with what came before. The rhetorical question is constructed with the negative

polarity item anyone, and the adverbs really and fundamentally, to imply a negated statement

along the following lines: No one thinks that a decree from Saddam Hussein is going to change

the situation. The main rhetorical question and the embedded question within it, “directed to

whom?” together strongly convey a sense of ridicule for the decree, its issuer and its target

purpose, which is a part of the overall macro strategy of constructing an untrustworthy enemy.

Such a tactic allows for audience framing by casting the speaker in a positive light as one who

will recognize progress when there is any to be recognized. The speaker’s created adversative

relationship between conceding to less-than-perfect progress, or a specific aspect of it, and an

unacceptable outcome is an indirect strategy of undermining, marginalizing – or even nullifying

– the inspectors’ reported progress by making relatively fine distinctions between the situation

before and after each reported improvement: what was, what is, and what should be. Those

183

“before-and-after” differences are presented as slight or negligible. Additionally, self-

presentation, with the subject pronoun I and descriptions of pleasure or gladness, portrays the

speaker in the position of an authoritarian evaluator whose feelings about the reported progress

should matter. A clear projection of power the speaker presumes to possess.

On March 7, in U33-U35, Powell responds for the first time to anything said by Al Douri. He

concedes one of Al Douri’s sarcastic comments, i.e. that missiles are not toothpicks, which was

made as a defense against Powell’s accusations of weapons concealment to indicate the difficulty

of hiding missiles. In Utterance 34, sarcasm can be detected in Powell’s problematization of not

knowing how many toothpicks there are. The goal of the utterance is to shift the problem from

the initial issue of concealment of weapons to their number. The negation employed in these

utterances essentially emphasizes the persistence of each of the raised problems. The comeback

at the Iraqi sarcasm, by means of a sharper jab, is evident in Powell’s attempt to shift the

problem to not knowing the real number of missiles and the real number of toothpicks, thus

emphasizing the irrelevance of the Iraqi comment in view of the newly defined issue.

Powell ends his argumentation about Iraq’s lack of intent to disarm with the same question he

begins with:

U92- So, has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass

destruction by the leadership in Baghdad?

U93- My judgment — I think, our judgment — has to be, clearly not.

The Iraqi speaker responds to Powell’s attacks on his country’s intentions and efforts by

addressing his accusations with authorized refutations and counterattacks. In the next section I

refer to the analysis of the Iraqi speaker’s argumentation plan in (Appendix B2-Table B2.2 and

184

Appendix B3-Table B3.2) to discuss the emergent context influence and significance to topical

selection and sequencing in serving the goals of the speaker.

6.2 Al Douri’s refutations and counter-attacks

In the February 5 session Al Douri had attacked the validity of the American arguments by

representing them as fabrications aimed at achieving a policy of war. As the experts’ reports

have come in favor of Iraq’s declaration and statements made in the UNSC, Al Douri intensifies

his attacks against his opponents by offering additional evidence of lies and fabrication of facts

by the US in his following speeches.

6.2.1 The emergent context’s influence on Al Douri’s topic selection in refuting and

counter-attacking

On February 14, Al Douri announced his intention to respond to preceding speakers and start his

speech with four topics as premises for his main claim that Iraq has been actively cooperating

since the adoption of R1441 (MP2 to MP9, Appendix B2- Table B2.1). These topics are:

1- The reason Iraq agreed to R1441 is to resolve the disarmament issue (MP2).

2- Iraq returned the inspections after several rounds of negotiation with the UN and since

then has been actively cooperating (MP3).

3- Experts established that no evidence exists to contradict Iraq’s declaration or support

Powell’s allegations (MP4).

4- Iraq’s declaration was timely and complete (MP5).

5- Iraq agreed to the inspectors’ surveillance flight missions; but the US and the UK are

compromising these missions with their war planes against international law (MP6).

185

6- Iraq issued a decree in compliance with Blix’s request, yet Powell thinks it is unimportant

(MP7).

7- Important technical details on how to resolve outstanding issues were included in the

declaration.

8- Iraq provided 24 additional documents concerning outstanding issues and proposed

technical solutions (MP9).

While the above topics have the main goal of proving Iraq’s proactive cooperation, they also

reflect a persistent overall strategy of showing the falsity of the opponent’s accusations and the

truthfulness of Iraq’s declaration and true intentions to comply based on technical facts, legal

documentation and the authority of Blix and El Baradei. This strategy continues in MP10, which

presents an argument from the authority of Blix and El Baradei claiming that all accusations

made by the US and the UK against Iraq are unfounded. Iraq’s position is reiterated in MP11 as

being in support of proactive cooperation to resolve the crisis peacefully and as being against the

American position of wanting inspections to fail. The implicit claim made earlier in MP3 is thus

made explicit here, and is supported by an article in the Washington Post quoting members of the

US Senate as saying that the US government has undermined the inspectors. In MP12, Al Douri

turns to the missiles issue, referred to by many members of the Council on that day, to correct a

misrepresentation made by the American speaker. Al Douri makes sure to clarify that it was Iraq

who included these missiles in its declaration and in another document presented to Blix and El

Baradei. This is intended as a vivid example of the falsification of facts being carried out by

Powell as he makes his case in the Council. Furthermore, and in order to prove the proactive

cooperation of Iraq and the falsity of Powell’s accusation of Iraq’s lack of intention to disarm, Al

Douri informs the Council of Iraq’s suggestion to the inspectors to randomly test fire these

186

missiles to prove their legal range. In MP13 the speaker makes additional suggestions of

practical and technical steps capable of verifying all of its claims in the submitted declaration.

In MP14 to MP15 two parallel arguments run through (forming one analogical macro argument)

to show Iraq’s goals and values in contrast with those of the opponents’. MP14 starts with

describing the current international circumstances with the comparative “while” indicating

concurrent events of international opposition to war and the US and UK massing forces in

pursuit of a war against Iraq, represented as contravening with international legitimacy and

human rights. This is immediately followed by an expression of Iraq’s desire for peace and a

solution which satisfies the international community and for the truth to be known through every

possible means in order for Iraq to regain its rights of security, independence, sovereignty and

having a region free of all WMDs. While Iraq is represented as sincere and cooperative in

seeking what’ rightfully hers, its opponents are represented as wanting war to achieve economic

and political gains. Al Douri represents his goals as in consonance with the international will,

international law and his country’s rights and the institutional responsibility. At the same time he

represents the goals of his opponents as in defiance of the same values. Hence, Al Douri ends his

speech with an argument which elucidates “our positive goals” vs. “their negative goals”, “our

positive values” vs. “their negative values”, and “our legitimate way” of doing things vs. “their

illegitimate way” of doing things.

The overall strategy of presenting Iraq’s cooperative efforts while at the same time showing the

opponents’ negative response, negative intentions and false accusations, noted earlier, takes a

contrastive approach, which does in fact run through the entire speech. It follows an alternating

pattern that presents Iraq’s past and present positive actions, intentions and values in contrast

with the opponents’ negative actions intentions and values; thus refuting first and then attacking.

187

On March 17 Al Douri starts with representing his country as committed to the very values

Powell accuses Iraq of not having. He emphasizes Iraq’s commitment to proactive cooperation

(MP1), and its deep sense of responsibility in the face of the imminent war (MP2). Al Douri also

makes an implicit claim that the US and its allies want the Council to fail in its peaceful efforts.

An implicit claim can be detected in MP3: The imminent war against Iraq is an aggressive war,

which lacks moral and legal basis. From MP3 to MP4 the speaker supports this claim by citing

contextual developments as premises proving the illegality and immorality of war. He highlights

the efforts of Government organizations, summits, State Unions, popular demonstrations and

churches statements in rejecting an illegal and immoral war against Iraq and calling for

maintaining peace. Another contextual aspect used as a proof of the illegality of war is presented

as the proven fabrication of evidence the US and the UK are carrying out (MP5). In MP6 the

speaker reaffirms that Iraq made the strategic decision to disarm in 1991. This is in answer to

Powell’s main topic presented as a question posed on the same day. He goes on to support this

claim with citing Iraq’s past actions as facts that no one can provide any evidence to their

untruthfulness. He further elaborates that the requirements of the Council are restricted to

verifying the destruction of the weapons Iraq insists on having already destroyed. The speaker

directs an advisement to Powell not to jump to conclusions any more, particularly after having

been proven wrong again on the very day of this meeting. In MP7 the speaker authorizes Blix’s

statement of the day to confirm proactive cooperation and to point to his disagreement with

Powell’s interpretation of R1441. MP8 claims that the US and the UK’s real hidden agenda had

been unveiled by these two countries’ failure to prove their allegations, which is the reason for

the confusion in their arguments. The speaker details the US and the UK’s intentions, as Powell

did in his speech about Iraq. He accuses the two governments of wanting to control Iraq

188

politically and economically and to take over its oil. The speaker then accuses his opponents of

wanting to redraw the Middle East map in a new Sikes- Picot type of arrangement – a reference

to a historical imperial arrangement made by the British and the French following their victory in

WWII. To prove this point, the speaker starts to describe how the US and the UK’s claims were

contradictory in nature, and how they kept changing their stories about Iraq after each story’s

failure to gain credibility. This is the same strategy followed in Powell’s speech, who accused

Iraq of changing its story every time it was caught lying (MP8).

MP9 and MP10 delegitimate the opponents’ proposed war resolution by presenting a number of

circumstantial, value, and negative consequences premises. Al Douri describes the introduced

draft resolution as unrelated to disarmament and goes on to describe the negative consequences

of its adoption by the Council as detrimental to both the Council and Iraq. He then argues the

Council must shoulder its responsibility as a means to prevent ‘the biggest crime of the century”

from happening, which should be a goal of the Council’s based on the institutional Charter. The

speaker follows by affirming, through a consequence premise, that such war will not reveal any

weapons of mass destruction, but will itself wreck destruction on Iraq.

Al Douri’s two contributions show evidence of using the opponent’s own strategies against him.

Powell’s accusations that Iraq is in breach of R1441, lies, and follows a pattern of deceptive

behavior are returned with accusations against the US of fabricating evidence, misrepresenting

facts, compromising inspections and braking international law in the no-fly zones. Thus,

Powell’s claims for appreciating and supporting the inspections are persistently shown to be

false. By referring to the US and UK’s compromise of the inspections missions in the no-fly

zones, and the statements by American government officials voicing such concerns; Al Douri

provides current contextual evidence supporting his claim. At the same time Al Douri relies on

189

experts’ reports and Council’s position to show his country’s support for the inspection missions.

Powell’s persistent attacks on Iraq’s pattern of behavior and changing its stories is met on March

7 with Al Douri’s outline of the US and UK’s change of stories as each gets refuted by the

experts. Likewise, Al Douri shows on numerous instances that it is Powell who is lying by

ignoring his own country’s intelligence statements, as in the case of the Halabjah massacre,

changing his position from the required forming of Iraqi commissions, presenting the Iraqi

missiles as discovered by the inspectors and continuously presenting evidence deemed non-

existent by the experts on the ground. As Powell accuses the Iraqi President of wanting to

dominate Iraq and the wider Middle East, Al Douri points that the US persistent campaign for

war against international legitimacy and human rights is for the purpose of dominating Iraq’s oil

wealth and the wider Middle East through a new Sikes-Pico arrangement. These strategies of

refutations and attacks and others can be observed on the micro level of discourse in

lexicalization strategies and on the meso level in strategies of indirectness as the next subsection

shows.

6.2.2 The linguistics of attacks and refutations in Al Douri’s contributions

Al Douri’s management of his opponent’s attacks on his government’s past and current status

and his counter attacks on the US and British campaign of war justification evolved from

February 5 to March 7 in a number of aspects. While the February 5 speech contains no

rhetorical questions and one ironic remark, the February 14 speech contains 7 questions with

rhetorical functions and one Arabic proverb with a specific rhetorical function. As for the March

7 speech, it contains one question and no ironic remarks. Indirectness in Al Douri’s speeches has

mostly relied on particular strategies of lexicalization as shown below.

190


The central concern in Al Douri’s speeches of February 14 is to refute Powell’s accusations of

Iraq’s lack of decision to comply with Resolution 1441. On March 7, the issue remains important

but not as much as counter attacking the opponent’s intentions and plans. These concerns can be

observed on the lexical level through examining the keyword lists of both speeches as compared

to all other speeches delivered in these two sessions.

Table 6.2 Al Douri’s keywords of February 14 and March 7

February 14 March 7

N Keyword Frq. LL N Keyword Frq. LL

1 Proactive 6 23.87 1 Aggression 5 25.19

2 Issues 10 23.15 5 Crime 3 15.11

3 Allegations 3 14.71 6 Vx 5 15.11

5 Aircraft 5 12.88 7 Any 8 12.44

9 Declaration 8 12.23 8 Those 11 11.49

10 States 9 11.83 9 Powell 3 10.78

12 Many 6 10.06 12 Agenda 3 8.72

15 Vx 4 7.24 13 Proactive 3 8.72

19 Issue 7 7.03 15 Summit 6 8.71

The defensive nature of the February 14 speech can be observed in the selected keywords, which

support the centrality of Al Douri’s efforts to prove his country’s proactive cooperation. Al

Douri’s attack take a secondary role to his defense with the word allegations mentioned 3 times

as compared to proactive 6 times. Likewise, with declaration mentioned 8 times, its defense

takes precedence over attacking the US and the UK’s compromise of inspection missions with

aircraft mentioned 5 times. On March 7, the key words aggression, crime and agenda are used

to describe the American intended war on Iraq and its motive of implementing a self serving

political agenda. The word crime, which appears for the first time in Al Douri’s speeches on

March 7, characterizes the intended war against Iraq as surpassing any other crime (U45). This is

191

one indication of the Iraqi speaker’s move to using a more direct approach in expressing his

strong convictions and feelings in the face of the American refusal to accept a peaceful end to the

crisis; despite all indications of movement towards disarmament.

The keyword summit shows Al Douri’s capitalization on the emerging international opposition to

war cited in the first part of the speech, e.g., U6- U13. The keyword VX in both speeches also

indicates Al Douri’s preoccupation with denying the existence of this substance in Iraq as

claimed by Powell. The keywords any, nothing, and the word not, which occurs 10 times, are

used in arguments with strong and repeated negations of the truthfulness of the accusations made

against Iraq. An example can be observed in U 22- 27. The categorical denials of the accusations

made against Iraq, with negators taking their extreme negative meaning, (as with any, meaning

not the least; and nothing else meaning this is the only one in U22, no VX, none remained and

ever been weaponized in U25, also to eliminate any possibility of VX existence in Iraq) reflect

categorical statements with the confidence of their truth, and raise the challenge for others to

disprove them. This is a new approach taken by Al Douri, who in previous speeches left the

establishment of truth to inspectors. This can be interpreted as a reaction to the U.S. refusal to

allow more time for inspectors to conclusively verify the absence of proscribed weapons in Iraq.

This is also a reaction to the clear threat delivered at the end of Powell’s address about the

imminent war.

6.2.2.2 The rhetorical functions of Al Douri’s questions and other indirectness strategies

In his February 14 speech Al Douri uses 7 questions, while in his March 7 speech he uses none.

On February 14, he presents a litany of rhetorical questions, which constitute two entire

paragraphs, to argue against Powell’s accusations of Iraq’s lack of cooperation and material

breach of R1441 (U30-U39). Al Douri selects vagueness over precision in U30 to avoid naming

192

the U.S. and its allies by referring to them as some. In U31, he poses a question which expects no

answer, as he immediately follows it with two additional questions intended as potential,

debatable answers in U32-U33. The main question is: where is the material breach? The

question implies that the material breach does not exist. This is confirmed by the next question,

which asks whether the breach lies in the U.S. allegations made on February 5, which he

immediately dismisses “with which many states worldwide did not agree”. The second potential

answer in U33 is formulated into a question of whether the breach relates to the required

proactive cooperation. Al Douri resorts to vagueness again by stating in U34 that many in the

Council have called for proactive cooperation. The intentional lack of specificity leaves the

interpretation open to mean anyone who called for proactive cooperation – foes and friends alike.

The following questions are thus taken to be universally addressed in order to involve each

audience member in the question- answer sequence: what is proactive cooperation? The question

is rhetorical because it is followed by its potential answers as presented by Powell in all his

speeches: If it means that Iraq must show weapons of mass destruction, we would respond with

the Arabic proverb that an empty hand has nothing to give. You cannot give what you do not

have.

The speaker here raises consecutive questions regarding the meaning of “proactive cooperation,”

and then proceeds to answer them, in order to introduce material of importance (in this case, a

summation of possible answers to these questions). Al Douri accomplishes this by evoking

universal logic conveyed through an Arabic proverb to portray Powell’s demands as illogical.

This is also intended to show Iraq’s state of exasperation in its attempts to deal with

unreasonable demands that cannot be realistically met. The Iraqi speaker, unlike Powell, does not

rely on his own wisdom and perception in making this judgment, rather he appeals to cultural

193

wisdom with universal appeal: “An empty hand has nothing to give.” The proverb is used here as

a rhetorical device that allows the application of a universal truth to the speaker’s argument –

thereby rendering it beyond question. This is immediately followed by two rhetorical questions

previously answered by the old proverb, which communicates the speaker’s helpless position in

the face of unreasonable and illogical demands by his opponent.

U38- If we do not possess such weapons, how can we disarm ourselves?

U39- How can such weapons be dismantled when they do not exist?

The negative polarity item not with the modal verb can and the conditionals if and when give the

two rhetorical questions the force of negated emphatic statements.

Indirectness strategies in the above excerpt include vagueness in naming social actors by the

careful lexical selection of “some” and “many”, and the use of a proverb that has the specific

effect of abstracting people and objects, such as “we” and “weapons” into an “empty hand” and

“nothing” in order to cast a sense of universal truth with universal applicability on a particular

argument. The third indirectness strategy involves rhetorical questions intended to engage the

audience and seek their participation in eliminating undesirable answers.

Clearly, emerging contextual elements are advantageous to Al Douri’s case and are used as

evidence to delegitimate the war and to refute the argument for a military solution. In the next

section I examine how contextual elements, both historic and emerging are employed by the

Syrian speaker, and their influence on his topic selection and sequencing before the last session

of the debate.

194

6.3 Al Shara’s delegitimation of war: The double standard

policy behind the Iraq war

The Syrian delegitimation of war throughout all speeches relies on institutional requirements,

historical and emerging contextual facts to support the main argument for a peaceful resolution

to the Iraq question and to attack the option of war as based on a double standard policy and not

for the purpose of disarmament. This was observed in the February 5 speech and is further

confirmed in the analysis of the Syrian contributions to the February 14 and March 7 sessions.

6.3.1 The emerging context influence on topic selection in the Syrian contributions

On February 14, the reported progress achieved by inspections is the first topic on the Syrian

agenda and is represented as substantial. It is taken as a main premise to require the Council to

provide inspectors more time to achieve their mission. To support his proposed action, the Syrian

speaker invokes a number of historical facts as circumstantial premises supporting two implicit

claims. The first is that the war is illegal and immoral, and the second is that the American call

for war is based on a discriminatory and double standard policy against Arabs and Muslims in

particular and world interest in general (MP2-MP3). Al Shara presents a symptomatic argument

where he uses the US peaceful strategy of dealing with the Arab- Israeli conflict and,

contrastively, its war policy against Iraq as signs of discriminatory policy against others’ interest.

This in turn can be taken as a premise for an implicit claim that a peaceful resolution to the Iraq

crisis is feasible and acceptable based on the Council and the US’ decision to deal with Israel in

such a way. Hence Al Shara indirectly refutes Powell’s claims that war is the only solution for

achieving compliance and disarming Iraq. Additionally, this argument shows that the dangers of

WMDs to the region will remain even after a war on Iraq. In MP4, emerging contextual facts are

195

used as additional premises for Al Shara’s argument from authority: “reason dictates” that there

is no alternative to a peaceful solution. The additional premises provided are the unanimous

rejection of war by Arab States and the majority of the world; and the already established

premise in the previous argument that “those who are beating the drums of war” are not seeking

disarmament, but the implementation of a hidden agenda the prelude to which is the war on Iraq.

This is further supported by the circumstantial premise that the US and the UK are not

supporting the inspectors’ mission aiming to disarm Iraq which indicates disarmament is not

their goal. Hence, the double standard policy which indicates an ulterior goal other than

disarmament is made explicit here with the proponents of war having a hidden agenda to control

the Middle East, and their lack of support to inspections proves it. Two additional consequence

premises are provided to support a peaceful solution and to delegitimate the war option

simultaneously: War will erode the international coalition against terrorism, and war is a failure

of the institution in implementing its mission in accordance with its Charter, which, ideally, is

nobody’s objective. The speaker concludes his argument with the standpoint that there is no

alternative to respecting the Charter of the UN and using its institutions to safeguard world

peace, security and prosperity, instead of poising the world on the edge of a volcano for many

long months.

Although MP5 constitutes an acknowledgement of Council and general assembly’s members for

their support of peace and the UN Charter; it also constitutes a circumstantial premise which

cites additional emerging peaceful efforts by non-Council members of the institution. In MP6,

the speaker represents the French proposal as the means through which the goals of avoiding war

and reaching disarmament peacefully may be achieved (Means –goal premise). The speaker also

sees this as leading to the implementation of paragraph 4 of Council Resolution 687, which

196

provides for lifting the sanctions on Iraq and making the Middle East a region free of WMDs –

both of which are expressed concerns of Powell’s. The speaker shrewdly adds “without

excepting any state”. What the Syrian speaker is trying to do here is to legitimate the French

proposal as capable of achieving everybody’s goals in a canny way without spelling out implied

Council’s shortcomings in implementing its resolutions partially and selectively, and without

referring again to the American double standard policy concluded in a previous argument. These

goals are represented as positive consequences of the French plan and at the same time they are

all declared goals of the opponent’s. It seems like Al Shara is trying to beat Powell at his own

game by using the former’s own goals as reasons for accepting the French proposal as the means

by which both the opponents and proponents of war reach their goals, if indeed these are

common goals.

MP7 is a call for achieving peace, as the ultimate goal of the speaker’s, based on the premise that

war is a tragedy condemned by history, and the Council’s ability to achieve it with determination

and faith in the UN Charter.

