ABSTRACT
Gendered orientalist' discourse in the lead-up to the Iraq war was predicated on and reconfigured elements of the narratives and motifs constructed in official US 'War on Terror' discourse in the lead up to the intervention in Afghanistan. Official US 'War on Terror' discourse after the early months of the intervention into Afghanistan (re)produced basic gendered and orientalist assumptions, upon which narratives prescribing war with Iraq were based. In the official US 'War on Terror' narrative, the 'first to benefit from a free Iraq', secured by war 'would be the Iraqi people, themselves'. The application of the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes in the 'War on Terror' is underscored by a view of the 'East' as inherently despotic, enabling the Bush administration to speak of their intent to 'bring democracy' to the 'darkest corners of the earth'. 'Oriental despotism' harnessed the suffering of Iraqis, and connected it to a broader despotism that typified the 'Orient's' inability to govern itself.