Historical and emergent contextual facts are more extensively used in Al Shara’s contribution to

the March 7 session than in his first two contributions. In his opening remarks, Al Shara is the

only Council member who welcomes the Arab committee and explains the purpose of its

presence to highlight to audiences around the world that the Arab league rejects war (MP1). The

Syrian speaker follows by citing dates of international events of governmental, institutional and

religious authorities’ efforts related to condemning the intended war on Iraq since the last

Council meeting of February 14 till the day of his speech (MP2). The detailing of these events is

purposely emphasized to be taken as emergent circumstantial premises for an implicit claim that

the intended war on Iraq is illegitimate and immoral (see Appendix C3-Table C3.2). In MP3, the

197

speaker moves to describe Iraq’s cooperation based on Blix and Al Baradei’s reports as positive

and active. He also characterizes the disarmament process taking place as neither deceptive nor

considered insignificant. This is clearly a response to Powell’s position casting all the Iraqi

efforts as unreal and mere tricks being played on the Council and the inspectors. Al Shara

follows with a rejection of a new resolution allowing the use of military force based on being the

worst option under the circumstances. Having refuted Powell’s justification of the use of force

as the only remaining option to obtain compliance from Iraq, and the need to pass a war

resolution; Al Shara turns to launching an indirect attack against the US political and moral

conduct. He outlines the US’ contradictory actions while leaving his implicit claims unstated

(MP4). These include the collaboration between the US and Israel on developing sophisticated

missiles, while at the same time denying Arab countries the possession of more modest ones to

defend themselves. This is in response to Powell’s issue with the Iraqi missiles’ dangers to the

region by showing that there are more dangerous and advanced missiles in the hands of Israel,

who is also in the region. Al Shara goes on to highlight the US content with Israel’s possession

of WMDs while it is in defiance of international law and an occupier of other States’ territories.

Clearly, the speaker’s issue here is that war is not promoted for the goal of freeing the Middle

East of WMDs as Powell keeps claiming, but rather for other reasons. Additionally, Al Shara

refutes the US claim for fearing for the people of the Middle East from Iraq by pointing out its

lack of fear for their safety from Israel. Al Shara is clearly implying that “we” are not fooled by

Powell’s concern for the Arab people’s safety from WMDs. Furthermore, the speaker indirectly

points to the US military power abuse and disregard for international law by giving Iraq days to

comply when R1441 does not give a deadline. Lastly, the speaker indirectly accuses the US of

lying by describing its goal of lunching a war to find and destroy Iraq’s weapons as ironic. His

198

premise is that the inspectors, with all their expertise and equipments, are unable to find these

weapons. The selection and evaluation of these facts clearly point to the speaker’s belief

(implicit standpoint) that: the US declared goals for its war on Iraq are not true. The war does

not aim to make the region free of WMDs, neither is it out of concern for “our” safety, nor for

disarming Iraq.

In MP5, the speaker’s logic leads him to an old Arabic proverb: “backing away from vice is a

virtue”. This is to imply that the US is in the wrong by massing its forces against Iraq, and

instead of backing out, it persists in pursuing its wrong doing. The speaker speculates, based on

what’s being circulated “by some”, that it is not backing out on its plans, because its soldiers

should not return home empty handed. Al Shara concludes that if this is true, then, the US is

planning an armed robbery and not a just war. This convoluted argument is a rhetorical move

intended to highlight “possible” further immoral intentions behind the war on Iraq.

In MP6, the American intention to redraw the political map of the Middle East, being circulated

in the US and the international press, and its aims to control Iraq’s oil fields are intentionally

mentioned and quickly casted aside as not the major concern for the speaker. His, is the “well

founded Arab and international community’s concern” for potential massacres against the

Palestinian people while the world is focused on the war on Iraq. This is another indirectly

expressed argument, which takes for its circumstantial premises the circulated intentions of the

United States, and implicitly, Israel’s historical conduct with the Palestinian people, as well as

the opportunity Israel is provided with when the war is in full swing to make a claim for “The

Security Council must be mindful of them (the Palestinian people) if war starts”. While both

arguments in MP5 and MP6 can be explained within the immediate context as rhetorical attempts

to reflect the speaker’s ‘true’ concerns with the Iraqi and Palestinian people; the speaker’s goals

199

are clearly to reflect a negative image of the United States by representing its intentions behind

the war against Iraq as immoral, justified by false pretense of being concerned for the people of

the Middle East when in reality it is seeking its own political and economic interests. At the same

time, Al Shara is positively self presenting as the true concerned party for the Iraqi and

Palestinian people who is requiring the Council to mind their safety. This is despite the fact that

Al Shara knows very well that historically, the UNSC never minded the safety of the Palestinian

people. The speaker concludes his speech with the confidence that peace will prevail with the

UN being the main instrument for achieving international peace and security (MP7).

Topical selection and sequencing in Al Shara’s contributions to the February 14 and March 7

debate sessions continue to reflect a main strategy of emphasizing the US’ double standard

policy in the Middle East as unjust and immoral as first order of business in all his three

speeches. His second strategy is to capitalize on the emerging contextual facts constituting

technical findings, peaceful alternatives, and international governmental and public reactions to

delegitimate the war as in contravention with moral standards and international law. Thirdly, the

implementation of an American self serving hidden agenda is highlighted as the US true goals

behind the war and not any moral or legal concern as propagated by Powell. Al Shara’s

delegitimation of the US actions and the war and his legitimation of a peaceful resolution to the

Iraq crisis are further examined on the micro and meso levels of the discourse in the next

subsection.

6.3.2 The linguistics of accusations and justifications in Al Shara’s contributions

Al Shara’s strategy of exposing what he perceives to be the true American intentions behind its

insistence on war and its duplicitous policy in the Middle East constitute central topics and

200

arguments in all of his four speeches in the UNSC, as shown in his first speech on February 5

and will be shown in his last speech in Chapter 7. This is reflected on the meso level with

particular linguistic strategies and on the micro level in his lexical selection as shown in the next

two subsections.

6.3.2.1 The use of Lexis

The keyword lists of February 14 and March 7 Syrian speeches reflect Al Shara’s topical

selection and argumentation strategies. The word Israel, which ranks 1 in the February 14

speech and 6 in the March 7 speech, reflects Al Shara’s persistent strategy of using historical

contextual facts to detail Iraq and Israel’s actions in the region and their compliance status with

UN resolutions to prove the American double standard policies in the Middle East and to refute

Powell’s claimed concerns for the safety of the region and its people. Other keywords related to

this topic in the February 14 list are policies, Palestinian, region and East, which consistently co-

occur with Middle to form Middle East. The second ranking keyword, war, and the eighth

ranking keyword Charter also reflect Al Shara’s strategy of delegitimating war based on

institutional goals and the institution’s foremost mission of preserving its Charter.

Table 6.3 Al Shara’s Keywords of February 14 and March 7

February 14 March 7

N KW Frq. LL N KW Frq. LL

1 Israel 7 36.99 1 Arab 16 62.24

2 War 12 26.62 2 Summit 13 49.85

3 Policies 4 21.13 3 Stressed 5 27.97

5 Palestinian 3 15.84 4 Committee 6 24.82

8 Charter 4 8.56 6 Israel 3 16.78

9 Region 5 8.16 11 Against 6 14.51

11 East 3 7.97 13 war 9 10.86

201

The March 7 keywords list shows 16 occurrences of the first ranking keyword Arab, 13

occurrences of the second ranking keyword summit, and 5 occurrences of stressed. These

keywords reflect Al Shara’s interest in highlighting emerging contextual facts related to the

reactions of international and regional governmental bodies and religious authorities who

stressed their condemnation of war as illegal and immoral, more specifically those which came

from the Arab world.

The strategic use of these keywords within particular linguistic strategies of indirectness is

further discussed in the next subsection.

6.3.2.2 The rhetorical functions of Irony, sarcasm and questions

Al Shara uses seven questions in his February 14speech and six questions on March 7 in two

arguments that combine the use of irony and sarcasm with rhetorical questions. In his February

14 speech, Al Shara’s strategy of attacking the US and Israel’s dubious relationship is intended

to represent the US policies in the Middle East as illogical. Following the presentation of Israel’s

historical defiance of UNSC resolutions, the speaker intentionally point to the fact that these

resolutions were voted for by the US; but were never implemented. He then resorts to sarcasm to

ridicule a recent statement made by the US president regarding the Prime Minister of Israel

during a visit to Washington:

U17- And with the power of the Almighty, Sharon has become a “man of peace” (Appendix C2-

Table C2.1)

202

The implication in utterance 17 is that only the power of the Almighty (God) can turn such a

man, to a man of peace. This sarcastic representation has its roots in the former Israeli Prime

Minster, General Ariel Sharon’s implications for crimes against humanities in a Belgium High

Court for directing the massacres in Palestinian Sabra and Shatila refugee camps inside the city

of Beirut in 1982 (as recognized by Amnesty International and a UN resolution of Dec 18,

2002). Hence, the sarcasm regarding naming such a man, “a man of peace” is an implicit attack

on the soundness and credibility of the American President’s judgment and policies of partiality

to Israel, and the discrimination against Arabs, as the rest of the macroproposition clearly

indicates.

U18- Against that backdrop, allow me to ask, where does today’s Iraq stand?

The litany of rhetorical questions from U18 to U24 (Appendix C2-table C2.1) present an

analogical argument as follows: The RQ in utterance 18 does not seek an answer; rather, it

functions as a topic statement of what follows. The question also signals an analogical argument,

with the use of “against this backdrop”, which aims to contrast what preceded the question with

what follows it. U19 - U24 are negated rhetorical questions that represent the answers to the

question posed in utterance 18. Each has the illocutionary force of an emphatic statement aiming

to elucidate and confirm particular facts. The rhetorical effect of negation in these questions is to

draw the hearer’s attention to the emphatic nature of the propositional content of the intended

statements, and to the speaker’s expectation of the hearer’s agreement. More specifically, the

conclusion of the argument, proposed in U23 and U24, is aimed to be collaborative by its direct

address to the hearer when formulated into questions. Thus, the rhetorical effect of formulating a

conclusion into a question amplifies its persuasive effect as a shared opinion or belief, as

opposed to a speaker’s belief. This conclusion is presented in the form of a symptomatic

203

argument which takes these “strange and paradoxical facts” as signs of a double standards policy

exercised by the U.S. Strategic argumentation can be observed, first, in the distinct topic

selection of “region suffering”, which allows delving into the historical context to provide

circumstantial and value premises to delegitimate the intended war against Iraq as additional

suffering. Secondly, the gradual presentation of the speaker’s concerns is framed comparatively

(analogical argument) to elucidate Iraq’s compliance with UNSC resolutions as opposed to

Israel’s non-compliance without adverse consequences. This in turn provides the link between

the American insistence on war against Iraq and a deliberate discriminatory policy, not only

against Iraq, but also against Arabs and Muslims and the world interest (adverse value premise of

war). Additionally this makes the peaceful resolution of the crisis feasible and acceptable to the

opponent based on the US history of accepting such solutions with others.

In the March 7 speech the Syrian speaker’s views, opinions and beliefs regarding the United

States actions are conveyed through their formulation into wh-questions. When reconstructed,

they constitute indirect speech acts that accuse the U.S. of suspect ulterior motives for insisting

on war, when it is the worst available option; of supporting Israel’s defiance of international law;

and of allowing Israel to possess WMDs despite its defiant status considered as against any legal

or moral logic (U24-U25, Appendix C3- Table C3.1). The questions also include an imputation

of hypocrisy with a sarcastic overtone, observed in U26. The sarcasm is indicated by the

speaker- described state of “much puzzlement”, experienced by his President, to imply a

disbelief in the genuineness of the U.S. fear for the safety of Arab people, “Why do they fear for

our safety from Iraq, but not from Israel?” clearly, the operating mental model here is that fear

for “our safety” should be from Israel and not from Iraq.

204

The Syrian speaker’s use of sarcasm and rhetorical questions are strategies of negative “other’s”

presentation intended as premises for conclusions of arguments that take parts in more complex

argumentation to delegitimate the judgment, actions and values of the opponent. Such strategies

are individual preferences made by some arguers, as in the cases of the American, Iraqi and

Syrian speakers. The French speaker, however, has a completely different preference for the use

of rhetorical questions and the avoidance of irony and sarcasm as shown in the analysis of his

speeches.

6.4 De Villepin’s delegitimation of war based on institutional

goals, values and negative consequences

On February 14 and March 7 de Villepin’s main arguments requiring continued inspections are

premised on the actual progress and achievements and the substantial improvement in efforts

made by Iraq as reported by chief inspectors. He thus fully capitalizes on the emerging

contextual facts directly related to inspectors’ work and Iraq’s efforts to make the majority of his

arguments. Other crucial value- based-facts used as premises to the French arguments include

institutional rules, R1441, the UN Charter, war ethics and a presented encompassing view of

how world crises should be resolved in the UNSC.

6.4.1 Influence of the emerging context on topic selection in the French speeches

The French February 14 speech starts with a commendation to the inspectors and a review of

France’s adopted values and procedures for resolving the Iraqi crisis based on the unanimously

adopted R1441 (MP1- MP2). As a top priority, the speaker gives some advice to Council

members not to call into questions others’ commitment and responsibility, which must leave no

room for ulterior motives and assumptions. This is implicitly directed at Powell to emphasize the

205

importance of adhering to the commitments made by all Council members through the adoption

of R1441 and its plan of action. Clearly, de Villepin wants to adhere to facts, rules and

procedures, and eliminate assumptions and suspicions as a basis for making decisions, which is

re-emphasized later in his speech. In MP3, the French speaker’s second priority is to identify the

main issue of dispute as whether the Council believes disarmament through inspections has been

exhausted, or whether inspection possibilities have not been fully explored yet. He follows with

his two-part main standpoint that France believes that inspections are achieving results and can

be effective in disarming Iraq; and that the heavy consequences of using force makes it a last

resort.

Argumentation proceeds with taking reported contextual facts as premises for legitimating

continued inspections as peaceful means to disarmament and delegitimating the option of war as

unjustified and unnecessary. From MP3 to MP5 the speaker highlights Iraq’s cooperative efforts

and the effectiveness of inspections by pointing to the identification and elimination of

prohibited programs, and the necessity of providing inspectors with every opportunity to succeed

in achieving complete disarmament.

In MP6, the speaker refutes all arguments for war presented by Powell. To the critics of

inspections he responds by the already established premise that inspections are working. As for

delay tactics, he responds by pointing out that it is the Council’s responsibility to determine the

time that should be provided to inspectors and whether Iraq is using delay tactics. While de

Villepin is clearly, but indirectly, directing Powell to leave such matters to the Council, he is also

pointing that such a fact is not established. To the argument claiming that war is the swifter way

to disarmament, he responds with concerns for preserving the unity of Iraq and the region, and

for building peace and stability following a war, and describes the achievement of these goals as

206

long and difficult. He thus concludes that peaceful inspections are the surer and swifter way

towards disarmament.

In MP7 de Villepin proposes giving the inspections more time as a means to achieving peaceful

disarmament and as an alternative to war. He goes on to delegitimate the option of war based on

its negative consequences of breaking the unity of the Council (important value), destabilizing

the region, and leading to aggravated tensions and more conflicts (normatively undesired

consequences). In MP8, de Villepin refutes Powell’s justificatory premise for launching war for

the goal of fighting terrorism by presenting three consecutive premises for an unstated standpoint

that combating terrorism is not a legitimate cause for launching a war against Iraq. First, he

presents the circumstantial premise that a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda could not be

established by France’s or its allies’ intelligence. Second, he presents military action for the goal

of combating terrorism as disputed in the Council, thus lacking legitimate authority. Third, he

presents the likely consequences of war under the pretext of fighting terrorism to be nurturing it

instead of controlling it, which runs counter to one of the U.S.‘s declared goals.

Having refuted war as a swifter path to disarmament and as an act of fighting terrorism; in MP9,

the French speaker outlines what should be the common institutional ground for taking a

decision for war. For the French speaker, war is a possibility but only within the institutional

context and procedures described as: 1) inspectors decide that it is impossible for them to

continue, 2) the Council considers the justness and proportionality of war, 3) no other alternative

is available. Further procedural issues are raised with Powell’s attempts to intensify the feeling

of threat from Iraq’s alleged WMDs, to arouse suspicions about Saddam’s likely use of them and

to take immediate action before it is too late. To these attempts de Villepin responds with a

207

commitment grounded in institutional values and goals: nothing will be done in the Security

Council in haste, out of lack of understanding, out of suspicion or out of fear. The reasons

offered are 1) the role of Council members as the guardians of an ideal and the guardians of a

conscience (the Charter and purposes of the UN). Such values are represented as aligned with the

speaker’s position and values and as supportive of his main standpoint reformulated at the end of

MP9 ‘our responsibility and honor must lead us to give priority to disarmament through peace’.

De Villepin concludes with a “poetic” paragraph the essence of which is France’s commitments

to its values and its belief in acting resolutely together with the international community.

In the March 7 session de Villepin’s top priority is to highlight the most recent information

obtained from experts on that day regarding evidence of disarmament and the substantial

progress in Iraq’s cooperation, described as key to R1441 (MP1). Based on these institutionally

established facts the French speaker expresses his main standpoint as a rejection of war as

unnecessary for disarmament and as detrimental to the unity of the Council (MP2). This position

is further supported with the fact that the Council is clearly moving towards the complete

elimination of weapons from Iraq; with an authorized argument by Blix that Iraq represents less

danger to the world than it did in 1991; and that the objective of effective disarmament can be

achieved through inspections (MP3). In MP4, de Villepin highlights the effectiveness of the

multiple approaches to a peaceful resolution. The diplomacy and the military presence in the

Gulf are considered as effective pressures on Iraq that should be maintained to achieve the goal

of disarmament by peaceful means. The European Union, and not Powell, who repeatedly said

that the inspections cannot continue forever, is authorized to concede inspections must have a

determined deadline by stating that ‘they must be sped up’. The means to speed up the

inspections is presented as a detailed French proposal which includes a deadline of 120 days

208

(SCR1284). MP5 clarifies why de Villepin did not concede to Powell’s argument that

inspections cannot go on forever by explicitly rejecting having the US military agenda dictating

the calendar of inspections. He further clarifies that such an ultimatum cannot be accepted as

long as inspections are achieving results (circumstantial premises), because that would mean war

(consequence premise) and war means stripping the Council of its responsibilities (value

premise). A clear and power based standpoint is stated here: As a permanent member, France

will not allow a resolution to be adopted that authorizes the automatic use of force.

The war resolution propagated by the US and its allies is obviously a major concern to the

French speaker and is perceived as untimely considering the actual move towards disarmament

being achieved. The rejection of the proposed war resolution in particular and war in general is

defended and legitimated at the end of the speech. First, the speaker argues from popular demand

by expressing concerns for the anguish and expectations of people all over the world. In de

Villepin’s view, the Council’s decision is not going to affect the fate of Iraq only, but has

implications for other crises in the world. In MP6 de Villepin assumes the responsibility, as a

permanent member, to speak of high principles and values that are perceived as ought-to-be

concerns and to-be- protected values for the rest of Council members. A view of the world order

as embodied in the institution is presented as: “Our choice defines how we resolve crises and the

world of our children”. He provides examples of current crises in N. Korea, S. Asia and the

Middle East and asserts “where we cannot wait while acts of violence multiply”. The speaker is

thus making an indirect claim for taking action to resolve these crises, particularly that of the

Middle East in general and not only the Iraq crisis in particular. De Villepin also recognizes that

these crises have “historical, political, religious, and economic roots” and in U58-U60 he clearly

states that world crises cannot be resolved by force to create a new world order, which is a clear

209

reference to the American objective. This standpoint is justified by the consequences of force,

which results in hatred and clash of civilizations, long lasting (metaphorical) wounds,

victimization and grief to many. These consequences clearly go against the UN mission, hence

its value system; and therefore, it is the Council’s responsibility to avert such consequences in

order to protect its institutional values. The delegitimation of war continues in MP7, where the

other American objectives are refuted. The French speaker declares that “we” do not subscribe to

the other objectives of war such as changing the regime in Baghdad, fighting terrorism, or

changing the political landscape of the Middle East (all of which de Villepin had justified in the

previous speech). This standpoint is legitimated by several types of premises, the first of which is

the institutionally based premise that regime change is not the objective of R1441. Secondly, the

speaker advances that this is not the best way to achieve democracy in Iraq (negative means-goal

premise). The instability brought about by changing the regime is the third premise

(consequences premise), which cannot be the goal of the Council, as it goes against its mission.

There are also other negative consequences to both Iraq and the Council, which include

increased terrorism and the Council playing into the hands of those who want a clash of

civilizations and a clash of religions. All of these consequences run counter to the goals of the

Council. Changing the map of the Middle East, as a goal, also has negative consequences. They

are presented as the next premise. In the speaker’s view, this runs the risk of exacerbating the

tensions in an already unstable region and would increase the danger of a potential break-up of

Iraq itself. The speaker ends his macro argument against war and its objectives in MP8 with a

causal argument that the world will not be safer (American stated goal) after a military

intervention in Iraq (means chosen by the US) based on the circumstantial premise already

established, as there is no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. In MP9, the speaker’s topic is

210

the implications of war on the Council. He addresses the negative consequences of military

action for the institution itself. Having adopted inspections as the means to achieve disarmament,

de Villepin points out that a war would contradict such a position. Still in relation to the

institution, a means-goal premise is used to argue that more democracy (goal) can be achieved

only within a framework of global democracy with shared values and destiny at the core of

which is the UN (means). In MP10, the selected topic presents an encompassing view of the Iraq

crisis as a part of a bigger crisis in the Middle East in a circumstantial premise: There is no single

answer to complex threats, but a single requirement of unity. This is followed by a claim for

action: ‘We must together invent a new future for the Middle East’. This is justified by the

institutional goals of meeting a priority commitment and achieving security and justice (goals

based on values). For de Villepin, the means to achieve these goals is through peaceful action. In

going back to the disarmament of Iraq, in MP11, the speaker ends his speech with a causal

argument in which he takes the global standpoint that the choice to disarm Iraq is part of the

Council’s ability to resolve not only this issue, but other crises in the world, and an indication of

the Council’s vision of the world. Here we see de Villepin’s interest in approaching resolving

crises in the UNSC in a consistent manner, in line with the principles adopted by the institution.

This, implicitly, supports his position of leaving no room for the assumptions and ulterior

motives he referred to at the start of his speech. He follows his standpoint with two supportive

premises. The first is a means-goal premise which considers a meeting of heads of governments

to be the means by which the Council may rediscover the fundamental vocation of the UN,

which clearly presupposes that the mission of the institution is lost on some of its members.

Secondly, he calls on Council members to assume individual responsibility in this crisis in order

to achieve the goal of recreating the conditions for the Council’s unity.

211

The French speaker’s topic selection and sequence show a consistent adherence to the facts as

reported by experts on the ground, to the terms of R1441 as a guide on how to deal with the

positive and the negative aspects of these facts based on the rules of law, the ethics of war, the

responsibilities of Council members as defined in the institutional Charter and the institutional

normative values of promoting peace, human rights and consistency in resolving world crises.

The overall strategies of using institutionally authorized facts, insisting on following globally

adopted values, institutional goals and well established contextual developments can be observed

in particular linguistic strategies with rhetorical significance as discussed in the next subsection.

6.4.2 Linguistic elements and their rhetorical functions in the French arguments

In this section I examine the French management of contextual facts to support the speaker’s

main arguments by focusing on lexicalization and strategies of indirectness. The French speeches

are particularly characterized by their intensive usage of deontic expressions, which are

specifically investigated in this section for their significance to the French arguments. They are

one aspect of lexicalization.


Two aspects of the emergent context clearly influence the French speaker’s arguments; the

increasing intensity of the American insistence on war, more specifically, the introduction of the

draft war resolution, and the successful implementation of the French plan, which presents the

peaceful alternative.

On February 14 the French speaker uses nine questions in his speech, while on March 7 this

number rises to 14. The expression let us is used six times on February 14, while this number

212

doubles on March 7. Both rhetorical questions and the weak deontic expression let us – as

compared to the strong modal must with notable drop in usage from 16 to 9 – indicate the

speaker’s increased preference for mitigating strong rejections and refutations on March 7. Let us

is mainly used to continue emphasizing the unity of the Council as clearly indicated by the

keywords together and unity.

De Villepin’s lists of keywords for February 14 and March 7 reflect a number of continuous

argumentative concerns across his contributions to the debate. They include objecting to military

intervention signaled by the high keyness of the word intervention, maintaining peace through

inspections as an alternative (recourse) to war, and as a collective responsibility of the Council.

De Villepin’s concerns with the imperative of resolving this crisis and other crises in the world

and in the Middle East, and the potential clash of civilizations, are all reflected in the top

keywords of his March 7th

speech. The table below displays a selection of highly significant

keywords:

Table 6.4 – De Villepin’s Keywords of February 14 and March 7

February 14 March 7

N KW Frq. LL N KW Frq. LL

1 France 14 44.50 1 Let 14 19.87

2 Intervention 5 22.36 3 Democracy 5 16.31

3 Inspections 18 14.47 4 World 15 13

4 Recourse 3 13.41 5 Civilizations 3 12.88

5 Together 5 10.90 6 Clash 3 12.88

22 Unity 6 6.07 7 Crises 3 12.88

27 Responsibility 3 5.77 11 East 5 8.85

213

In the February 14 session, all occurrences of intervention are in expressions referring to the

undesirable option of war within arguments delegitimating war: 2 occurrences of military

intervention and 3 occurrences of the anaphoric such intervention. The word recourse occurs

once as recourse to force, once as recourse to military intervention, and once in could it [war] be

our sole recourse. As established in Chapter 5, the French speaker continues to promote the

unity of the Council in taking action as one of the prime concerns of his discourse, reflected here

in the keywords together and unity.

The deontic expression let us is formed in 12 out of 14 of the occurrences of let in the March 7

speech. This expression is a part of the French speaker’s strategy of mitigating strong

requirements as will be discussed in the next section. The expression clash of civilizations, clash

of identity and the word civilizations, each occurs once in the three occurrences of civilizations.

The third occurrence refers to the civilizations of the Middle East. The word clash occurs once,

in the expression clash of religions. The French keywords point to the speaker’s concerns with

averting wars, hatred and resentments within a global view of a world order that promotes

collaboration, democracy, consideration of others’ cultures, religions, civilizations and history in

resolving all crises presented to the UNSC, as other linguistic strategies and tools discussed in

the next subsection.

6.4.2.2 The rhetorical effects of deontic expressions and questions in the French

contributions.

On February 14, in an argument which extends from U63-U68, the French speaker does not

reject war directly. Instead, he gradually includes the opponent and the rest of the audience into

his rationalization process (deontic expressions underlined):

214

U63- The option of war might seem, on the face of it, to be the swifter (way to

disarmament). (Means - goal premise for option of war)

U64- But let us not forget that, after the war is won, the peace must be built (obligatory

goal premise for option of war)

U65- U66- And let us not veil our faces: That will be long and difficult (circumstantial

premise describing the circumstances surrounding achieving the obligatory goal), because

it will be necessary to preserve Iraq’s unity, and to restore stability in a lasting way in a

country and a region harshly affected by the intrusion of force (additional obligatory

goals/ can also be considered means to achieve the goal of peace, which makes this a

means-goal premise)

U67- In the light of that perspective, there is the alternative offered by inspections (actual

circumstantial premise), which allows the move forward day by day, on the path of the

effective and peaceful disarmament of Iraq (alternative means-goal premise)

U68- In the end, is that not the surer and the swifter choice? (audience framed

conclusion)

The deontic expression let us is used twice to emphasize the importance of facing the need to

remain committed to specific moral obligations, i.e. to build peace after war and to preserve the

unity and restore stability to a country intruded by force. The commitment to these obligations is

described as long and hard, thus value and circumstance premises are established here for

refuting the argument that disarmament through war is swifter: “War might seem swifter on the

surface” implies that war is not swifter because this would be a shallow assessment (on the

surface). A deeper assessment would be to consider that it is morally wrong to have one goal

only, that of disarming Iraq. There are other morally imposed goals that must be met which are

difficult to achieve and take a long time. These goals, however, were never expressed as

concerns by Powell. Therefore, we can assume that de Villepin is not directing his argument to

the proponents of war, but to a world audience before whom his argument is presented as

morally right. Utterance 67 presents the alternative: peaceful and effective inspections. This is

215

followed in utterance 68 by a negated question, which requires a positive answer. As an indirect

speech act, the rhetorical question has the function of an emphatic statement. The function of this

question is to lead the audience to arriving at the conclusion that inspections are the “surer and

swifter choice”.

The use of indirectness reflects an audience-framed strategy which poses legal and moral

obligations and necessities in opposition to the opponent’s position, thus sidelining the speaker

himself as the objector. The rhetorical question completes the audience-framed strategy with its

negated form, which draws the conclusion desired by the speaker from the audience, considering

the described circumstances and obligations.

Indirectness, as the preferred strategy of refuting the opponent’s arguments, can be also observed

in U87-U89 where the French speaker, again, constructs his argument’s conclusion in the form

of a negated question to draw the desired answer.

On March 7, in MP6, the French speaker presents an anti-war argument based on his global view

of other crises. The argument starts with a circumstantial premise which defines the Council’s

decision making process as one which defines the future, and which so far has failed to find a

lasting resolution of disputes (U50-U54). He then poses the question:

U55- Can we continue to wait while acts of violence multiply?

The modalized question with the negative polarity item “acts of violence” clearly expects a

negative answer, which the hearer can recognize as expected by the speaker. As an indirect

speech act, the utterance has the force of a negated assertion. The question has another function

of prompting action (not waiting) to resolve world crises through a peaceful method: We cannot

216

wait while acts of violence multiply. This conclusion is further justified by describing contextual

aspects of these crises (U56-U57). This is followed by presenting the opponent’s standpoint

without naming anyone (U58):

There may be some who believe that these problems can be resolved by force, thereby

creating a new order.

This circumstantial premise, which is Powell’s standpoint is immediately followed by the

speaker’s standpoint (U59): “This is not what France believes”. France’s belief is in turn justified

by a consequence premise and a value premise:

… force can give rise to resentment and to hatred, and fuel a clash of identities and of

civilizations (consequence premise)— something that our generation has a prime

responsibility to avert (value based goal premise) (U60).

…it would create divisions and cause wounds that will be long in healing

(U61).(consequence premise with moral implications/human suffering)

How many victims will there be? And how many grieving families? (U62) (consequences

premise)

The argument could have ended in U61; however, the two consecutive questions that follow

function as amplifiers of the persuasive effects of war delegitimation, thus, they are purely

rhetorical, as they have no exact answers, neither do they expect any. Their other function is to

also elucidate the importance of considering these consequences of war, which are obscured in

the pro-war discourse.


In this chapter I have identified the four speakers’ macro strategies in topic selection and pointed

out their representations of facts, goals and values as well as aspects of their linguistic

preferences and the rhetorical functions of the latter. The influence of the emerging context on

217

these strategies and their significance to the speakers’ arguments were also pointed down. Tables

of speaker’s argumentation plans and classification of socio-cognitive representations of

contextual aspects reflecting speakers’ beliefs, opinions, goals, values and attitudes toward

events and people can be found in Table 2 of Appendices A2, A3, B2, B3, C2, C3, D2 and D3.

These will be addressed in more details in Chapter 7 for their implications of particular

ideologies.

To sum up, Powell’s management of the emerging context has shown a strategy of redefining

contextual aspects in accordance with his argumentation goals in opposition to experts’ reports

and the majority of Council members. He also ignores the international reaction to war including

official, religious and popular efforts. He uses rhetorical questions to mainly strengthen weak

arguments and employs sarcasm and irony to attack the credibility of Iraq’s commonly

recognized cooperation.

Al Douri follows a double strategy of alternating refutations and accusations. His strategy of

refutation is driven by emerging contextual elements consistently authorized by experts’ reported

facts and other official statements by US or UK officials. He also uses the positive international

reaction to Iraq’s cooperation. His strategy of attack targets his opponent’s evidence by

representing them as fabricated, his goals and concerns about weapons as lies, and his true goals

as compromising the inspections, his country’s actions as in contravention with international law

and human rights and his real agenda as serving his country’s economic and political interests

and not the disarmament of Iraq. Rhetorical questions are observed to be employed in

conjunction with a proverb to gain audience support by presenting a universal truth in refuting

Powell’s accusations.

218

The Syrian speaker’s contributions primarily use historical and emerging contextual facts as

evidence of US hypocrisy by describing its Middle East policy as based on double standards, and

its concerns for the region and its people as insincere. Al Shara uses rhetorical questions, irony

and sarcasm to mitigate his accusations and presents his claims as obvious conclusions. He uses

irony and sarcasm as indirect strategies of attack on his opponent’s sincerity, true intentions and

goals. Emerging and historical contextual facts along with the institutional mission and its

Charter represent Al Shara’s main premises in delegitimating the option of war.

The French contributions consistently topicalized the two options of war and peace in light of

emerging contextual facts presented by chief inspectors. The moral duty of Council members,

institutional goals, international law and the unity of the Council are persistently used as guiding

principles for any decision to be made by the Council. The French contributions are distinct in

offering and promoting a peaceful inspection regime as an alternative to war, which is a

persistent topic in all French speeches. De Villepin’s arguments avoid accusations and attacks on

the opponents’ intentions and position and adhere to evaluating the Council’s action in light of

actual and commonly acceptable facts. The French speaker’s rhetorical strategies use rhetorical

questions to present the speaker’s conclusions as universal truths by consistently using moral and

legal obligations and Council member’s duties as main premises in his arguments. This allowed

for the frequent use of deontic expressions that require action in accordance with high principles.

In the next chapter I engage in a critical analysis of the argumentative discourse as enacted in the

four speakers’ contributions to the UNSC Iraq war debate. I draw on both the socio-cognitive

approach to CDA and the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation in order to answer my

remaining research questions.

219

Chapter 7- The Power Struggle Within:

Aspects of Hegemonic and Counter-

Hegemonic Discourses in the UNSC Debate

___________________________________________________

In Chapters 5 and 6 I have discussed the significance of topic selection and sequencing to the

argumentation plan, and goals as macro-features of argumentative discourse strategic planning,

hence as reflective of aspects of the speaker’s mental models based on the extracted socio-

cognitive representations (see table-2 in each of the attached appendices A1-A4, B1-B4, C1-C4

and D1-D4). Other manifestations of speakers’ mental models, observed at lower levels of the

argumentative discourse, were also analyzed as persuasive devices aiming at changing the

opinions and beliefs of audiences by utilizing specific linguistic strategies that occur at the micro

level of the discourse, i.e. patterns of lexicalization, and at the meso level, i.e. different strategies

of indirectness.

In this Chapter, I further elaborate the four speakers’ inferred mental models as constituting

particular elements typical of specific familiar ideologies observed to be operating in the

argumentative discourse of the UNSC. Accordingly, speakers’ expressed socio-cognitive

representations are investigated for possessing traits of hegemonic discourses consistently

propagated by governments, intellectual elites and media organizations in their home countries,

regions and internationally, i.e. the US, Syria and other Arab countries, and France. The

selection of these representations and their repetitive use in the argumentative discourse are

220

shown to be propagating hegemonic and counter-hegemonic arguments within the UNSC where

dominant discourses in one context are taking-on either an internationally hegemonic role or a

resisting role in this international context.

By drawing on both the socio-cognitive approach to CDA and the Pragma-dialectical ideal

model of a critical discussion I evaluate the four speakers’ main arguments for action and their

legitimation from a critical normative perspective on discourse in general and on argumentation

in particular. I thus start from the view of the UNSC debate as carried out in a context in which

members deliberate an institutional decision within specific institutional rules and procedures

governed by its Charter. I also work under the assumption that by virtue of its institutional

nature, this debate is oriented towards normative and practical judgment that must consider the

interest of all involved (UN Charter). Members of the Council are expected to have procedural

commitments in carrying out the deliberative process and to abide by the decisions arrived at

through voting on the proposed action. In such a situation, a decision for action may go against

the goals and beliefs of some members, “in fact, overriding the concerns of some of the

deliberators is the only reasonable thing to do as – in conditions of persistent and often

fundamentally irreducible disagreement – no decision can be made that fully satisfies the

concerns of all participants” (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012, p.202). We know from the history

of the UNSC and its power structure that the Permanent Five Members possess the power to

veto, which allows each to override a majority vote. What is not within the legitimate power of a

permanent member is acting unilaterally against the Council’s will, and against the common

interest.

Consistent with Fairclough and Fairclough’s view of a legitimate outcome of deliberation, the

UNSC debate is critically evaluated for its delivery of a legitimate decision by adhering to

221

“reasonable dialectical procedure, a reasonable code of argumentative dialogue (as embodied by

the pragma-dialectical rules)… in the sense that – having withstood systematic criticism – can be

provisionally accepted as the right course of action” (Fairclough and Fairclough, 2012 p. 206).

This is to allow the consideration of other facts or information that may emerge to render such a

decision less appropriate. However, the best course of action, as outlined institutionally in all

circumstances, provisional or final, must consider the common interest of all involved.

Thus, critical questions related to the ethicality of the argument, as a discourse structure, in

relation to the institutional normative order can determine its ideological nature and goals,

particularly so, when its constituent representations can be related to salient aspects of a

hegemonic discourse prevalent in a particular context. Accordingly, the analysis which follows

answers RQA, RQC and RQD1:


established in the American contributions to the UNSC debate; and which, if any, aspects of

counter-hegemonic ideologies, or other ideologies are evident in the anti-war contributions?

RQC How can an explanatory critique of strategic maneuvering of argumentation of the

American, Iraqi, Syrian and French contributions reveal a power struggle of domination and

resistance based on the intentional selections of topics, audience framing, and preferred

rhetorical and linguistic devices?

RQD1 In what ways did the contributions to the UNSC deliberation process facilitate or obstruct

a resolution to the Iraq crisis in accordance with the normative order set forth by this institution?

In Section 7.1, I take the normative institutional order as constituting the principles guiding the

analysis to evaluate this crucial multinational social action in terms of its intended institutional

purposes and goals vis-a-vis the actual performance of the three Council members and the Iraqi

speaker as the main concerned party. Such analysis is viewed as capable of reaching a conclusion

222

on how, first, the institutional process is manipulated to serve narrow interests that are harmful to

many; second, how certain aspects of this multinational discourse may be raised to the standards

intended by the institution in order to contribute to the betterment of UNSC crisis resolutions.

7.1 A normative and explanatory critique of the practical

arguments

The first object of my critique is to determine which of the two main practical arguments, for and

against war, presents the best course of action considering the actual circumstances, institutional

and speakers’ goals, values and consequences both as advanced by the two sides of the debate,

and as imposed by the institutional constraints, which must be respected and adhered to by all

speakers. My second object is to determine how Socio-cognitive representations of the speakers

have influenced their arguments and the implication of that influence to the outcome of the

debate. Having reconstructed the main claims for action in each of the three sessions as a means

to (a) goal(s) (Tables 2 of Appendices A1-A3, B1- B3, C1-C3 and D1- D3); I start by examining

the most prominent circumstantial premises repetitively emphasized by each speaker along with

the goals as expressed in terms of value-based concerns and the various negative and positive

consequences appealed to during the deliberative process. I take an external assessor’s position

in critiquing these premises based on their constituent socio-cognitive representations, which at

times (re)define a multitude of facts (institutional, historical, as based on experts’ reports,

speaker’s own analysis, or other authorities) and express particular concerns as goals for a

desired future state of affairs based on certain values, which represent the main motivating

factors for achieving the goals. Accordingly, I evaluate the merit of each argument’s proposed

course of action (the means) to the common goal. Other normatively acceptable goals and the

ensuing consequences as presented by the speakers are also evaluated in order to determine

223

whether one argument possess the normative conditions which allow it to rebut the other, thereby

presenting the better solution to the crisis.

7.1.1 Traces of hegemonic and counter hegemonic discourses detected in the

circumstantial premises

Although there are two proposed actions for the council to adopt - either pursuing military action

or opting for peaceful inspections - there are three practical arguments that can be distinguished

in the four targeted contributions to the debate. The first is the argument for military action,

proposed by Powell as the only solution to the crisis. The second is an argument based on the

certitude of the absence of WMDs in Iraq, which categorically rejects war as an option, and

proposes continued inspections in order to verify the absence of WMDs, presented by Al Douri

and Al Shara. The third is France’s argument for continued inspections for as long as inspections

are producing results with the option of war remaining, if inspections reach a dead end. The

critical question to be posed in assessing each of the three arguments is: does the proposed action

represent the best solution to the Iraqi crisis considering the circumstances, the means to the goal

and its consequences to the common interest?

7.1.1.1 Manifestation of hegemonic power in Powell’s circumstantial premises

As the analysis in Chapters 5 and 6 showed, Powell’s main strategies were selective of various

contextual facts, which only support his main claim for action. Other publically known and

relevant facts to the Iraq issue remained obscured in the American contributions. Furthermore,

the analysis showed that Powell’s main circumstantial premises have a double function of

representing Iraq’s lack of decision and intent to cooperate with disarmament efforts, hence its

noncompliance status; and of eliminating the option of continued inspections as a viable solution

to the crisis. Consequently, Powell’s circumstantial premises do not provide an encompassing

224

view of all aspects of the context in order to carry out a fair and reasonable deliberative process

for the purpose of arriving at the best solution under the actual circumstances. Rather, the

American speaker’s definitions of aspects of the context solely aim to support military action as

the means to several goals defined as compliance with R1441 and ridding the world of the

dangers of Saddam’s WMDs thereby making the world a safer place. Furthermore, Powell also

redefines the institutionally established circumstances contrary to what was agreed upon by the

Council, i.e. Resolution 1441, the role and function of inspectors and the actual progress being

achieved.

To critically evaluate the circumstances as presented in the practical argument for military action

I examine the validity of these premises as true representations of the actual context, i.e. what is

documented by the institution, other intelligence reports, Powell’s own statements, and the

position of the majority of the Council.

On February 5, Powell’s definitions of the context can be observed in Table-2 of Appendix A1

as mostly based on speaker’s perceptions and not as officially established except in a few

selective instances. For example the situation is defined by Powell (Appendix A1-Table 1, U541-

542) as frightening and the future situation as “even more frightening”, unless the Council act

immediately. This definition is based on other contextual facts supporting the twelve years of

Iraqi deception, its noncompliant declaration (speaker’s fact), the continued production and

concealment of deadly weapons (speaker’s fact) and Iraq’s support and harboring of terrorists

(speaker’s fact). Each of these reasons represents one of the speaker’s main premises for his

argument for war. However, the establishment of these circumstantial premises relied mostly on

other presented facts attributed to unreliable sources such as generally defined “human sources”,

detainees, terrorists, Iraqi defectors and US intelligence efforts. From an external assessor’s point

225

of view, not only are the premises biased in representing the actual circumstances of the crisis,

but they are also authorized by normatively unacceptable sources who cannot be viewed as

reliable experts able to challenge the technical findings of the inspectors, who are generally

accepted as the sole authority on the ground, and who are in the best position and in possession

of high-tech tools to provide the best assessment of Iraq’s compliance status (700 on-the-ground

inspectors equipped with highly advanced technology and resources).

The dubious nature of Powell’s evidence for defining the context also stems from his own

actions in the Council, which strongly indicate eagerness for military action. For example,

Powell does not explain why he does not follow the agreed upon procedure of providing his

exclusive information to the inspectors for verification prior to his presentation as normatively

expected. While Powell reminds Council members of their presence when R1441 was adopted to

particularly insist that serious consequences was understood by all to be military action; he

ignores another particularity of the resolution, namely placing stringent conditions on reaching

the option of war. Also noted is his emphasis on only particular facts in the experts’ reports and

his misrepresentation of these facts in other instances (inspectors’ roles and the burden of proof

being on Iraq). These intentional misrepresentations indicate his biased attitude, which conflicts

with his institutional duty as a Council member (see Chapter 5, Section 5.1.1). From a pragma-

dialectical view, this constitutes an obstructive move to the resolution of the difference of

opinion by both violating an institutional procedural rule and by intentionally attempting to

redefine the function of the inspectors, the process and conditions under which serious

consequences may become an option for the Council, and shifting the burden of proof

completely on to Iraq. Iraq is in fact required to actively assist and cooperate in the verification

process of its disarmament. It is not required to prove that it is not producing and concealing

226

WMDs, neither is it required to prove that it has no connections with terrorists (terms of R1441).

Hence, Powell’s redefinition of the inspectors’ role and his shift of the burden of proof on to Iraq

had “turned the American notion of justice on its head – the accused had to prove his innocence”

(Woodword, 2004, p.250). A critical question can be posed here regarding the authority with

which Powell can add to the demands of R1441 as he wishes and to shift the burden of proof on

to the accused. Misunderstanding of the terms of R1441 cannot be the explanation, as Powell

himself admits to how hard he “personally” worked on that resolution to secure its unanimous

adoption (Appendix A2, Table-1, U68-U69). As for the evidence in the speaker’s possession,

they were proven false by experts. Hence other explanations can be sought to understand

Powell’s motivation.

To critically explain these actions, one can interpret them as due to Powell’s uncertainty about

his information, which prompted him to risk exposing his evidence to the rejection of his

antagonists after the presentation, rather than risking the inspectors’ disproving his claims prior

to presenting them publically in order to avoid making the presentation obsolete. In this case,

Powell is not interested in the truthfulness of his evidence rather he is most concerned with

making a public case for war in accordance with his government’s well known decision to

launch war against Iraq and occupying it4. In this case, Powell’s choice is a clear violation of his

commitment as a Council member to follow institutional procedures for the interest of his

government’s goal. Additionally, presenting unverified information, which the speaker himself

has serious doubts about5, is an intentional move to use false premises in a highly critical

4 See Plan of attack, Bob Woodward (2004) 5 Powell did indeed have doubts about the information provided to him, according to his chief of staff from 2002-

2005, Col. L. Wilkerson: “Powell and I were both suspicious because there were no pictures of the mobile labs [but

the CIA] said: ‘This is it, Mr. Secretary. You cannot doubt this one,’”(Australian Broadcasting Corporation). In an

interview with Democracy Now on Feb. 6, 2013 Wilkerson also told Amy Goodman, his interviewer, that at one

point prior to the presentation, in a meeting at Langley, Powell decided to throw out of his presentation the part

227

decision-making process, where tens of thousands of lives and the stability of a country and

region are at stake. In that sense, Powell violated a professional code of ethics as a Council

member, and a moral code of ethics of presenting what he doubts to be solid evidence, yet

insisting that it is (Appendix A1, Table 1, U83-U86). As of the time of writing (August 2014),

Powell maintains that at the time of his presentation he believed in the truthfulness of his

evidence. This means that following his serious doubts, the CIA Director, Tenet, was able to

convince him beyond doubt that the information was true. In this case one cannot help but point

to the large amount of evidence against Powell’s information that was put forth publically by

numerous researchers, journalists and political activists at the time of his presentation and prior

to it. To name one, Norman Solomon, founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and

author of the book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,

said:

As a matter of fact, many experts and activists and researchers, from the get-go, in

2002, were saying that the administration case for weapons of mass destruction in

Iraq was full of holes, and many guests on Democracy Now! demolished those

claims from the Bush administration in real time. The organization where I work,

the Institute for Public Accuracy, put out many news releases documenting the

falsities coming from Colin Powell’s office and the entire administration,

including the week that he gave his now-infamous speech at the United Nations.

We had U.N. weapons inspectors like Scott Ritter and Hans von Sponeck

related to terrorism which Wilkerson had as many doubts about as Powell “And I said, “‘Boss, let’s throw it out. I

have as many doubts about it as you do. Let’s throw it out’. Wilkerson also said that 30 minutes from making this decision “George Tenet showed up with a bombshell….. A high-level al-Qaeda operative, under interrogation, had

revealed substantial contacts between al-Qaeda and Baghdad”. Powell and Wilkerson learned later that the

informant gave the information under torture and had recanted it few days later. As a result, the Defense Intelligence

Agency issued a burn notice on the information; however, Powell never knew about it, as according to Wilkerson,

Tenet said there was a computer glitch which prevented the DIA notice from getting to him to inform Powell.

228

demolishing many of those claims being made, again, in real time. (Democracy

Now, Feb. 6, 2013)6

With this much information against the US “intelligence file” and the CIA’s inability to offer

Powell additional evidence following his expression of doubt, the speaker cannot be perceived as

credible when he says he had no doubt when he made his presentation. As a matter of fact there

is much evidence to support that the speaker intentionally presented a false case for war in

support of implementing his government’s already- set war policy. Woodward (2004) chronicles

White House meetings and discussions among top administration members, including Powell, on

how the case for war was planned to be publically supported. It also details how Powell and

other members of the administration set up the no-win- trap for Saddam Hussein in the carefully

selected wording of R1441 in a way which ensures representing Iraq as lying and non-

cooperative no matter which course of action Iraq chooses to take (see Woodward 2004, pp. 220-

252).

This explains Powell’s persistent attitude in the remaining two sessions of dismissing experts’

evidence in support of continued inspections, casting doubts on the inspectors’ abilities to

provide conclusive evidence and completely ignoring other generally known facts as they

emerge (Ch.6, Section 6.1.1). It also explains the well maneuvered rejections of actual steps

towards disarmament, through redefining them as in process and not in substance and as

deceptive activities without providing any credible evidence. In another instant, Powell’s

mention of the IAEA conclusion that was almost reached in 1999, in MP6, is intended to cast

doubt on El Baradei’s conclusions. It also serves to obscure the alarming report by Blix that his

6 Decade After Iraq WMD Speech at UN, Ex-Powell Aide Lawrence Wilkerson Debates Author

Norman Solomon: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/6/decade_after_iraq_wmd_speech

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/6/decade_after_iraq_wmd_speech

229

agency established that the documents presented to it as evidence of Iraqi attempt to purchase

prohibited items are forged. This clearly suggests that Iraq had been set up by certain state

governments, which Blix leaves out of his report, who provided the IAEA with forged

documents to fix the evidence of an illegal acquisition of uranium on Iraq:

…Based on a thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of

outside experts, that these documents — which formed the basis for the reports of

recent uranium transactions between Iraq and the Niger — are, in fact, not authentic.

We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded. (Official

UN Documents website).

This is a fact that should alarm any fair-minded Council member, yet Mr. Powell never reacts to

or comments on these findings in his arguments.

Powell’s selected representations of contextual facts, which are components of his circumstantial

premises, are the same representations or closely related to those that can be observed in the

American ‘War on Terror’ discourse, determined in other studies as a constituent of the New

World Order discourse (Ch.3, Sec. 3.2.1). Several defining elements of the New World Moral

Order discourse can be found in Powell’s contributions, which can be related to the justifications

Powell provides to support the claim for military action. They include appealing to the historical

importance of the culture in which his contribution to the discourse is situated or originates from

and the construction of a thoroughly evil ‘Other’. These features had been established to be

reflective of the broader social system from which political leaders draw to achieve necessary

support for military actions. In the UNSC, Powell’s argument for military action references his

culture’s political order defined as a post 9/11 ‘world’ (Appendix A1, Table 1, U561-U562),

falsely projected as a globally normative order, where a relentless war against terrorism is

230

presented as inclusive of war against Iraq and as a moral obligation (rejected by both the French

and Syrian speakers). Such an assumed global definition of the world is a classical example of

taken-for-granted assumptions that are hegemonic in nature.

Powell also uses emotional manipulation to influence both Council members and the general

public by conjuring up fear through his graphic descriptions of the effects of chemical and

biological weapons by bringing it to every member of the audience’s home with a “teaspoonful”

of dry anthrax and its effects (Appendix A1, Table 1, U205-U208), and with eating “a pinch of

salt” amount of ricin to cause death within 72 hours (Appendix A1, Table 1, U456- U457).

Powell also creates a strong sense of threat from WMDs falling in the hands of terrorists, and the

sense of a more frightening future than the present (Appendix A1, Table 1, U542) and where the

Council will be in a much weaker position to act (Appendix A1, Table 1, U560). This is another

aspect of the NWO which played an important role in swaying public opinion in favor of war by

encouraging hatred towards the enemy, conjuring up fear, instigating anger, and projecting an

abject future if the threat of Saddam’s regime was allowed to remain. According to Altheide and

Grimes (2005), the use of fear is a key aspect of the framing of the Iraq War (p. 620). The

creation of such context allows those in power to strengthen their legitimacy by emphasizing a

threat and linking its reduction to their rule and policies (Maney, Woehrle and Coy, 2009, p.

215). In this case, launching a war against Iraq and toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein are

linked to a threat represented by Powell as imminent and as requiring immediate action, although

he fails to prove it.

Other examples of Powell’s expressed socio-cognitive representations, which can be directly

linked to the NWO discourse, established in previous studies (See Ch. 3, Sec.3.2.1) , include the

strategy of enemy construction through vilification and criminalization as can be observed in his

231

February 5 speech (U6, U82, U171, U277) where the Iraqi regime is represented as a criminal

regime, convicted of multiple resolution breaches and obstructing inspections. Saddam Hussein

is also represented as a killer, evil genius and his regime as one which conducts experiments with

biological and chemical agents on human subjects under his orders (Appendix A1, Table 1,

U301, U351) and as an inhumane murderer (Appendix A1, Table 1, U466), as ambitious and full

of hate (Appendix A1, Table 1, U515), as contemptuous of the will of the Council, of the truth

and of human life (Appendix A1, Table 1, U546), as a summary executioner who carried out

forced disappearances, arbitrary jailing, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of some 2,000 Kurd

villages (Appendix A1, Table 1, U549). Such representations have the sole function of building

up hate and resentments for the targeted person in order to make his elimination from power a

justified objective. However, this is not an objective of R1441 and hence was either ignored (by

the Iraqi and Syrian speakers) or refuted as such (by the French speaker). Hence, these

representations are used to legitimate an illegitimate action against Saddam Hussein, while

ignoring the consequences of the destruction of a country and the killing of tens of thousands of

innocent people.

Furthermore, the threat of the American military power, its presupposed cultural and moral

leadership in the world, its ability to deliver threats to those it identifies as enemies, or to those

who do not yield to its demands, and its ability to act on these threats are strongly projected in all

four American contributions to the debate, including Negroponte’s. The projection of such

coercive and presupposed moral hegemony can be observed in Powell’s assumption of what the

Council should and should not know on February 5 (U22), and in his definition of a universal

context called a post 9/11 world (U561-U562). On February 14, using the most lofty terms,

Powell actually boasts his country’s consensual and coercive hegemony and its ability to punish

232

countries around the world (U2-U7, See Ch. 6, Sec. 6.1.1). On March 7, Powell also imposes

time limit on Iraq through the metaphor of a clock “ticking” towards its military punishment

(U106).

In the March 19 session Powell’s absence signaled the end of his mission of persuading the

Council members of his country’s plans for military action. On that day, Mr. Negroponte

considered the war justified, underway, and a reality of the world that must be dealt with. The

address was planned to preempt the preset agenda of the meeting, and to carry out the speaker’s

own by rejecting discussion of the inspectors’ proposed work plan based on “the reality on the

ground”. The rest of the address was ideologically planned to boast the US efforts to provide

humanitarian relief to the people of Iraq. The humanitarian consequences of war, which can no

longer be ignored, are presented as requiring the charitable and noble acts being planned and

performed by the US to help the Iraqi people during a war launched by an unmentioned entity.

Such a move redirects the audience’s attention from the aggressive military act of war against

Iraq, rejected by the majority of Council members, to the positive humanitarian concerns the US

proclaims to have for the Iraqi people. It de-emphasizes the tangible reality, and instead

emphasizes intangible intentions and plans that may or may not be true.

What is notable about Negroponte’s speech is that it details the actions taken and the ones to be

carried out without ever naming the cause for such humanitarian actions. It does not mention the

words war, serious consequences, invasion, military action – or any other word or phrase with

aggressive connotations to refer to the reasons why his country is providing blankets, relief,

shelter, funds, food, medication, etc. The lexicalization of the speech is completely sanitized

from words with violent meanings, and it is instead loaded with words that convey caring action.

“War” is replaced by the reality on the ground in Utterance 3, the situation on the ground in

233

Utterance 7, current circumstances in Utterance 12, new challenges in Utterance 14, in this time

in Utterance 15, and the situation in Iraq in Utterance 28.

The above examples clearly indicate the US speakers’ interest in maintaining a positive self-

image while propagating actions condemned by the majority of the present audience. They also

point to the exercise of power and domination on members of the institution i.e. issuing threats to

Iraq and carrying out the threats against the Council’s will; imposing a unilateral course of action

on the Council and redefining the Council’s meeting agenda. These actions and others are

represented as legitimate by associating them with goals and values despite their obvious

contradiction with the institutional Charter and the break of their justifications with dialectical

norms (section 7.1.1.).

The American hegemony displayed in the Council is met with clear resistance by the antagonists.

Powell’s contextual definitions were met with immediate challenge to his presented facts, his

presupposed authority and credibility in presenting them, and with the presentation of various

other facts ignored by Powell, particularly those that are institutional, historical or technical in

nature, which question his logic, neutrality and ethics.

7.1.1.2 Traces of counter hegemonic discourse in the Iraqi and Syrian circumstantial

premises

The three antagonists have consistently defined the context in relation to Iraq’s WMDs based on

institutional documentation, which relies on experts’ reports and other generally agreed upon

sources, such as confirmed facts by several intelligence reports or expert statements including

members of pro-war governments. Differences in speakers’ preferences can be noted in

presenting additional premises related to the wider context selected by the speakers as relevant to

rebutting the argument for war.

234

As the analysis in Chapters 5 and 6 showed, the Iraqi speaker adheres to presenting only

authorized facts to prove the falsity of Powell’s circumstantial premises by providing evidence to

their fabricated nature. Other contextual facts/circumstantial premises were also presented to

prove that the American speaker is catering to his government’s self-serving agenda, which is

detrimental to the economic interest and security of Iraq, the region and the world. Additionally,

Al Douri presents other facts supporting the claim that the US and the UK intentionally

compromise the inspectors and their mission to ensure their failure in order to justify carrying

out their war plans, i.e. compromising the U2 inspection missions (Appendix A1, Table 1, U26-

U28), distracting inspectors by requiring investigation of false information (Appendix A1, Table

1, U10) and contradicting their findings.

Al Douri also challenges the ethicality, logic and value system of his opponent by presenting

facts he considers relevant to the context, particularly, in determining the Council’s course of

action, which he hopes – as one of his goals – will be just and in line with the truth as he repeats

in his contributions (Appendix A1, Table 1, U46; Appendix A2, Table 1, U56; Appendix A3,

Table 1, U42; Appendix A4, Table 1, U5, U9, U10, U16, U38). Al Douri’s concern for justice

and truth can be observed in his objection to the unfair institutional treatment of allocating 90

minutes to Powell’s presentation and less than 10 minutes to his response (Appendix A1, Table

1, U2). He also points to Powell’s disregard to adhering to the very resolution he wants to punish

Iraq for allegedly not complying with (Appendix A1, Table 1, U10). He also makes references to

the “unjust” embargo imposed on Iraq, and to Israel’s WMDs, which remain in defiance of

UNSC resolutions. Thus, Al Douri is not only interested in proving the falsity of his opponent’s

presented facts but also in showing his purposeful intent to lie, hence attacking the moral

credibility of the American speaker. For example, Al Douri points to the missiles declared by

235

Iraq, but presented by Powell as discovered by inspectors and to widely known forged

documents authorized by Powell to support the allegations of Iraq’s procurement of nuclear

equipment (Ch. 6, Sec. 6.2).

The presentation of these facts includes both implied and clearly expressed socio-cognitive

representations, many of which can also be observed in the Syrian speaker’s definitions of the

context. The Syrian speaker adopts Al Douri’s contextual facts and presents other institutionally

documented historical and current facts in order to elucidate other relevant aspects of the context,

which remain obscure in the pro-war contributions to the debate. Al Shara repeatedly defines the

Iraq crisis within the overall context of the Middle East and in relation to other crises in the

region to emphasize that neither the US nor the Council is concerned about implementing the

Council’s resolutions (showing the unsoundness of the opponents’ goal), particularly those

predating R1441 by decades, or the dangers of WMDs in the region (see Ch. 5 Sec. 5.3.1 and Ch.

6, Sec. 6.3). These observable and documented contextual facts were never addressed by Powell

and present circumstantial premises which are incompatible with the declared goals of the

American speaker.

The dialectical function of presenting this aspect of the context is to rebut Powell’s argument for

military action by showing its unsound goal premises, i.e. freeing the Middle East of the dangers

of WMDs and the obligation of implementing UNSC resolutions to protect the relevance of the

Council. Furthermore, Council members, irrespective of their position on war, have the

responsibility of ensuring the just and complete implementation of all Council resolutions

equally. One would expect that they express concern for such double standards treatment of Iraq

and Israel, respectively, offer a solution, or show the intent to resolve it in order to maintain the

236

credibility of the institutional purposes. However, the only permanent Council member who

addresses this issue as a responsibility of the Council is de Villepin of France7.

From a rhetorical standpoint, the advocacy of Iraq’s right to equal treatment, the repeated

references to the plight of the Palestinian people and their cause, and the mention of the Sikes-

Pico agreement are intended as strategies of appeal to Arab audiences who had experienced

occupations in general and to Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Palestinian, Egyptian and Lebanese

audiences in particular (states bordering Israel and occupied Palestinian territories with territories

occupied by Israel either currently or previously). Furthermore, this is intended to confirm to

these audiences the Syrian and Iraqi regimes’ long standing self-legitimating rhetoric of self-

presenting as Arab Nationalist regimes that stand up to imperialist influence in the Arab World8.

The then Syrian and Iraqi regimes’ version of Arab Nationalist discourse (Baathist Pan-Arab

Nationalist discourse) is widely known in the Arab World as a counter-hegemonic discourse,

which is anti-America and anti-Israel in particular, and anti-Western colonialism in general (see

Baroudi, 2008; Bazzi 2009; Falah, Flint and Mamadouh, 2006; Suleiman, 1994). These studies

clearly detail the most prominent elements of an Arab Nationalist hegemonic discourse, which

propagates counter-American hegemonic beliefs and actions through its rhetorical characteristics

(See Ch.3, Sec. 3.2.3). Many of these elements can be observed in Al Douri’s and Al Shara’s

socio-cognitive representations reflected in their contributions to the debate in table 2 of each of

7 In concordancing the words Palestinian and Middle (for Middle East) in the corpus of all 4 meetings the following

countries addressed the need to resolve the Middle East problem of the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli crisis: Germany,

Angola and Cameroon. 8 At a broader level, Baath Party ideology at the time [I am not sure how much Baathist ideology still plays a role in

Syria and Iraq today] reflected the viewpoint of many Syrian citizens in championing pan-Arab nationalism and

proposing unification of all Arab countries into one Arab nation stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, transcending what are regarded as arbitrary and artificial borders drawn by Ottoman or European colonial

rulers. However, this vision of Arab unity has not been limited to Baathists. Arab unity was the clarion call of most

Arab nationalists during the struggles against European colonialism after World War I. Baathist ideology differs

from this older sentiment in making socialism an integral element of pan-Arab nationalism.(Library of Congress,

http://countrystudies.us/syria/59.htm)

237

the appendices and as indicated by the above cited studies. These representations include the US

as holding itself above the UN, lacking interest in the “truth” sought by the UN inspectors

regarding Iraq’s military capabilities and intentions, and supporting the killing of Palestinians

under the “guise” of the “war against terror” and the falsity of the US universal message of

human rights. Examples of circumstantial premises incorporating these representations in Al

Shara’s definitions of the context include the indirect reference to Powell’s intent to distract the

inspectors by providing unverified information to the Council on February 5 (U7), to the paradox

of discussing war while the Council is adopting statements for the protection of innocents caught

in wars (U16) and the emphasis on the need to avoid another war in the Middle East considering

all the suffering this region has endured due to a policy of occupation and destruction, and the ill

judgment of the US president in supporting such policy and calling a man who has ordered the

massacres of innocents a man of peace (Appendix A1, Table 1, U31 and Appendix A2, Table 1,

U9-U22). The US’s paradoxical policies are further emphasized on February 14 with additional

accusations of a discriminatory policy against Arabs and Muslims (U23-U24) and a hidden

agenda of controlling Iraq’s wealth (U30-U32).

Other circumstantial premises presented by all three antagonists are the worldwide condemnation

of war as illegal and immoral by the populous, government, political and religious organizations.

These premises establish that the majority of world governments and their supporting citizens,

particularly Iraq’s neighbors, do not feel threatened by Iraq’s alleged WMDs, do not believe that

the Iraq situation warrant a war, and do not agree that tyrant rulers in the world should be toppled

by an American military invasion.

While the Syrian and Iraqi speakers’ circumstantial premises serve their corresponding

ideological goals, they nevertheless present well supported facts by institutional experts,

238

resolutions and other documents. Likewise, the French speaker’s circumstantial premises consist

of well established facts by UN experts and well documented institutional decisions.

7.1.1.3 Evaluation of the French circumstantial premises: traces of the ideology of

Current World Order

De Villepin’s definitions of the context consistently adhere to what is established by experts and

institutional documents and tend to identify gaps in Iraq’s cooperation, propose solutions and

emphasize both improvements and deficiencies in inspections, accomplishments and what

remains to be accomplished (Appendix A1, Table 2, MP4). His position is carefully articulated

as neutral and in line with his duties and responsibilities as a representative of a permanent

Council member (Appendix A1, Table 2, MP5).

Such a position stands to hold the most credibility, particularly so, because of its reliance on

official facts and its value-laden analysis of the circumstances, the options for actions and their

political, security and humanitarian consequences. Further support for this assumed position is de

Villepin’s lack of attacks against his opponents or Iraq despite his expressed disagreement with

and criticism of their actions, i.e. the absence of irony and sarcasm in his rhetoric to get his point

across, in contrast to the other three speakers, and his resort to rhetorical questions, loaded with

normative values to deontically make his most crucial arguments and their appeals (Appendix

D1, Table2-MP8).

De Villepin can thus be said to be keen on representing France as being a fair and neutral

assessor of facts, yet an institutionally powerful Council member who can, within its own rights,

prevent a proposed Council action, which it believes is against normative standards, and most

importantly against the common interest. De Villepin’s persistent question to Powell is why not

239

support the institutionally preferred option over the worst option, war, when it is not serving

world interest, or anybody’s interest for thats matter, except for the United States’ declared

objectives, which rely on counter-institutional values (Chapter 5, Sec. 5.4.2 and Ch 6, Sec. 6. 4).

Undoubtedly, war against Iraq and its occupation by the US stands to cause France to lose the

economic benefits it enjoyed due to its good diplomatic relations with the Iraqi government

extending far back to more than two decades, while the US and its allies stand to be the only

economic benefactors of exercising domination over Iraq. Nevertheless, France had the option to

join in with the American plans to secure its own piece of the pie, particularly, since the plans for

war were underway and the outcome of the crisis was obvious based on President Bush and

member of his administration’s statements and orders of mobilizing and moving additional

military personnel and equipments to the region. According to political analysts and international

relations theorist Hinnebusch (2006), the French position was motivated by domestic public

sentiments towards the war9, although Schuster and Maier (2006) attributes France’s stance on

the war to party ideology. In France’s case, Chirac’s policy at the time was a special blend of a

socialist ideology with a mild anti-globalization stance and a conservative point of view

regarding liberalism:

his variety of continental conservatism belongs to a social Gaullist tradition,

which—like Christian Democracy—often defines itself precisely against

liberalism. Under this doctrine, the language of “social cohesion” and “solidarity”

belongs to the right as much as to the left. In other words, Mr. Chirac has not been

9 “All other states were, in differing degrees, caught between the demands of the hegemon and their own

publics, but made quite varying choices. States’ position in the system, including state strength and

geopolitical environment, appeared to affect how much choice they had to pursue their own interests in

this situation, but much less so how they conceived this interest. Strong states facing few threats could

afford, if their leaders wished, to stand with domestic opinion against the hegemon, as Germany and France did” (p.454).

240

liberalising simply because, as one adviser says, “he does not believe in

untempered liberalism” (The Economist, March 17, 2005).

In focusing more specifically on France’s policy in the Middle East during the presidency of

Chirac, Styan (2004) advances that France’s position on the Iraq war was consistent with a clear

policy which had:

largely ignored [coherence and continuity] in English-language reporting of

French diplomacy in the run up to war. This framework was informed by

principles long central to French foreign policy: the primacy of the UN

Security Council in a multipolar world; the projection of France as both an

ally and voice of developing country opinion within the UN; and visceral

opposition to US unilateral military action. These were underpinned by a

conviction that the consequences of renewed war in the Middle East

outweighed the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons. (p. 372)

De Villepin’s contextual definitions were clearly in line with this over all policy. In fact,

he repeatedly emphasized all three points in a variety of ways throughout the four

sessions of the debate as the analysis in Chapter 6, section 6.4.1 shows. Such policy

adheres to the UN Charter, particularly so, when it is premised on valid circumstances,

goals and value definitions, which integrate these compatible premises to suggest a

flexible course of action. De Villepin’s proposed course of action is not rigid, but open to

new contextual developments (Appendix D1, Table 2, MP4-MP5).

7.1.2 Evaluation of the proposed actions as means to the goals: hegemony and

resistance

In this section I explore the relationship between the means, as proposed actions, to reach the

stated goals by the four arguers along with their consideration of the consequences of their own

proposed action and that of their opponents. Aspects of power exercise and resistance as

observed in the constitutive elements of the practical arguments are pointed to and discussed for

241

their potential underlying purposes and their relationships to aspects of particular familiar

ideologies propagated outside and inside the UNSC.

7.1.2.1 The practical argument for military action

One of the most notable aspects of Powell’s practical argument is the absence of considering the

consequences of military action. While Powell expresses concerns for the Iraqi people’s

suffering under the Saddam Hussein regime (Appendix A1-Table 1, U 119), he never once

expresses his concern for their safety and security during or after his proposed military action.

Neither does his argument for action consider the consequences to the region and its stability and

that of Iraq’s along with its territorial integrity as required by the current normative world order.

Even in the last session of the debate, when the US permanent representative presents his

country’s plans for the Iraqi people during and after the war, his expressed foremost concerns

were for the safety and the security of the inspectors and other UN agency workers in Iraq and

not for the Iraqi people (U2).

The second notable aspect is Powell’s unilateral goals such as fighting terrorism on Iraqi soil and

toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime. The only common goal Powell shares with the rest of the

Council is disarming Iraq by destroying its WMDs. Thus, this is the only normatively valid goal,

which can be dealt with from a normative point of view, as the rest disregards the institutional

goals and function. The Council does not subscribe to the American notion that a military action

in Iraq is a part of the war on terror nor does it agree to change the Iraqi regime through military

force and occupation as this runs counter to the institutional values as declared in its Charter.

Additionally, these are not goals recognized in R1441. Powell’s expressed goals in his arguments

for action are:

242

1- Making the world safe from the threat of WMDs (Argument in MP5-MP8, Table 2-

Appendix A1; MP12, Table 2- Appendix A3)

2- Preventing a potential terrorist attack with Iraq’s WMD/ preventing killing tens of

thousands of people (Argument in MP21, Table 2- Appendix A1; MP7, Table 2-

Appendix A2; MP12, Table 2- Appendix A2)

3- Compliance with the Council’s resolutions (MP23-MP24, Table 2- Appendix A1; MP10,

Table 2-Appendix A2)

To make the world safe from Iraq’s WMDs is a goal based on the premise that dangerous WMDs

exist in Iraq, which Powell failed to establish, and the rest of the Council along with the

inspectors are trying to ascertain. But even if Iraq did possess WMDs, so do other enemies and

friends of the United States, namely Iran and Israel not to mention many others in the world

including the US itself. Thus, the world will not be safe from the threat of WMDs by launching a

war against Iraq. This is particularly true for the Middle East with Iran’s and Israel’s arsenal of

all types of WMDs Powell is concerned about. Powell also expresses the belief that Iraq is

defying the institution by not complying and that its punishment is necessary (means) for

maintaining the credibility of the Council (goal). Although Powell failed to establish Iraq’s non

compliance, this goal will not be achieved through military action against Iraq even if it was in

breach of R1441, as there are tens if not hundreds of other resolutions passed by the Council and

defied by other countries including Israel as pointed to by both the Syrian and Iraqi speakers.

Hence, the credibility of the Council does not hang on Iraq’s compliance with R1441; rather it

hangs on the institutional willingness to implement all its resolutions equally. As for preventing

the killing of tens of thousands of people, this goal cannot be accepted in light of the

243

consequences of war, which itself will cause the killing of at least as many people as Powell is

concerned about. Furthermore, this particular premise is based on Iraq’s connection to Al Qaeda,

which Powell failed to establish. Powell’s practical argument is thus neither sound, nor valid. It

is one which cannot achieve its proclaimed goals and is based on false circumstantial premises,

hence an argument which was easily rebutted by all three antagonists.

Powell consistently displayed a unilateral position, which takes exception to that of the majority

of the Council and which places US interpretations of unverified facts above highly qualified and

officially designated UNSC experts’ facts. This is one indication of Powell’s unwillingness to

accept the authority of an institution of which his country is a founding member. It is also an

indication of his self -exemption of adhering to the terms of a resolution; he practically dissected

each of its provisions and changed its wording prior to its adoption10

. In such instances Powell is

displaying a type of power which grants him exceptional and superior status over other Council

members. This power is drawn from the perceived cultural, economic, moral and military

superiority of the State he represents. This is in addition to its perceived interpretive superiority

of international law (as in the case of R1441). From a normative perspective, however, the norm

building process is inter-subjective by nature, because legislating is a collective process in a

body such as the UN. When different interpretations arise regarding a legal issue, the interpretive

task is to establish what the resolution meant to the parties collectively, rather than to each

individually (Johnstone, I. 2004, pp. 818-819)11

. On this view the reinterpretation of R1441 and

institutionally documented facts and expert reports cannot be considered normatively acceptable.

10

“As participants remember it, and records indicate, the French position was that a false declaration ‘and’ a general

failure to cooperate could constitute a material breach. The ‘and’ meant Saddam would have to fail two tests. Powell’s draft said a false declaration ‘or’ a general failure to cooperate could constitute a material breach”

(Woodward 2004, p.223). Negotiations went on for weeks over the two words till the Bush advisors agreed to “and”. 11 Johnstone refers to Nico Krisch who sees a pattern of the US initiating negotiation of agreements or laws and then

exempting itself from their full application by attaching far reaching reservations; and to Koh’s ‘American

Exceptionalism’, 55 Stanford Law Review 1479-1487 (2003). See also footnotes 14 to 19 in Johnson (2004)

244

Therefore such actions are perceived as challenging to the supremacy of the current international

order and as imposing non benign ideological practices as they are intended to legitimate an

action that is harmful to many.

The implicit and explicit threats of unilateral military action issued in the Council to Saddam

Hussein and those of possible collective military action based on a unilateral view of the context

are detected in several of Powell’s statements e.g., leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of

WMDs for a few more months as not an option in a post 9/11 world (Feb.5, U562) is an example

of a unilateral and categorical statement which rejects inspections that may require this length of

time and threatens military action as the only remaining option. It also imposes on the Council a

time limit to be determined, or already determined unilaterally by those in power, which both the

Syrian and French speakers resist as not within Powell’s mandate to impose.

In other instances Powell uses the deontic power of personally and collectively held normative

values such as courage (Feb. 5, U572), sense of obligation, duty and responsibility (Feb. 5,

U573) along with others that are ideologically based such as democracy, enforcing decisions and

resolutions by force in the name of world peace, security and human rights (opening of February

14 speech, U3-U7). This is a notable excerpt in Powell’s contribution as it mentions democracy,

world security and maintenance of international peace to justify past and future military actions

on the world stage. Yet, Powell rejects peaceful means to resolving the Iraq crisis and ignores the

democratic voting process of the Council when he becomes certain that he does not have the

votes to pass his country’s and its allies’ proposed war resolution. The democratic process was

prevented and the US proceeded with war against Iraq despite the Council’s majority will. This

excerpt thus represents a typical ideological rhetoric aiming to project the US as a guardian of

245

certain widely desired and internationally promoted principles and values for the best interest of

the many, but taking exception in the case of the Iraq crisis.

Linguistic behavior which projects personal power drawn from the political identity of the

speaker can be observed in issuing what is presented as personal judgment based on unilaterally

imposed standards such as the Iraqi regime’s intention and decision to comply, selected as the

main topic of the March 7 speech. Another example is the aluminum tubes’ purpose, discussed

thoroughly on February 5 and March 7, judged by Powell to be for nuclear centrifuge against the

assessment of UN experts. In discussing both of these issues Powell uses his opinion and

interpretations “as an old army trooper” (Appendix A1-U378) and considers exceeding the US

standards for these tubes to be evidence of Iraq’s intention to use them for illegal purposes. As

for Iraq’s strategic decision to comply, it is the speaker’s judgment that it did not happen; despite

Iraq’s insistence and offered evidence that it did make that decision and despite the opposite

view from the majority of Council members and the inspectors. Powell’s use of identity-drawn

power can be observed in his statements “Unfortunately, in my judgment, despite some of the

progress that has been mentioned, I still consider what I heard this morning to be a catalogue of

noncooperation” (Appendix A3-U15), where he dictates to Iraq certain behaviors as the only

indications of genuine intent (Appendix A3, U16-U17) and most importantly decides what the

issue of discussion should and should not be (Appendix A3-U6- U11). The excerpt in U16-U17

presents a classic case of power abuse. Powell presents the claim that Iraq possesses a mobile

production facility, fails to prove his claim by offering evidence of their existence and gets

contradicted by the inspectors in regards to their existence; yet he insists that Iraq must present

them to show its genuine intent to disarm. In addition to shifting the burden of proof, he is also

presenting an impossible demand of Iraq.

246

7.1.2.2 The Iraqi and Syrian practical arguments for continued inspections: war as a

non-option

Al Douri’s main means-goal premise is the peace and security of Iraq and the region. They can

be reached through Iraq’s compliance with continued inspections until the complete verification

of its freedom of WMDs. Peace and security of Iraq are detailed as lifting the unjust embargo

imposed on Iraq and its national and regional security guaranteed by freeing the ME from all

WMDs including Israel’s, in accordance with Paragraph 14 of SC R 687- 1991 (Feb. 5, MP13

and Feb.14, MP16). Al Douri carefully presents his argument within the institutional normative

order by committing to compliance in accordance with his country’s obligations and proposes

that the ensuing Council’s action should also be in accordance with institutional norms. He also

presents consequence premises of war and of a peaceful resolution of the crisis based on

institutional values such as peace, security, and justice (Appendix B2-Table 2, MP15). On March

7, Al Douri’s claim for action, presented as means to a goal, is the prevention of the biggest

crime of the century (Appendix B3, Table 1, U45) (goal) by voting against the war resolution

proposed by the US. The consequence of war is presented as the loss of the organization

credibility. This is obviously to say that the institutional mission is the peaceful settlement of

crises as long as that is an option, and the majority Council believes that peaceful settlement is

underway with the inspector’s continued efforts.

Al Shara’s goals as clearly expressed in all his contributions resemble Al Douri’s goals in

preventing war based on numerous institutionally adopted value premises mandating the

intervention of the UN to thwart UN-unauthorized hostilities against Iraq. As the analysis in

Chapters 5 and 6 showed, the Syrian speaker mainly engages in delegitimating war and

legitimating supporting the inspectors’ mission based on a normative value system and value-

247

based goal premises. Like Al Douri, Al Shara presents his main goal as maintaining

international peace and security in accordance with the institutional Charter. The means to this

globally desired goal is resting on the Council’s decision to allow the inspections to complete

their mission. At the same time, war is regarded as a failure of the Council in implementing its

Charter, thus in upholding its values. Both Al Shara and Al Douri have a chain of other, related

goals, perceived as one necessarily leading to the next in accordance with institutional decisions.

Two actions must be taken by the Council to achieve international peace, and more specifically,

peace in a Middle East free from WMDs: continued peaceful inspections in Iraq and the

implementation of all Council’s resolutions concerning this region. The first action is presented

as necessarily proving that Iraq is free of WMDs. This should in turn lead to lifting the economic

embargo imposed on Iraq, abolishing the no-fly-zones imposed on it . and allowing it freedom,

independence and self determination. The second action should lead to a just solution to the

Palestinian-Israeli crisis and to making the ME free of all WMDs (perceived as a natural

consequence to the proposed action). Those expectations are aligned with institutional ideal

norms, although not with actual practices. A practical question rather than a normative one is

begging here: what makes these two speakers believe that after over 60 years of unimplemented

resolutions against Israel the Council is suddenly going to impose their implementation during

the Iraq crisis? Both Al Shara and Al Douri’s governments stand to gain high approval from both

the majority of Arab masses and governments in propagating justice for the Palestinians and the

implementation of SC resolutions against Israel, particularly so following the then most recent

stance taken by the Arab Summit in Beirut 2002, in which a Saudi-inspired peace initiative was

adopted to reflect the common beliefs of the majority of the Arab peoples. This initiative

calls upon Israel to withdraw from all the territories occupied since 1967, achieve

a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, and accept the establishment of

248

a sovereign independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. This

initiative articulates the firm and common collective beliefs and aspirations which

are emotionally, morally, and consistently expressed in Arab or Islamic summits,

Arab speeches, religious sermons, educational and cultural practices, and, of

course, pre-eminently in the Arab media. (Bazzi 2009, pp.2-3)

Both speakers are aware, based on the history of the UN, that the will of the most powerful

outweighs the will of the majority, which is undoubtedly an institutional dysfunction,

considering its adopted democratic values and processes. Nevertheless, the two speakers persist

in calling for implementing what is described by Al Shara himself as faded ink on yellowing

papers (Appendix C2-Table 1, U15-U16). This obviously serves the double purpose of

enhancing the status of the governments of the two speakers in the Arab world of being

champions of Arab causes, and points to double standards in both institutional and American

policies.

The negative consequences of war, as an opposed action, are repeatedly emphasized as

detrimental to normative goals and values adopted by the Council, as in “The mere thought of

war as one of the SC options, is in itself a proof that not only the SC is unable to perform its

mandate, but it is also a proof of the failure of the international order as a whole” (Appendix C2,

Table 1, U35) and “This war will have grave consequences for the unity and territorial integrity

of Iraq and its people. Its effects will reach the entire region and lead to total anarchy that will

only benefit those who spread terror and destruction everywhere” (Appendix C3, Table 1, U28-

U29).

From a socio-cognitive perspective current experiences perceived as similar to previous

experiences are assimilated to confirm previously constructed opinions and adopted beliefs in

similar contexts. This is the presented case of the Iraqi and Syrian speakers, who demonstrate

249

their adoption of many aspects of an Arab-Nationalist counter-hegemonic discourse commonly

propagated in the Arab World. In the UNSC, aspects of that discourse are used to relate past

experiences with the US and the UNSC to the current context to further confirm the US’s

abusive hegemonic practices in the Arab World. As presented by the Iraqi and Syrian speakers,

these include the US bias towards Israel, which represents their paradoxical and self-

contradictory policy in the Middle East. Selectivity in implementing international law manifested

in UNSC resolutions, which indicates a discriminatory policy against Arab and Muslims in

general and Iraq and Palestine in particular, are clearly stated by the Syrian speaker. It also

indicates a falsely presented American concern for the implementation of UN resolutions to

maintain the integrity and credibility of the organization. Socio-cognitive representations

associated with a counter-hegemonic discourse can be inferred from the Syrian contributions,

which indicate clear resistance to hegemonic practices carried out by Powell. These can for

example be observed in Al Shara’s challenge to the US unilaterally placing a deadline on

Saddam Hussein to comply (Appendix C3, Table 1, U27). Resistance is also manifested in the

implicit and explicit attacks launched against the US policies in the ME in Al Shara’s March 19

speech (U5-U8) where the speaker clearly holds the US responsible for “the catastrophic

consequences that has befallen the two causes” of Palestine and Iraq and its obstruction of

constructive “solutions to the two questions within the United Nations and then blame failure on

the Security Council”. The US imposition of an unjust and unreasonable war can be observed in

(U11-U15) where again, Al Shara argues that this war cannot accomplish its stated goals of

freeing the ME of WMDs with the remaining stockpile of the same weapons possessed by Israel.

Al Douri also challenges the US decision and behaviors in the last session of the debate by

clearly identifying the US as the creator of the crisis and the aggressor. He responds to

250

Negroponte’s expression of relief for the safe withdrawal of the UN humanitarian staff from Iraq

by pointing out that this is the time they are needed the most. Al Douri aims to show that the

American speaker views UN personnel’s safety as more important than that of the Iraqi people.

Al Douri also rejects Negroponte’s account of the amount of money dedicated to humanitarian

relief in Iraq with f sarcasm at “the great generosity demonstrated by the United States of

America” and “the scores of millions of dollars dedicated to saving the Iraqi People” (U23).

These expressions of praise are used to imply condemnation and contempt. They are followed

with the actual rejection “The Iraqi people do not need these tens of millions of dollars. The

executioner cannot help the victim, except by killing him” (U24-U25) to point to the

humanitarian catastrophe being brought upon the Iraqi people by the US. Al Douri abstracts the

US into the executioner and the Iraqi people into the victim. Killing is the only help that can be

offered and nothing else, the speaker presents: “That is what the United States wants for the Iraqi

people; and that is what it is working for” (U26). Such strongly negative portrayal of the US is

intended to expose what Negroponte tries to hide with his sanitized language which portrays his

country as concerned for the humanitarian relief of the Iraqi people during some unnamed

catastrophic event unrelated to any intentional act.

While the two Arab speakers focus on the repercussions of war for Iraq and the region, de

Villepin takes a more global view by also including the implications for other crises and for the

institution itself.

251

7.1.2.3 The practical argument for continued inspections with war as a last option

De Villepin’s argument for continued inspections uses a combination of tact and moral

arguments without the accusatory tone of a double standards policy and immorality being

practiced by the hegemon (Ch. 6, Sec 6.4. 2.2). He argues for the option of continued peaceful

inspections as means to achieving the unified goals of the Council, as declared in R1441, by

considering the current status of inspections as reported by the chief experts. He also defeats the

argument for war based on the same premises used to promote a peaceful resolution and by

arguing that the presented unilateral goals of his opponents have numerous negative

consequences for the Council’s credibility, for Iraq and for the region’s security and stability. At

the same time, the French speaker demonstrates the flexibility of his position within the rules of

law by not ruling out military action under stringent conditions to ensure its legal and moral

legitimacy.

The main means-goal premise repeatedly expressed by de Villepin is the verification of Iraq’s

disarmament through the Council’s adopted method of inspections. The French argument

maintains that the unified Council has the duty and responsibility to stand behind its decision of

pursuing inspections until such an option can no longer produce acceptable results to the Council

as a whole and not to the US alone. In the last two sessions of the debate, the French speaker

takes a more global view of the SC decisions with regard to the Iraq crisis. De Villepin assumes

a position of collective responsibility aiming to correct the path the UNSC has previously

adopted in dealing with ME crises in particular and world crises in general by persevering, this

time around, in maintaining the ideals of the UN through implementing the ‘right’ course of

action, i.e. peaceful inspections. This position can be observed in de Villepin’s deontic calls for

Council actions, and in his persuasive attempts to change the course of events, particularly on

252

March 7 and March 19. For example, when de Villepin considers the option of military action,

he insists that any action by the Council, including the use of force, must be constrained by the

rules of law and justice. The use of force must be considered only when peaceful attempts fail,

which is consistent with both the Charter of the UN and the terms of R1441. When being

considered, the use of force must be enacted by the collective Council and after its authorization

and not by a single state. Secondly, this action must be guided by just war conditions adopted by

the Charter. Thirdly, Iraq’s civilians, territorial integrity and independence must be protected.

We hear none of these conditions referred to by Powell in his calls to military action. They do

not constitute any of his expressed concerns. De Villepin is also able to successfully defeat

Powell’s presented argument for war by showing the falsity of each of his circumstance premises

based on established facts (Ch. 6, Sec.6.4), and by thoroughly discussing and separating the

Council’s common goals from those that are unilateral in nature. He then outlines the

consequences of pursuing each of these goals to Iraq, to the region and to the institution. Most

importantly he presents the Council’s decision on how to resolve this crisis to be indicative of the

type of world order the UN chooses to support and promote in resolving other current crises in

accordance with consistently applied principles. These can be observed throughout the four

French speeches and most notably in the March 7 and 19 speeches. De Villepin, thus, promotes

the world order envisioned by the letter of the institutional Charter in his insistence on just cause

when using force (Appendix D1, Table 2, MP5; Appendix D2, Table 2, MP 9) , in his response

to the Iraqi and Syrian expectations of the Council to implement its resolutions and to resolve the

Palestinian-Israeli crisis (Appendix D3, Table 2, MP10 and MP11) and his interest in reaching

collective goals and abandoning self serving goals by maintaining the unity of the Council as

promoted throughout all the speeches.

253

De Villepin presents moral arguments premised on normative institutional and value based goals

contextualized according to documented facts while maintaining a neutral approach to assessing

the evolving situation. The French speaker’s strategy of resisting the imposition of the system of

beliefs related to the American New World order as bases for the proposed American action is

carried out through promoting the benefits and importance of adhering to the current normative

world order and to hold the US to its commitment to it by persistently asking for the unity of the

Council in its decision making process.

Despite the better argument offered by France under the current circumstances and considering

the detrimental consequences of war, the USA proceeded with its invasion and occupation plan

of Iraq.


In taking a normative perspective on the discourse as deliberative in nature, hence as one that

should reasonably adhere to the dialectical norms of practical argumentation, evidence shows

that the argument for war was unsound based on its unsound circumstantial premises and

supporting evidence. Additionally, in evaluating its means-goal premises the argument failed to

show that the institutional goals are better served by an act of war against Iraq. The antagonists

were able to defeat the argument and show that institutional goals can be better served through a

peaceful resolution to the crisis that proved its ability to produce results.

The analysis also shows that all speakers were motivated by ideological goals some of which are

benign and others are malign12

. Ideologies which function in a hegemonic manner in their own

12 These terms are borrowed from international relations’ hegemonic stability theory as will be discussed in the next

chapter.

254

cultures have functioned as counter-hegemonic ideologies in the UNSC to both enhance the

regional and national statuses certain governments enjoy, but to also challenge and expose the

malign nature of the international hegemon.

In the next and final chapter I synthesize the analyses in the three chapters to draw conclusions

with regard to the outcome and implications of the Iraq war UNSC debate to the institution itself,

Iraq, the region and to other current crises in the Middle East. In drawing such conclusions I

refer to the work of scholars in international law and ethics and others in considering the role of

hegemony and counter hegemony in such a context.

255

Chapter 8- Findings and Conclusions

My thesis adopted the position that the Iraq War debate and its conclusion instantiated one of the

UNSC failures in performing its foremost power and function: Protecting peace and preventing

aggression against another member state through its Charter-defined process, principles and

goals. It also adopted the position that the American declaration of war against Iraq was morally

and legally illegitimate, based on its counter- normative justifications and the absence of an

authorization by the UNSC following a four-session debate.

This chapter aims to consolidate the analytical findings in order to draw conclusions with regards

to the legitimacy of the UNSC Iraq War debate process, outcome and its wider implications from

a normative perspective. In Section 8.1 of this chapter I outline my analytical objectives in

relation to the completed analysis. In Section 8.2 I synthesize the analytical findings in Chapters

5, 6, and 7 as answers to my research questions. In Section 8.3, I discuss the theoretical

implications of my findings and follow in Section 8.4 with the limitations of this study and the

way forward.

8.1 Analytical objectives

One of the main interests and contributions of this study is its aim to identify the influence of

hegemonic and counter- hegemonic practices on the process and outcome of the UNSC Iraq war

debate within a special type of an international democratic institution embodying the current

world order. Its other aim is to assess the legitimacy of the presented arguments for and against

war from a normative perspective and to conclude which of the two proposed courses of action

constructed the better argument in view of the normative institutional and dialectical standards.

256

Accordingly, my research questions addressed these aims through the following four main

questions and their sub questions:


established in the American contributions to the UNSC debate; and which, if any, aspects of

counter-hegemonic ideologies, or other ideologies are evident in the anti-war contributions?

RQA1. What immediate concerns and goals can be drawn from the macro propositions

and macro- arguments of the speeches which are clearly expressed or implied in the form

of overall discourse topics regarding the Iraq issue by the American, Iraqi, Syrian and

French speakers?

RQA2. How is the Iraqi issue contextualized and what specific aspects of the global

context are emphasized by each of the four speakers throughout the debate?

RQA3. What systems of beliefs and values can be detected at the macro level of the

discourse and what types of actions do these values and beliefs motivate?

RQB In what ways do the overall argumentation plans and individual argumentation structures

of the different contributions serve the explicitly and implicitly reported concerns and goals of

the various speakers? And what other, undeclared goals can be derived from the contrastive

analysis of argumentation in the four sessions of the debate?

RQB1. What specific actions are legitimated/ delegitimated by each of the four speakers,

and what are the bases for these legitimation/delegitimation acts in terms of systems of

values, beliefs, and opinions.

RQB1i. Which state of affairs and facts surrounding the Iraq crisis are

strategically selected as topics of specific arguments, or as sources

of knowledge and which are strategically obscured to legitimate

the speakers’ proposed actions with regard to solving the Iraq

crisis?

RQB2. Can a relationship be seen between the diachronic context, i.e., experts’ reports

regarding inspection results, Government Organizations actions, and worldwide protests,

and the four speakers’ arguments as the debate progresses?

RQC How can an explanatory critique of strategic maneuvering of argumentation of the

American, Iraqi, Syrian and French contributions reveal a power struggle of domination and

257

resistance based on the intentional selections of topics, audience framing, and preferred

rhetorical and linguistic devices?

RQC1 What differences and similarities can be observed in the use of lexis by the four

speakers, and what conclusions can be drawn from these?

RQC2 What specific argumentative function do deontic expressions serve, what

particular concerns do they express and what goals do they aim to achieve?

RQC3 How is indirectness used by the various speakers, particularly, rhetorical

questions, irony and sarcasm, and what strategic function in argumentation does it serve?

RQD What conclusions can be drawn from descriptive and normative critiques of the process

and outcome of the UNSC Iraq war debate in terms of the wider social and political implications

for Iraq, the Middle East region and future crises in the world?

RQD1 In what ways did the contributions to the UNSC deliberation process facilitate or

obstruct a resolution to the Iraq crisis in accordance with the normative order set forth by

that institution?

RQD2 From a normative perspective, was the institution effective in achieving its goals

and upholding its values of justice, peace, regional and world security, and human rights

in resolving the 2003 Iraq crisis?

RQD3 Can the UNSC deliberation process be considered a normative process that

promotes itself as one that should be sought after by weak and strong nations alike?

These questions were designed to allow the identification of the American, Iraqi, Syrian and

French speakers’ main concerns, the ideological goals that gave rise to these concerns, and the

legitimacy of their practical arguments ─ as measured against an institutional normative order

and theoretically grounded rules of a discussion conducive to the resolution of a difference of

opinion. They are also designed to determine how the developments in the Iraqi compliance,

disarmament process and the world reaction to the potential war affected the debate discourse.

The answer to these questions leads in turn to further inquiry of whether the institutional process

is able to deliver its purported goals and functions in accordance with its Charter. This therefore

258

implicates the institutional international credibility, more specifically, for weak nations who

experience crises that threaten their very existence and who seek justice.

8.2 Findings

The findings of this study are categorized in accordance with the analytical parameters, and their

interrelationships, that were investigated in Chapters 5, 6 and 7. In Chapter 5, these categories

comprised topic selection and sequence in relation to the argumentation plans of the speakers,

strategies of indirectness, use of deontic expressions and strategies of lexicalization. All

categories were analyzed with respect to their role in argumentation as aspects of strategic

maneuvering with rhetorical and dialectical roles. The same categories were also addressed in

Chapter 6 by considering an additional factor in the analysis, namely the influence of the

emerging context of the debate. These categories were also considered in terms of the mental

models of the speakers that can be inferred from them.

The analysis in Chapters 5 and 6 provided the basis for the normative and explanatory critiques

carried out in Chapter 7, which aimed to evaluate the practical argument of each of the four

speakers from a normative perspective with special attention to detectable aspects of the

operating ideology in each of the four contributions to the debate.

8.2.1 Aspects of strategic maneuvering as indicators of the mental models

informing the speakers’ argumentation

Discourse structures including topics, strategies of indirectness and lexicalization were shown to

be defining elements of the mental models of the speakers as well as for their argumentative

plans. They were designed for maximum rhetorical and dialectical effectiveness, hence

259

strategically maneuvered with various degrees of success and failure with particular target

audiences in order to influence the outcome of the debate. Strategic maneuvering was observed

in topic selection and sequencing, strategies of indirectness, lexicalization and the employment

of deontic expressions.

8.2.1.1 Topic selection and sequencing

On the macro level of discourse, each of the speakers strategically maneuvered with particular

topics in terms of their selection, sequencing and interrelationships. These topics reflected

historical and current contextual definitions of facts, which are crucial to determining the best

course of action as proposed by each speaker. Other topics targeted selective consequences of

performing or preventing certain actions in line with particular values. Such selections were also

instruments of obscuration of other crucial contextual facts that the speakers deemed unhelpful to

the course of action propagated by them. Within such macro strategies of topic selection and

sequencing, rhetorical strategies of presenting all components of practical argumentation were

observed in selecting subordinate arguments, types of premises and supportive evidence. Thus,

topics, as semantic macropropositions derived by subjective definitions of the most relevant

information and as means of organizing this information in the discourse (van Dijk 1998), were

shown to be instrumental in inferring aspects of the speakers’ socio-cognitive representations

(SCRs) that indicate evaluations, descriptions, characterizations of individual and groups,

opinions, beliefs, prescriptions and prohibitions. To establish the social nature of these cognitive

representations, they were related to typical themes and representations of hegemonic13

discourses which subscribe to certain familiar ideologies propagated in particular regions, or

13 Regionally hegemonic ideologies such as Arab Nationalist can function as counter-hegemonic to a more powerful

hegemony exercised on a global level in an international context.

260

internationally. Thus, macrostructures of the discourse were shown to have direct influence on

components of arguments and their parts in representing contextual definitions (as circumstantial

premises), goals definitions (goal premises), requirements, requests and definitions of actions

(means premises) and definitions of speakers’ upheld values (value premises) all in support of

the practical argument aiming to legitimate a particular institutional decision, which serves the

speakers’ goal and is in line with particular ideologies. On the meso and micro levels of the

discourse, strategies of indirectness and the use of lexis were shown to be instruments of

strategic maneuvering in many respects as well.

8.2.1.2 Strategies of indirectness: rhetorical questions, irony and sarcasm

The examination of strategies of indirectness also reflected more detailed aspects of the mental

models of the speakers including ideologies that inform these mental models. The intentional use

of indirectness in the form of rhetorical questions, irony, sarcasm, the absence of the latter two

forms in the French contributions and the notable use of passivation in the Iraqi speeches were

shown to have served strategic functions in argumentation, which also served to support

particular ideological goals.

a- Rhetorical questions:

Rhetorical questions as arguments or parts of arguments served several argumentative and

ideological functions. Rhetorical questions in the American, Iraqi and Syrian speeches were used

within the strategy of ‘enemy construction’, often combined with sarcasm and ridicule, which

corresponds to a strategy of negatively characterizing individuals and groups to cast the enemy

as unworthy of Council’s trust, as in Powell’s contributions (Appendix A1, Table 1, U319-U322

and A2, Table 1,U18-U19), or as deceptive, duplicitous and having criminal intent as in Al

261

Shara’s contributions (Appendix C2, Table 1, U23-U24) and (Appendix C3, Table 1, U24-U26 ,

U30), and to attack the rationality of the opponent’s demands as in Al Douri’s questions

(Appendix B2, Table 1, U38-U39). Such characterizations and descriptions were found to typify

those employed in hegemonic regional and international discourses such as the New World

Order discourse and versions of Arab-Nationalist discourses.

Consecutive rhetorical questions with emphatic functions of historical facts as unquestionable

truths are also used within this macro strategy of enemy construction as in Al Shara’s list of

questions to mitigate strong accusations of the hegemonic power’s immoral behavior and beliefs

such as discriminatory practices, double standard policies and selectively applied values. Hence,

in this case rhetorical questions functioned as counter-hegemonic structures that are clearly

related to a Baathist- Arab Nationalist hegemonic ideology propagated in the Arab World

(Appendix C2, Table 1, U19-U24). Also as a part of the macro strategy of enemy construction, a

rhetorical question is used as a macro topic in Powell’s March 7 speech and is re-posed

throughout the speech with the same emphatic answer of the lack of Iraqi intent to comply with

the international will. Rhetorical questions were shown to have the argumentative function of

presenting both premises and conclusions with the salient effects of their desired, expected or

declared answers being established not by the speaker himself, but by the audiences who are led

into answering those questions themselves.

In the French speeches, rhetorical questions were consistently combined with the deontic power

of obligation, duty and responsibility along with legally and morally imposed values, mainly as

components of deontic arguments. (Chapter5, Sec. 5.1.3.2 and Ch. 6, Sec. 6.4.2.2). Their primary

use aimed for building consensus as opposed to the other four speakers whose primary use of

rhetorical questions was either for the purpose of mitigating or amplifying attacks on the

262

opponent. Such a strategy is consistent with France’s long-term position of resisting the

imposition of a new world order which runs counter to the UN institutional legal and moral

order.

b- The presence and absence of irony and sarcasm, and the passivation of social

actors:

Irony and sarcasm are rhetorical means whose functions include conveying feelings ranging from

incredulity and amusement to contempt, scorn and bitterness. They also function to convey

condescension and ridicule of the opponent’s practices, belief system and attitude. Such

intentional moves reflecting negative feelings and beliefs were found in the contributions of

three of the four speakers.

Powell’s use of irony, sarcasm and ridicule mixed with scorn was shown to be a constituent

strategy of enemy construction by means of vilification and criminalization, e.g., targeting the

evil intent of Iraq, its deceptive plans and behaviors and lack of ability to do anything in

conformance with legal and moral normative standards as in his sarcastic attacks on the Iraqi

commissions, the Iraqi presidential decree and the improvements in cooperation. Such use of

irony and sarcasm is aimed to serve the persuasive function of creating a sense of condemnation

against Iraq and confirm the need to eliminate such an evil and criminal regime in the minds of

the hearers.

Irony and sarcasm were also detected in the Iraqi and Syrian contributions, where they served as

strategies of indirect accusations of lying, fabricating evidence and false self- representation by

the US as having humanitarian concerns for the Iraqi people and the stability of the ME region.

In the Syrian speeches, irony and sarcasm went as far as accusing the US of discrimination

263

against Arabs and Muslims in general and the Iraqi and Palestinian people in particular. Sarcasm

was used to cast the President of the United States as an ill judge and assessor of world leaders’

character. This also served to counter the American judgment of the Iraqi leader, as in Al Shara’s

quoting of his president, who sarcastically commented that the US fear for the Arab people’s

safety from Iraq but not from Israel, and his sarcastic comment about PM Sharon of Israel, who

can only be a man of peace – according to the US president – by the power of the

‘Almighty’(Appendix C2, Table 1, U17).

Al Douri used sarcasm to ridicule Powell’s accusations of weapons concealment, as in pointing

out that missiles are not “tooth picks” and weapons production facilities are not “an aspirin pill”

that can be easily hidden. Al Douri’s bitter sarcasm was most notable in his last speech as in

rejecting the US’s allocated funds and future plans for Iraq when its true intentions are

understood to be the destruction of the country and the resulting consequences of the death of

tens of thousands of innocents along with the spread of diseases. Both Al Douri’s and Al Shara’s

use of irony and sarcasm connoted accusations of hypocrisy, double standards and abuse of

power, all of which are typical elements of an Arab hegemonic discourse which functions as

counter-hegemonic to American domination in the region when reproduced in the UNSC Iraq

War Debate.

The absence of irony and sarcasm from the French contributions confirms the speaker’s

consensus-building approach, his disinterest in offensive rhetoric, such as direct or indirect

denigration of individuals and groups, and his principled approach to argumentation. Unlike the

other three speakers, de Villepin was direct in outlining the principles that must guide the

institutional decision making process to be in complete accordance with current world order such

as the principles which govern the decision to go to war prior to making the decision, the control

264

of the use of force, and the responsibilities, obligations and duties incurred from making such a

decision. De Villepin was also direct in supporting his argument for peaceful inspections by

adhering to experts’ facts and weighing both the negative and the positive in these facts with

regard to the total context without selectivity.

On the micro level of discourse the above strategies were further supported by strategies of

lexicalization unique to each of the four speakers.

8.2.1.3 The use of lexicon

Lexicalization was shown to be a salient category for inferring SCRs for all four speakers. The

selection of semantically related words and expressions worked to reinforce speakers’

judgments, evaluations, characterizations, opinions and to propagate their beliefs as commonly

held or as ones that should be universal.

Powell’s propagation of Iraq’s policy of deception, lack of intention to comply, Saddam

Hussein’s evil character and the dangers Iraq’s alleged WMDs present to the world were not

only openly expressed as topics of major sections in Powell’s speeches, but were also subtly and

pervasively emphasized by the abundance of semantically related words and expressions

throughout each of his three speeches. As main constitutive elements of the war on terror

discourse, these macro and micro representations were established by other studies (see Ch. 3

Sec. 3.2.1) as typical of the American hegemonic discourse of New World Order.

Counter-hegemonic representations, established to have typified Arab-Nationalist hegemonic

discourses in the Arab Region, were shown to be essential constituents of the Iraqi and Syrian

contributions, both on the macro and micro level of the discourse. On the micro level,

265

lexicalization reflected resistance and challenge to the American hegemony. The Iraqi

contributions, although they avoided directly calling the US case a lie, certainly represented it as

such through words such as allegations, false , exaggerated, fabrication, not genuine, incorrect,

and presumptions. Lexicalization in Al Douri’s contributions also pointed to his intent to expose

the grave contradictions in Powell’s arguments for war and the American policy towards Iraq as

immoral with words such as aggression, crime and the self- serving agenda of destroying the

country and occupying it.

The Syrian speaker, Al Shara, also employed themes familiar to Arab and international

audiences, such as the plight of the ‘defenseless’ Palestinian people, the destruction of their

homes, Israel’s occupation of Arab land and the discriminatory US policy in the region. These

themes are often expressed in versions of the regionally hegemonic Arab-Nationalist discourses

and were detected on the lexical level in words such as conflict, conflicts, wars, scourge,

disaster, suffering, suffer. policies, Palestinian, region and Middle East. The intention to portray

the US as abusive of its power is indicated by the use of these words to refer to the US’s

“strange” and “paradoxical” support of aggression and injustice to the Arab people, while at the

same time Powell is advocating the protection of the Iraqi people and those of the entire region

from the Iraqi regime and not from Israel, which according to the Syrian speaker is the real

danger to the region.

As for the French speaker, his word selection reflected consistent emphasis on the unity of the

Council with repeated words such as unity, together, collectively and collective. Deontic markers

constitute another strategy of lexicalization which characterizes the French contributions. The

expression let us was used to promote a collective decision for a peaceful resolution of the crisis,

while the frequently used modal must was repetitively used in expressions promoting the sense

266

of obligation, duty and responsibility to resolve the Iraq crisis and other crises in the world in

accordance with the institutional ‘ideals’(Appendix D2, Table-1, U98 and Appendix D4, Table-

1, U70).

8.2.2 The UNSC Iraq War deliberative process, outcome and wider

implications

The three UNSC sessions of February 5, 14 and March 7 of 2003 had been deliberating the

Council’s action, but did not conclude with a legitimate institutional decision in the fourth

session. Instead, the will of the United States prevailed in imposing a new crisis on the Council

the consequences of which continue to be felt across the Middle East today. Powell abandoned

the institutional process necessary for a legitimate course of action by his absence on March 19,

although the representation in the UNSC remained on the ministerial and not on the permanent

representative level. The US announced war against Iraq using the same justifications proven

false in the Council, while Negroponte outlined his country’s ‘humanitarian plans’ for Iraq and

its expectations of the Council. The UNSC deliberative process and its sudden interruption

shows that the US, through its Secretary of State, was not interested in a genuine democratic

deliberative process free of communicative distortions in order to arrive at the best course of

action, based on genuinely shared concerns, goals and values.

The American argument for war with its constituent types of premises and subordinate

arguments was found to be characterized with its dismissal of the Council’s preferred option for

resolving the crisis, obscuration of the negative consequences of its proposed action, and its

redefinition and reinterpretation of the actual historic and evolving circumstantial facts against

institutional consensus and experts’ findings. From a practical argumentation perspective

267

Powell’s attempts to redefine the common ground as basis for the deliberative process, which

were rejected by the other discussants, his argument’s failure to address the consequences of his

proposed action on the institution and on the common interest, as an obligatory consideration for

institutional decisions, and his repetitively disproved circumstantial premises by the experts;

rendered this argument unsound. The American practical argument thus demonstrated

unprincipled argumentative conduct.

Powell’s practical argument was ideologically motivated in presenting its goal and value

premises as universal, when in fact it did not respond to counter arguments providing evidence

that the US’s proposed action fails as a means to the speaker’s declared goals e.g. ridding the ME

of dangerous WMDs and making the world a safer place. Furthermore, the American speakers’

practical argument demonstrated duplicity when the speaker boasted democratic principles only

to disregard the majority will of the Council and the governments and many people in the world

in his constant calls for, threats of and ultimately his country’s actual launch of military action.

Most notable is Powell’s extreme bias and lack of neutrality as an honorable member of the

Council, who should be acting in the common interest. Powell’s argument relied to a great extent

on open denigration and antagonism toward all actions taken by the Iraqi government, which

dismisses any possibility that the Iraqi regime was genuinely complying with a strong motivation

to maintain, in the worst case scenario, its own existence.

The American practical argument was also characterized by obfuscation. Both of the American

speakers redressed war with noble intentions and plans. While Powell’s role was to present a

status quo which ignores contextual developments and other significant historical and

circumstantial facts, Negroponte’s speech focused on moral actions and obscured the actions

creating the need for them. This is evidenced in avoiding words such as war and occupation,

268

and in dodging warnings from other Council members about the humanitarian catastrophe, the

infrastructure destruction, the outbreak of violence, and the massive death that would result from

such a war. At the same time, expressions such as death by the tens of thousands were reserved

for the description of the consequences of what Iraq might do with its “unfound” WMDs. When

promoting war against Iraq, the words were carefully chosen not to imply any negative action by

the United States. The choice of referring to war as “serious consequences” was adopted from

R1441 to mean a legitimate use of force, which is approved by the Council. It obscured,

however, the preconditions imposed on such choice in the same resolution. It also implied Iraq’s

responsibility for the war, as a consequence of its alleged non-compliance, and obscured the US

determination to seek war as a pre-planned action irrespective of Iraq’s possession of WMDs.

Further confirmation of the ideological nature of the practical argument for war can be observed

in Negroponte’s speech. Negroponte portrayed his country as preparing for a major humanitarian

rescue mission, and not for the annihilation of a member state by destroying all means of a

dignified life for the Iraqi people. He presented the war in terms of his country’s noble and

generous efforts toward the people of Iraq by referring to war with expressions such as “current

circumstances”, “at this time” and “the reality on the ground”. In doing so, Negroponte dealt

effectively with the reality and the circumstances imposed by his country with meeting the

humanitarian needs of the people of Iraq in this time (U15), and as having dedicated significant

resources (U16), and as having been planning across all relevant United States Government

agencies and in support of United Nations efforts to ….administer necessary relief as quickly as

possible. More responsible and insightful actions were planned by the concerned hegemonic

power: fielding the largest ever Disaster Assistance Response Team…. to the region (U19),

prepositioning $16.5 million worth of food rations and relief supplies, including water and

269

purification materials, blankets and shelter supplies in the region (U20), and contributing over

$60 million to more than a dozen different United Nations agencies, including the Office for the

Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme and the World

Health Organization, as well as a multitude of non-governmental organizations (U21). What

necessitated all these efforts was never mentioned.

Negroponte talked about his country’s plans, but not for war. They were plans for “meeting” the

humanitarian needs of the people of Iraq, which constituted an implicit recognition of the

consequences of his country’s planned action; but why and how these needs arose remained

obscure. The listener only heard about the well-organized preparations for helping the Iraqi

people, but nothing about the military aggression turning them into refugees needy of the

American blankets, shelter, medical assistance and food in the first place. These consequences

were addressed by the French, Iraqi and Syrian speakers during the debate, but not even once by

Powell. It was Negroponte’s job to detail his country’s preparation for these “serious

consequences” of war, while keeping the act of instigating the war and its instigator obscure.

Such acts of domination, obfuscation and misrepresentation were resisted by the Iraqi speaker,

whose country was the victim of war. Through careful selection of sources of knowledge, as

officially recognized experts in their own domains (US Senators, CIA agents, and press articles

quoting experts) the Iraqi practical argument sought to prove the unsoundness of the American

argument, the unethical conduct of the US government, and the injustice of enforcing specific

institutional acts related to the crisis at hand. The Iraqi argument elucidated the duplicity and

hidden goals of the expansionist and self-serving hegemony dominating the Council by relying

on surrogate arguers, such as experts’ findings and official statements by chief experts, American

270

and British intelligence officers, and official statements, to make accusations of lying and

fabricating evidence. The Iraqi speaker’s use of indirectness was evident to be a politeness

strategy with which he performed attacks and accusations without having to resort to strong and

direct language.

Resistance to the American domination in the Council was also evident in the Syrian practical

argument for a peaceful resolution, which was legitimated by proper authorities considered

normatively legitimate. The argumentation structure used and the evidence presented were

mostly based on the general knowledge available to Council members. The mental model of the

speaker reflected regional concerns. This is evidenced in the speaker’s expressed circumstantial

definitions and goals for the Palestinian cause, the Iraqi cause and the Arab, including Syrian,

territories occupied by Israel. The Syrian speaker reproduced a counter-hegemonic Arab-

Nationalist ideology, which justified its confrontations of the hegemon by evidence derived from

Council’s resolutions, the UN Charter, official statements, experts’ testimony, in addition to

capitalizing on popular Arab demands and official statements of regional summits and

conferences.

The Syrian argument relied on rhetorical questions as its main persuasive device to construct an

analogical argumentative structure. This was the Syrian speaker’s instrument of exposing the

unjust hegemonic practices with regard to the war on Iraq vs. Israel’s defiance of Council’s

resolutions. It represented the American policy as paradoxical by comparing the U.S. position

towards unimplemented Council’s resolutions against Israel with regard to the unresolved

Palestinian issue and the American obstructions of resolving the Iraqi issue peacefully. These

points aimed to establish an antagonistic American policy towards Arabs in general and the

Palestinian and the Iraqi people in particular. It also served the purpose of appealing to the

271

concerned Arab audience with both causes, and to draw the attention of a possibly unaware non-

Arab public to the paradoxical policies and treatment by the U.S. and the UNSC of the Arabs vs.

the Israelis. Al Shara, in fact, articulated political and historic perceptions about the Arab-Israeli

conflict according to “a collective Arab hegemonic structure that has already been accepted by

the Arab audience” (Bazzi, 2009, p.51). Al Shara, thus, exploited ideological positions about the

conflict in the Middle East which “have already won the assent of its own audiences, particularly

the pan-Arab audience, who, in core, support resistance discourses against Israel and its allies in

times of war” (ibid, p.61). Thus, his argumentation not only serves a counter-hegemonic goal of

exposing the unjust domination, but also serves to justify and make legitimate the ideology of

antagonism displayed by the speaker, and to project a position of solidarity with regional causes.

Although not exposed in the Council, Al Shara ’s ideology was a pretentious ideology of that of

the Arab hegemonic ideology, considering the Syrian government’s concurrent practices in its

own region such as its forceful domination over the Lebanese government, its control of its

parliamentary and presidential election processes and its practices of forced dissapearences of

Lebanese intellectuals and politicians resistant to the Syrian-dominance over Lebanon for almost

3 decades.

The French practical argument was shown to have adhered to the dialectical rules of an ideal

discussion. First it considered both the option of peaceful inspections and using force by

considering actual circumstances established by experts as circumstantial premises. The goals of

the argument were in line with institutional goals of peacefully resolving the crisis as long as

inspections are producing results. It considered both the success and failure of inspections and

the positive consequences of pursuing peaceful means to resolving the crisis and the negative

consequences of choosing military action.

272

The French contributions showed a staunch and principled resistance to a New World Order

imposed by the hegemon. The practical argument for continued inspections until reaching a dead

end demonstrated a universal concern for resolving other world crises in accordance with the

same principles followed in resolving the Iraq crisis. Such concern is based on respecting the

values upheld by the current universal order embodied in the UN. The French practical argument

called for strengthening the inspection program as a present and future tool for resolving similar

crises around the world. It called for peaceful means, for persuasive dialogue, and for a

disciplined and regulated use of force as an option should all else fail. From an institutional

position equal to that of the US, de Villepin demanded respect for international law and order.

The French practical argument also concerned itself with maintaining consensus through

preserving the unity of the Council’s decision as a responsibility and an obligation. This can be

observed in de Villepin’s correction of Powell’s transgression of Council’s procedures by

positively presenting the elements of his presentation as deserving further investigation – as

opposed to the indirectly scornful attitude reflected in the Syrian speaker’s general statement to

Council members intended for Powell (Appendix C1,Table-1, U6-U7) and to Al Douri’s implicit

accusation of lying (Appendix D1, Table-1, U5-U6). Another example is the French response to

the US’s purposeful misrepresentation of a well understood and unanimously adopted resolution.

The French speaker chose to re-clarify the position adopted unanimously, namely the process

outlined in R1441 for resolving the Iraq issue, rather than to attack Powell’s redefinition

(Appendix D1, Table-1, U7-U8). The French practical argument took a global view of its

proposed action as one which would affect the way other crises in the world can be legitimately

resolved in the same principled way it proposed for resolving the Iraq crisis. This can be

juxtaposed with the American argument, which ignored the Israeli Palestinian issue as a crisis

273

worth considering while calling for war in the name of the security of the Middle East region.

The French practical argument provided logical explanations and used moral and legal principles

in appealing to Council members’ sense of responsibility to maintain peace. It also considered

the consequences of its proposed actions and required others to do the same in accordance with

moral and legal principles. The French speaker’s approach to resisting the imposition of the

policies of the American New World Order avoided openly attacking its principles but rather

persisted in promoting the obligations of adhering to the institutionally adopted world order.

Through a principled use of direct language, the French speaker clearly explained the deontic

nature of adhering to current world order principles, and indirectly rejected actions that

contradicted the universal principles he propagated. This was most evident in the complete lack

of irony and sarcasm with an intention to ridicule and denigrate, as in the American, Iraqi and

Syrian contributions.

The UNSC Iraq war Debate was a site of domination and resistance between two views of how

the universal world order should function. Although the US attempted to impose its New World

Order views in the Council, it was faced with much resistance as observed in the Syrian and

French contributions. Thus, it failed to be convincing as being concerned with the world

community’s best interest. When the power of persuasion failed to obtain consensus from the

Council, the US abandoned the normative process and acted with military power against a

proportionally much weaker member state, destroyed its civil, military, and governmental

infrastructures, occupied it for almost a decade and has been controlling its resources until today.

The consequences of the US military action on Iraq and the region have been catastrophic to the

people of Iraq, as warned by all of Powell’s antagonists. A decade later, the unity and territorial

integrity of this country has never been regained, terrorist atrocities have been carried out against

274

the Iraqi people on an almost daily basis since the American invasion and a new form of

terrorism spawned in Iraq to spread to Syria and the entire ME region with its dangers to the

international community. Today, the Iraqi founder and Head of the Islamic State of Iraq and

Syria (ISIS), Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, is openly and defiantly threatening the entire ME region by

invading targeted territories, massacring its residents, occupying towns and cities, and imposing

invented laws in the name of Islam, which are foreign and contradictory to any version of Islam

known since its birth. Today, Iraq only exists as a name of a state that once existed, and not as a

unified state under one government.

As for the one Arab Council member debating the Iraq war; the Syrian regime has since 2011

been carrying out the most repulsive types of human right abuses and atrocities including using

chemical weapons on innocent civilians. The Iraq crisis continues with new chapters unfolding,

the Syrian crisis have been intensifying since 2011 and the ISIS threats are emerging as the most

horrifying and unprecedented forms of terrorism in the region. Meanwhile, the UN continues to

fail to properly address these crises as the only legitimate body charged with resolving such

issues. Instead, new coalitions and plans for actions are being led by the United Sates and its

allies in the region and elsewhere to launch another war on terror that may take years or decades

with unknown agendas and consequences.

The absence of a public deliberative process with a legitimate outcome in the UNSC regarding

the fueling of old and new crises in the Middle East forebodes more of the same unclear, behind-

the-scenes diplomatic work, implementation of various agendas and uncertain and uncontrolled

consequences; while the international public appears to acquiesce in the propagated public

speeches of members of a newly formed coalition who use the failure of the UNSC to resolve

these crises as a pretext for ‘good intentioned’ military intervention. Although multilateral and

275

inclusive of Middle Eastern States, such intervention remains outside the legitimacy the UN can

grant.

8.2.3 Theoretical implications

This research has primarily exploited the SC approach to CDA, as an overarching theory, in

combination with the Pragma-dialectics theory and methods of analyzing practical argumentation

in accordance with Fairclough and Fairclough (2012). As a problem oriented approach interested

in an ethical assessment of discourse, this study was based on adopting the Charter of the UN as

the norms and standards against which the overall critical analysis of the discourse was carried

out. The research has also adopted the dialectical rules of a critical discussion as the normative

standard against which the arguments of the discourse were evaluated. This allowed for

examining the arguments as discourse structures with socio-cognitive components that can be

linked to other discourse structures that may not be directly related to the argument under

analysis. The theoretical and methodical combination also allowed for normative and

explanatory critiques, which enables the analyst to judge the acceptability of the argument based

on clear argumentative and discourse normative standards.

The analytical parameters of strategic maneuvering in argumentation, when understood within

the socio-cognitive theory of CDA, are selected strategies which reflect aspects of the

discussants’ mental models, and are realizations of patterns of linguistic representations.

Linguistic representations of facts, events, individuals, groups and actions, can be, in turn,

related to familiar socio-cognitive representations typical of particular ideologies, or can stand on

their own as patterns of systems of beliefs. Topic selection is recognized by both the socio-

cognitive approach to CDA and the Pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation as a discourse

276

structure which can be ideologically manipulated; because topics express evaluations, opinions,

beliefs, and general principles constituting ideology (Van Dijk, 1998, p. 255). Audience framing

as the second analytical tool of strategic maneuvering is understood within the socio-cognitive

approach to CDA in terms of more than one ideologically motivated discourse strategy, such as

the use of rhetorical questions, irony, sarcasm and selective use of the lexis. Other more subtle

discourse functions, such as obscuration and elucidation of selected facts, events, actions,

individuals and groups (see Koller, 2012) were also observed to be functioning in the service of

particular ideologies. Using the notion of SCRs, as defined in the socio-cognitive approach to

CDA (see Koller and Davidson, 2008), these textually expressed discourse elements reflect

general and specific components of the discussants’ mental models, which further reflect aspects

of the cumulative knowledge, cultural and political experiences, and the group identities that

controlled the speakers’ contributions to the UNSC Iraq War debate.

Combining the SC approach to CDA with the Pragma-dialectics theory and methods has not

been attempted before, although a growing body of work has been evaluating and demonstrating

the advantages gained from combining CDA in general with Pragma-dialectics (Ieţcu-

Fairclough, 2010; Forchtner and Tominc, forthcoming; Ihnen & Richardson, 2011; Fairclough

and Fairclough 2012). This study’s unique theoretical contribution was therefore to apply the

Pragma-dialectics theory and method within the Socio-cognitive framework of CDA while

taking Fairclough and Fairclough’s (2012) approach to analyzing practical argumentation.

Combining these theories and methods has shown them to be compatible in establishing a

theoretical and methodical foundation for carrying out an interconnected argumentation and

linguistic analysis which feeds into normative and explanatory critiques of argumentative

discourse. Such an analytical approach bridges the divide between two forms of analysis, which

277

have been historically separate, particularly in their pursuit of different analytical aims.

Fairclough and Fairclough’s (2012) demonstration of the compatibility of combining CDA and

Pragma-dialectics using one version of CDA was further explored in this thesis by combining

Pragma-dialectics and the Socio-cognitive version of CDA. Such combination was shown to be

effective in evaluating the ethical aspects of the legitimation of arguments. By using a

disciplined process and reference point i.e., the rules of the ideal model of a critical discussion,

the argument schemes recognized by Pragma-dialectics and other traditional discourse analytical

parameters, the analysis was able to critically address dominant aspects of the discourse under

examination and its argumentation structures, while maintaining a multidisciplinary view of the

critical analysis, contextual, cognitive, linguistic, and ideological, as advocated by van Dijk

(1998). This included considering the mental models of the discussants, their ideological goals,

and the contextual aspects influencing the discourse setting as a whole. In that respect, the SC

approach to CDA can also contribute to the Pragma-dialectics theory and method, particularly

when dealing with multilateral contributions to a deliberative process. A critical analysis of such

argumentative discourse requires considering the various aspects of the operating mental models

exerting control on the topics of the arguments, their schemes and their presentational aspects.

In the next section, I discuss the limitations of this study in terms of the difficulties in data

treatment and the analytical methods utilized to perform critical and explanatory critiques of the

Iraq War debate in the UNSC. I then outline the way forward for future studies.

278

8.3 Limitations of the study and the way forward

This study was launched with the full awareness of the complexities presented by the various

political, cultural, social, and related identities underlying the four discussants’ contributions to

the discourse to be analyzed.

The richness of data presented a major challenge in determining the linguistic parameters to be

addressed. For example, an analysis of self- presentation through the study of self - referring

pronouns, such as “I”, “me”, “we”, “our”, and “us”, was very tempting. The frequency of these

pronouns and the types of processes used to self present, as an individual or as a group, and the

implications of the use of the inclusive vs. the exclusive “we” can be indicative of specific

defining aspects of the operating ideologies and their cultural bases. A contrastive approach to

culturally based metaphors and their rhetorical exploitations in the various contributions for

achieving particular ideological and persuasive goals is another significant analytical parameter

to analyzing ideology and interaction in discourse, particularly, through an integrated approach

that combines Pragma-dialectics, socio-cognitive CDA, and a cognitive metaphor theory. Such

an integrative theory perceives metaphor as “a device structuring the mental models that make up

ideology”. It locates it “at the interface between the cognitive and the social” and recognizes its

“dual nature as both conceptual and lexical” (ibid, p.310). Thus, the analysis of metaphors is a

significant analytical parameter as a socio-cognitive representation, and as a rhetorical device.

Another noteworthy notion is collective identities (CIs), theorized by Koller (2012) within a

socio-cognitive approach to discourse as socio-cognitive representations (SCRs) that comprise

cognitive and affective components. They are “culturally bound and come into being at particular

279

historical moments” (p.21). In the case of any international discussion, the analysis of CIs can

constitute an essential element of critically analyzing argumentative discourse.

However, with 16 speeches to contend with, one of which is equivalent to six ─ considering the

number of words of an average UNSC speech─ the ideological aspects of the contributions were

analyzed, mainly, on a macro structural level with additional support from the analysis of

particular aspects of indirectness. This is when another challenge presented itself with some

speeches not containing the selected analytical parameters, i.e., the first Iraqi speech did not

contain rhetorical questions, whereas the other three Iraqi speeches did. As for the French

speeches, they contained no irony or sarcasm at all, instead, their most notable keywords were

deontic markers. And finally, the American speech of March 19th

contained none of the above.

These variations presented difficulties in carrying out a consistent linguistic analysis of the same

analytical categories for all four speakers’ contributions.

Nevertheless, socio-cognitive representations at all levels of the argumentative discourse –

macro, meso and micro structures — were consistently observed, extracted and classified as

components of parts of arguments. This socio-cognitive approach to analyzing argumentation

allowed for an explanatory critique of normatively deviant arguments.

8.4 Conclusion

The examination of a sample of the deliberative process in the UNSC indicates both its

communicative and functional shortcomings. In the case of the Iraq war crisis, this is found to be

due to several factors. First and foremost, while some members may openly express their

commitments to the normative world order instituted by this institution and adopted by its

members, their contributions to the institutional deliberative process indicate their intentional

280

compromise of the democratic process of decision making and their unwillingness to comply

with and support a legitimate outcome arrived at through a legitimate process as institutionally

defined. Secondly, the exercise of hegemonic power by the five permanent members who have

the ability to block a legitimate majority decision if it contradicts with self -serving goals or to

prevent already adopted resolutions from being implemented has resulted in many cases,

including the Iraq case, in an incapacitated institution overpowered by the will of the minority.

Such institutional failure to consistently exercise its powers and functions, to implement its

resolutions, to effectively put an end to grave human right violations around the world, and its

failure to timely and effectively address human suffering on a massive scale contradicts its

purposes and aims (Johnstone, 2004; Fassbender, 2002; Zunes, 2004; Dunne, 2006, Hennebush,

2007; Ali, 2005) and opens its decisions to defiance by any powerful state. This calls for

considering reform in the very power structure and due process of the UN.

In today’s Arab world, the rise and repression of the pursuit of basic human rights, such as

freedom from tyrannical regimes and various types of oppression, is taking multiple cultural,

political, economic, and even military forms. The unarmed Egyptian uprising against the

corruption of Mubarak’s government, and his pursuant resignation vs. the initially peaceful

Syrian uprising against the Assad regime, his continuing response with massive military force

and prohibited chemical weapons and the transformation of a peaceful civil uprising to a

multinational conflict on Syrian territories (Iranian special forces, Hizbollah of Lebanon, the

multinational fighters of ISIS, Saudi and American support of the Syrian Free Army among

many others) forebode more wars and suffering while the UN remains incapacitated. The

Syrian crisis in particular exacerbates into evolving complexities, the worst of which is a current

281

humanitarian disaster for millions of Syrian civilians, three millions of which have become

refugees in neighboring countries and the rise of the ISIS terror.

The UNSC role in such a current crisis, as in many previous others, is yet again at an impasse.

As this study has shown, ideological struggles and conflicting pre-set goals, some of which are

ethical and some far from it, shape the outcome of the institutional debate through the

domination of one view and the enforced acquiescence of all others. Meanwhile, the human

suffering continues.

This study has also shown that publically advanced policies appear on the surface to be

advocating noble causes, but when their arguments are further scrutinized, and obscured facts

unearthed, their duplicitous and self-serving nature is revealed. A socio-cognitive approach to a

CDA program dedicated to the ethical evaluation of interacting ideologies within the UNSC –

which in many conflicts have resulted in an institutional lassitude – can elucidate the pretentious

advocacy of humanitarian causes, examine aspects of the political manipulation, oppression, and

discrimination in the very institution toward which people of the world look for justice, equality

and self- determination.

282

Bibliography

Ali, T. (2002). The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads, and Modernity. New York:

Verso.

Altheide, D. (2004). Consuming Terrorism. Symbolic Interaction, 27, 289–308.

Altheide, D. (2007). the mass media and terrorism. discourse and Communication, 13, 287-308.

Altheide, D., & Grimes, N. (2005). War Programming: The Propaganda Project and the Iraq

War. The Sociological Quarterly, 46, 617-643.

Amante, D. J. (1981). The theory of Ironic Speech Acts. Poetics Today, 2(2), 77-96.

Arend, A. C., & Beck, R. (1993). International Law and the Use of Force: Beyond the UN

Charter Paradigm. London: Routledge.

Audi, R. (2006). Practical reasoning and Ethical Decision. London: Routledge.

Augoustinos, M., Walker, I., & Donaghue, N. (2006). Social Cognition: An Integrated

Introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). The Dialogic Imagination (C . Emerson& M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin:

University of Texas Press.

Baroudi, S. (2008). Countering US Hegemony: The Discourse of Salim al-Hoss and Other Arab

Intellectuals. Middle Eastern Studies, 44, 105-129.

Bazzi, S. (2009). Arab News and Conflict. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Bellamy, A. J. (2004). Ethics and Intervention in Iraq. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 41(2),

131-147.

Bhatia, A. (2009). The Discourse of Terrorism. Pragmatics, 41, 279-289.

Blair, T. (Feb.18, 2003, march 18). Prime Minister Blair speech in the House of Commons.

Retrieved October 15, 2008, from

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/mar/18.foreignpolicy.iraq1.

Bremner, C. (2005). Brilliant, Hansome, haughty: The Leader from Central. The Times.

Brookes. (2003, June 30). A Nation of Victims. The Nation.

Burgio, A. (2003). Gramsci storico: una lettura dei Quaderni del carcere. Rome: Eeditori

Laterza.

Burgio, A. (2007). Per Gramsci : crisi e potenza del moderno. Rome: Derive Approdi.

Burke, A. (2004). Just War or Ethical Peace? Moral Discourses of Strategic Violence after 9/11.

International Affairs, 80(2), 329-353.

Bush, G. (1990). Speech. Miller Center. Retrieved from www.millercenter.org/president

Bush, G. (2002, September 2). National Security Strategy. whitehouse official site. Retrieved

from http://georgewbush-

whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/Selected_Speeches_George_W_

Bush.pdf

Bush, G. (2002, September 12). Speech to the United Nations on Iraq. White House news

release. Retrieved from www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/iraq/20020923-

4.html

Bush, G. (2003, March 19). President Bush Address to the Nation. Retrieved september 12,

2008, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/3/20030319-17.html.

283

Bush, G. (2003, March 6). President George W. Bush discusses Iraq in national press conference.

Retrieved from http://georgewbush-

whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html.

Bush, G. (2003, January 28). State of the Union Address’, available: www.whitehouse.

Callinicos, A. (2009). Imperialism and Global Political Economy. Cambridge: Polity.

Chang, G., & Mehan, H. (2008, June 30). Why We Must Attack Iraq: Bush's Reasoning

Practices and Argumentation System. Discourse and society, 19(4), 453-482.

Charter of the United Nations. (n.d.). Retrieved from UN Official website:

http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/

Chomsky, N. (2001). 9-11. New York: Seven Seals Press.

Chomsky, N. (2003). Commentary: Moral Truisms, Empirical Evidence, and Foreign Policy.

Review of international studies, 29, pp. 605-620.

Chomsky, N. (2005, January/February). Canadian Dimension, 39(1).

Coe, K., Domke, D., Graham, E., John, S., & Pickard, V. W. (June, 2004). No Shades of Gray:

The Binary Discourse of George W. Bush and an Echoing Press. Journal of

Communication.

Collet, T. (2009). Civilization and Civilized in post-9/11 US Presidential Speeches. Discourse

and Society, 20(4), 455.

Dascal, M. (1983). Pragmatics and the Philosophy of Mind. Amesterdam: John Benjamins.

Der Derian, J. (2001). Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial Media Entertainment.

Derrida, J. (2003). Voyous. Paris: Editions Galile´e,.

Dunmire, P. (2005). Preempting the Future: Rhetoric and Ideology of the Future in Political

Discourse. Discourse & Society, 16(4), 481–513.

Dunne, M. (2006). The United States, the United Nations and Iraq. International Affairs, 79(2),

257-277.

Duranti. (2007). Shadows on a Wall: Mind, Culture and Activity. International Journal of

Qualitative Methods, 13(4), 301-310.

Editor. (2003, January 31). Blix Says He Saw Nothing to Prompt War. The New York Times.

Editor. (2004, September 16). Iraq War Illegal, Says Annan. BBC News. UK:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm.

Egg, M. (2007). Meaning and Use of Rhetorical Questions. DIP Colloquium, (pp. 73-78). Oslo.

El-Amir, A. (2003, March 6-12). Beware of the Ides of March, How Far can Washington Push

The Security Council? Al-Ahram Weekly Online(628).

Fairclough. (2001). Language and Power (2nd ed.). Pearson.

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power (2nd ed.). England: Pearson Education Limited.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Language Analysis: Papers in the critical study of language.

London: Longman.

Fairclough, N. (2001). The Dialectics of Discourse. 14, 231-242.

Fairclough, N. (2003). Analyzing Discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London:

Routledge.

Fairclough, N., & Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. (Forthcoming). Argumentation Theory in CDA: Analyzing

Practical Reasoning in Political Discourse. In R. de Cillia, H. Gruber, M. Krzyzanowski,

& F. (. Menz (Eds.), Discourse-Politics-Identity. Vienna: Stauffenburg Verlag.

Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical Discourse Analysis. In T. V. ed., Discourse as

Social Interaction (pp. 258-284). London: Sage.

284

Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical Discourse Analysis. In T. van Dijk (Ed.),

Discourse Studies (pp. 258-271). London: Sage.

Falah, G., Flint, C., & Mamadouh, V. (2006). Just War and Extraterritoriality: The Popular

Geopolitics of the United States, War on Iraq as Reflected in Newspapers of the Arab

World. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 96(1), 142-164.

Fassbender, F. (2002). Uncertain Steps into a Post Cold War World: The Role and Functioning

of the Security Council After a Decade of Measures Against Iraq. EJIL, 13(1), 273-303.

Fawn, R. (2006). The Iraq War: Unfolding and Unfinished. In R. Fawn, & R. Hinnebusch (Eds.),

The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences. Boulder, Colorado: Lynn Rienner Publishers,

Inc.

Feng, J. (2004). A Pragmatic Study of Chinese Rhetorical Questions.

Fixdal, M., & Smith, D. (1998). Humanitarian Intervention and Just War. Mershon International

Studies Review, 42(2), 283-312.

Flint, C., & G.W., F. (2004). How the United States justified its War on Terrorism: Prime

Morality and the Construction of a ‘Just War’. Third World Quarterly, 25(8), 1379–1399.

Foucault. (1972). The Archeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. (S. Smith,

Trans.) NY: Pantheon Books.

Foucault, M. (1981). The order of discourse . In R. (. Young, & R. Young (Ed.), Untying the

Text: A Poststructuralist Reader (R. Toung, Trans., pp. 48-78). London: Routledge.

Fowler. (1985). Power. In v. Dijk (Ed.), Handbook of Discourse Analysiis (pp. 61-88). London:

Academic Press.

Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the News. London, New York: Routledge.

Fowler, R., Hodge, B., Kress, G., & Trew, T. (1979). Language and Control. London:

Routledge.

Frank, J. (1990). You Call that a Rhetorical Question? Forms and Functions of Rhetorical

Questions in Conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(5), 723–738.

Freedman, A., & Medway, P. (1995). Genre and the New Rhetoric. London: Taylor and Francis.

Fusaro, L. (2010, August). Gramsci’s concept of hegemony at the national and international

level. King's College.

Garamone, J. (2002, September 27). Rumsfeld Answers Questions on Iraqi Threat. American

Forces Press Services(News article), http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts.

Gause, F. G. (2005). The International Politics of the Gulf. (L. Fawcette, Ed.) Oxford: Oxford:

The University Press.

Gee, J. P. (1992). The Social Mind: Language, Ideology, and Social Practice. New York: Bergin

& Garvey.

Ghim, L. (1992). Teaching Indirectness. Guidelines, 14(1), 14-22.

Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Every Day Life. Doubleday Anchor Books.

Graham, P., Keenan, T., & Dowd, A. (2004). A Call to Arms at the End of History: A

Discourse–Historical Analysis of George W. Bush’s Declaration of War on Terror.

Discourse & Society, 15(2-3), 199–221.

Graham-Brown, & Toensing, C. (2003). A Backgrounder on Inspections and Sanctions. In M.

Sifrey, & C. Cerf, The Iraq War Reader (pp. 165-173). NY: Simon and Shuster.

Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebook. (Q. H. Smith, G. Nowell, Eds., Q. H.

Smith, & G. Nowell, Trans.) New York: International Publishers.

Gramsci, A. (1991). Selection from the Prison Notebooks,. (Q. H. Nowell-Smith, Ed.) London:

Lawrence & Wishart.

285

Green, J., Franquiz, M., & Dixon, C. (1997). The Myth of the Objective Transcript: Transcribing

as a Situated Act. TESOL Quarterly, 31(1), pp. 172-176.

Gruppi, L. (1972). Il concetto di egemonia in Gramsci. Rome: Editori riuniti.

Habermas, G. (1990). Moral Consciousness and Communicative action. (L. a. Nicholsen, Trans.)

Cambridge: polity Press.

Habermas, J. (2003, July). Interpreting the Fall of A Monument. HTML-Offprint from: German

law Journal, 4(7).

Halliday, M. (1961). Categories of the theory of grammar Word 17. Reprinted in Bertil

Malmberg (ed.) 1972. Readings in modern linguistics, Stockholm, Läromedelsförla¬gen-

Mouton, pp. 157-208 .

Halliday, M. (1977). How Children Learn Language. In K. Watson, & R. Eagleson (Eds.),

English in Secondary Schools: Today and Tomorrow (pp. 20-37). Ashfield, N.S.W.:

English Teachers' Association of New South Wales.

Hinnebusch, R. (2007). The US Invasion of Iraq: Explanations and Implications. Critique:

Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 16(3), 209–228.

Hirst, D. (2003, September). The Guardian.

Hitchens, C. (2003). Realpolitik in the Gulf; a Game Gone Tilt. In S. &. Cerf (Ed.), The Iraq

War Reader. NY, NY: Touchstone.

Hitchens, C. (2004). Powell Valediction. Foreign Policy, pp. 20-51.

Hollis, R. (2006). The United Kingdom : Fateful Decision, Divided Nations. In R. Fawn, & R.

Hinnebusch, The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences (p. 41). London: Lynne Rienner

Publishers, Inc.

Huntington, S. (1993). The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs, 72(3), 22-49.

Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. (27 January, 2010). Argumentation and CDA. presentation at Language,

Ideology, Politics Workshop. Lancaster: Lancaster University.

Ilie, C. (1994). What Else Can I Tell You? A pragmatic study of English Rhetorical Questions as

Discursive and Argumentative Acts. PhD Dissertation, University of Stockholm.

Ives, P. (2004). Language and Hegemoni in Gramsci. London: Pluto Press.

Ives, P. (2004). Language and Hegemony in Gramsci. London: Pluto.

Jaffe, A. (2000). Introduction: Non-standard Orthography and Non-Standard Speech. Journal of

Sociolinguistics, 4(4), 497–513.

Jagers, J., & Walgrave, S. (2005). Populism as Political Communication Style: An Empirical

Study of Political Parties. European Journal of Political Science.

Johnson, J. T. (1991). Historical and Theoretical Approaches on War and Peace in Western and

Islamic Traditions. (J. K. Johnson, Ed.) New York: Greenwood Press.

Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983). Mental Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Johnston, R. J. (2000). The Dictionary of Human Geography (4th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Johnstone, I. 2. (2004). US-UN Relations After Iraq: The End of The World (Order) As We

Know It? EJIL, 15(4), 813,.

Just War. (2011, February 5). Stanford Encyclopedia electronic edition. Retrieved 2011, from

can be retrieved from: http//plato.stanford.edu-just war theory

Kahn, P. W. (2004). Le Camp de la Guerre: critique dela deraison impure (Vol. 45). Paris:

Fayad.

Kemp, M. (2009, May 1). French Intellectuals and the Iraq war. Modern and Contemporary

France.

286

Khalidi, W. (1991). The Gulf Crisis: Origins and Consequences. Palestine Studies, 20, No

2(Winter), 5-28.

Knightly, P. (2003). The Iraq War Reader. In M. C. Sifry (Ed.). NY: Touchstone.

Koller, V. (2012). How to Analyse Collective Identity in Discourse – Textual and Contextual

Parameters. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines, 5(2), 19-38.

Koller, V. (Forthcoming). Cognitive Linguistics and Ideology. (J. R. Taylor, Ed.) London:

Continuum.

Koller, V., & Davisson, P. (2008). Social Exclusion as Conceptual and Grammatical Metaphor: a

Cross-Genre Study of British Policy-Making. Discourse and Society, 19, 307-331.

Kress, G., & Hodge, B. (1979). Language as Ideology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Kress, G., & Threadgold, T. (1988). Towards a Social Theory of Genre. Southern Review, 21,

215-243.

Lazar, A., & Lazar, M. (2004). The Discourse of the New World Order: ‘Out-Casting’ the

Double Face of Threat. Discourse and Society, 15(2-3), 223-242.

Lorda, C., & Miche, E. (2006). Two Institutional Interviews: Jose Maria Aznar and Jaques

Chirac on the Iraq Conflict. Discourse and Society, 447.

Lowe, V. (2003). The Iraq Crisis: What Now? International and comparative Law Quarterly,

52(4), 859-871.

Luke, A. (1996). Text and Discourse in Education: An Introduction to Critical Discourse

Analysis. Review of Research in Education, 21, 3-48.

Luke, S. (2005). Power: A radical view. London: Pulgrave Macmillan.

Maie, H., & Schuster, J. (2006). The Rift: Explaining Europe's Divergent Iraq Policies in the

Run-up of the American Led War on Iraq. Foreign Policiy Analysis, 2, 223-224.

Malone, N. (2004). From Just War To Just Peace: Re-Visioning Just War Theory From A

Feminist Perspective. Graduate School thesis and dissertations: University of South

Florida.

Mandel, M. (2004). How America Gets Away with Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage

and Crimes Against Humanity. London: Pluto Press.

Maney, G., Woehrle, L., & Coy, P. 2. (2009). Ideological Consistency and Contextual

Adaptation: US Peace Movement Emotional Work Before and After 9-11. American

Behavioral Scientist.

Mann, M. (2003). Incoherent Empire. NY: Verso.

Martin, J. (2002). The Political Logic of Discourse: A Neo-Gramscian View. history of

European Ideas .

Martinez, L. (2010, April). Retrieved Nov. 25, 2010, from http://Journals.Cambridge.org

Mason, B. (2003, February 5). UK Report Rejects Iraqi al Qaeda Link. Retrieved April 10, 2012,

from BBC News: http//news.bbc.uk/2/hi/middle-east/2729469.stm

McFadden, R. D. (2003, February 16). Threats and Responses: Overview from New Yorkt To

Melbourne, Cries for Peace. The New York Times.

Meyer, M. (2001). Between Theory, Method, and Politics: Positioning of the Approaches to CDA

(Vol. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis). (R. Wodak, & M. Meyer, Eds.) Sage.

Moore, S. (2002). Disinterring ideology from a Corpus of Obituaries: a Critical Post Mortem.

Discourse & Society, 13(4), 495–536.

Morgan, M. (2010, February). The Presentation of Indirectness and Power in Everyday Life.

Journal of Pragmatics, 42(2), 283-291.

287

Morton, A. (2007). Unravelling Gramsci: hegemony and passive revolution in the global.

London: Pluto.

Moscovici. (2001). Social Representations: Explorations in Social Psychology. NY: NY

University Press.

Moscovici, S. (1984). The Phenomenon of Social Representations. (R. F. Representations, Ed., &

S. Rabinovitch, Trans.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nardin, T. (2005). Humanitarian Imperialism, A Rresponse to Ending Tyranny in Iraq. Ethics

and International Affairs, 19(2).

Oliver, D. G., Serovich, J. M., & Mason, T. L. (2005). Constraints and Opportunities with

Interview Transcription: Towards Reflection in Qualitative Research. Social Forces,

84(2), 1273-1289.

Orpin, D. (2005). Corpus Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis: Examining the Ideology

of Sleeze. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 10(1), 37-61.

Partington, A. (2003). The Linguistics of Political Argument: The Spin-Doctor and the Wolf-

Pack at the White House. London: Rouledge.

Partington, A. (2007). Irony and Reversal of Evaluation. Journal of Pragmatics.

Peter, F. (2010, August). http//plato.Staford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/legitimacy.

Pilger, J. (2000, March 4). Sqweezed to Death. The Guardian.

Pollack, K. (2003, February 16). How Saddam Misread the USA. In S. &Christopher, The Iraqi

War Reader (p. 78). NY.

Porter, D., & Vansuch, M. (2004). Global Education Program, Model League. Youngstown

State University, Department of political Science.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & & Svartvik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the

English. New York: Longman Group.

Rawls, J. (1999). The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R. (2001). Discourse and Discrimination. London: Routledge.

Rhode, H. (2006). Rhetorical Questions as Redundant. San Diego Linguistic Papers, Paper 7(2),

134-168.

Said, E. (2002, October 16). Israel, Iraq, and the United States. Al Ahram Newspaper(607).

Said, E. (2003, february 13-19). A Monument to Hypocricy. Al Ahram Weekly online(625).

Schaffner, C. (2004). Political Discourse Analysis from the Point of View of Translation Studies.

Journal of Language and Politics, 3(1), 117-150.

Schmidt-Radefeldt, J. (1977). On So-Called Rhetorical Questions. Journal of Pragmatics, 375-

392.

Sciences, I. E. (2nd edition). Imperialism.

Scott. (1999). WordSmith software version 4.

Searle, J. (2010). Making The Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Seymour, M. (2004, June). Ancient Mesopotamia and Modern Iraq in the British Press. Current

Anthropology, 45(3).

Silverman, M., & Torode, B. (1980). The Material Word: Some Theories of Language and Its

Limits. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Slugoski, B., & Turnbull, W. (1988). Cruel to Be Kind and Kind to be Cruel: Sarcasm, Banter,

and Social Relations. Journal of Language & Social Psychology, 7(2), 101-121.

Stork, J., & M, L. A. (1990, Nov-Dec). Background to the Crisis: Why War? Middle East

Report, 167, 11-18.

288

Strindberg, A. (2004). Syria under Pressure. Journal of Palestine Studies, 33, 53-69.

Styan, D. (2004). Jacques Chirac’s ‘non’: France, Iraq and the United Nations, 1991–2003.

Modern & Contemporary France, 12(3), 371-385.

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Tannen, D. (1984). Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Tannen, D. (1986). That's Not what I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks

Relations. New York: Ballantine.

Tannen, D. (1994). The Relativity of Linguistic Strategies: Rethinking Power and Solidarity in

Gender and Dominance. In D. Tannen, Gender and Discourse (pp. 19-52). New York:

Oxford University Press.

Teson, F. (2005). Ending Tyranny in Iraq. Ethics and International Affairs, 19(2), 1-20.

The New York Times International Edition. (2002, sept 9). Retrieved August 24, 2011, from

Interview with Jacques Chirac:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/international/europe/09CHIR-FULLhtml

The Secret Downing Street Memo. (2005, May 1). The Sunday Times(electronic). The Sunday

Times. Retrieved from

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/article91033.ece

The UN Charter. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2004, from United Nations official website:

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/history/declaration.html

Toner, C. (2005, October). Just War and the Supreme Emergency Exemption. The philosophical

Quarterly, 55(221), 545-560.

Tresilian, D. (2003, February). Old But Still Kicking. Al-Ahram Weekly Online(623).

Trew, T. (1979). What the Papers Say: Linguistic Variation and Ideological Difference. In R.

Fowler, R. Hodge, G. Kress, & T. e. Trew, Language and Control (pp. 214-45). London:

Routledge.

van Dijk, T. (1977). Pragmatic Macrostructures in Discourse and Cognition. In M. de Mey, CC

77 (pp. 99-113). University of Ghent.

van Dijk, T. (1980). Macrostructures: Interdisciplinary Study of Global Structures in Discourse,

Interaction and Cognition. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

van Dijk, T. (1981). Analyzing Discourse: Text and talk. (D. Tannen, Ed.) Georgetown, USA:

Georgetown University Press.

van Dijk, T. (1981). Episodes as Units of Discourse Analysis. In D. T. Georgetown:, Analyzing

Discourse: Text and Talk (pp. 177-195). Georgetown: Georgetown University Press.

van Dijk, T. (1985). Semantic Discourse Analysis. In T. (. van Dijk, Handbook of Discourse

Analysis (Vol. 2, pp. 103-136). London: Academic press.

van Dijk, T. (1992). Racism and Argumentation. (G. B. van Eemeren, Ed.) Argumentation

Illuminated, 243-259.

van Dijk, T. (1993). Elite Discourse and Racisim. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

van Dijk, T. (1995). Discourse Analysis as Ideology Analysis. In C. a. Schaffner, Language and

Peace (pp. 17-33). Dartmouth.

van Dijk, t. (1998a). Ideology. london: Sage.

van Dijk, T. (1998b). In Handbook of Critical Discourse Analysis.

van Dijk, T. (2001). Critical Discourse Analysis. In D. S. Tannen, H. Hamilton, & eds,

Handbook of Discourse Analysiis (pp. 357-371). Oxford: Blackwell.

289

van Dijk, T. (2001). Multidisciplinary CDA: A Plea for Diversity. In R. W. eds. (Ed.). London:

Sage.

van Dijk, T. (2003). Contextual knowledge Management in Discourse Production, a CDA

Perspective. The Society for Text and Discourse. Madrid.

van Dijk, T. (2006). Discourse, Context and Cognition. Discourse Studies, 159-177.

van Dijk, T. (2009). Society and Discourse. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University.

van Dijk, T. A. (1987). Communicating Racism. Ethnic Prejudice in Thought and Talk. Newbury

Park, CA: Sage.

van Dijk, T. A. (1997). Discourse as Interaction in Society. In T. A. (ed.), Discourse Studies: A

Multidisciplinary Introduction (Vol. 2, pp. 1-37). London: Sage.

van Dijk, T., & Kintsch, W. (1983). Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. New York:

Academic Press.

van Eemeren, F. H. (2008). Special Issue: Strategic Maneuvering in Institutional contexts.

Argumentation, 22(3).

(2009). The Argumentation Stage: The Argument scheme rule. In F. H. van Eemeren, & B.

Grarssen, Fallacies and Judgments of Reasonableness: Empirical Research Concerning

the Pragma Dialectical Discussion Rules (p. Chapter 7).

van Eemeren, F., & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The

pragma-dilectical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

van Eemeren, F., Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, F. (2008). Dialectical Profiles and

Indicators of Argumentative Moves. Journal of Pragmatics, 475-493.

Walton, D. (2007). Media Argumentation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Walzer. (1977). Just and Unjust Wars. NY: Basic Books.

website, U. o. (n.d.). UN documents. Retrieved June 14, 2004, from

http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unscfunctions.html.

Webster, P., & Watson, R. (2003). No Turning Back for Britain or Blair. Times.

Weiler, M. (1993). Ideology, Rhetoric and Argument. Informal Logic, XV.I(Winter 1993).

Williams, I. (2006). The Role of the United Nations. In R. a. Fawn, The Iraq War causes and

Consequences (p. 261). London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.

Wodak, R. (1996). The Genesis of Racist Discourse in Austria. In C. C. Coulthard, Texts and

Practice: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 107-128). London: Routlege.

Wodak, R. (2001). The Discourse Historical Approach. In R. Wodak, & M. Meyer, Methods of

Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 63-94). London: SAGE.

Wodak, R. (2008). Introduction. In R. W. (eds), Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social

Sciences. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. e. (2001). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage.

Woodword, B. (2004). Plan of Attack. NY: Simon and Schuster.

Zarefsky, D. (2007). Making The Case for War: Colin Powell At The United Nations. Rhetoric

and Public Affairs, 10(2), 275-302.

Zunes, S. (2004, September). International Law, the UN and Middle Eastern Conflicts. Peace

Review, 16(3), 285-292.

The Iraq War UNSC Debate: A Forum For Hegemonic And Counter Hegemonic Struggles

Documents

Transcript of The Iraq War UNSC Debate: A Forum For Hegemonic And Counter Hegemonic Struggles