DISCUSSION : HISTORY IN FOCUS
Charles Tripp (August 2002)
The Oil Crisis
Fiona Venn (May 2002)
Iraq since 1958
Marion Farouk-Sluglett, Peter Sluglett (June 2001)
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Iraq's Political History
Ancient Roots
In ancient times the area which we now call Iraq was home to the great culture of Mesopotamia. The so-called ‘cradle of civilisation’ was a fountain of art, law and literature: from the ancient Sumerian alphabet of c. 4000 BC, to the law-code of Hammurabi in 1700 BC, to the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon in c. 600 BC.
Over the centuries that followed, Mesopotamia would come under the control of a series of empires – captured by Alexander the Great, the Persians, and eventually the Arab Muslims, who moved the capital from Babylon to Baghdad. An important cultural and economic centre under Arab rule throughout the Middle Ages, Mesopotamia was conquered once again in the seventeenth century – this time by the powerful Ottoman Empire. The Turks would remain in control of the country until the First World War.
British Mandate
During the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was allied with the Germans. However, its empire in the Middle East – an area thought to contain valuable oil fields – was vulnerable to attack, and in 1917, British forces invaded Mesopotamia and took control of the country.
After the end of the World War, any hope of a return to Turkish rule was extinguished – under the 1920 Sevres Armistice Treaty, Mesopotamia became a British mandate. The new British rulers soon made themselves even more unpopular by rigidly enforcing taxes and introducing forced labour schemes. In response, Mesopotamia rose up in the massive Arab revolt of 1920. Realising that their new mandate was going to be difficult to rule, the British began to draw up plans to create a new state –Iraq.
The Birth of Iraq
Under British plans, the new state of Iraq became a kingdom – and King Emir Faisal was elected by plebiscite to rule the country in 1921. Nonetheless, the fledgling nation remained a British mandate for more than a decade. It was not until 1932 that the mandate finally expired, and Iraq joined the League of Nations as a sovereign state. When King Faisal died the following year, he was succeeded by his son Ghazi I.
In the early 1930s, Britain continued to have a sizeable military presence, political influence in Iraq. However, Iraq was now an independent country, with an out-spokenly anti-British monarch. Iraq began to strengthen its allegiances in the Middle East – joining the Pan-Arab movement in 1936 (a non-aggression treaty between Arab nations), and beginning a campaign to annex its tiny neighbour, Kuwait.
However, in 1939 King Ghazi was killed in a road accident (some Iraqis suspected a British conspiracy against their pro-Arab king). The heir to the throne was Ghazi’s 3 year old son, Faisal. The infant boy would not formally come to the power until his 18th birthday in 1953, and Iraqi politics now became a struggle to control the regency.
The Second World War
At the start of the Second World War, Iraq strongly supported the Allies. However, Britain was unpopular for its controversial influence in Iraq, and the Middle East. In 1941, a military revolt put anti-British forces in power and the new Iraqi government refused to support Britain against Hitler unless British-controlled Transjordan and Palestine were granted their independence.
The Allies responded by invading Iraq. Within less than a month, the Iraqi authorities surrendered, and a new pro-British government was put into power. For the rest of the war, Iraq played an important strategic role as a base for Allied supply centres, and the path to import much-needed arms to the USSR.
Upheaval and Unrest
In 1953, King Faisal finally came of age and took control of his country. The new King was pro-British, and steered his country into a number of Western alliances. However, these British sympathies were unpopular with many of his people. Heading a decaying empire, Britain’s intervention and influence in the Middle East often conflicted with Arab, and Iraqi, ambitions. In particular, Britain’s continuing control of Kuwait caused much resentment, and blocked any hope that Iraq might annex its tiny neighbour.
King Faisal’s pro-British policies weakened his regime. In 1958 strong Arab factions opposed to union with the West staged a military coup – killing both the King and his premier.
Over the next 20 years, Iraq underwent a series of military coups. Relations between Britain and Iraq would only be worsened in 1961 when Kuwait finally became independent from British control. Iraq immediately claimed Kuwait as a part of Iraqi territory – and the British responded by moving troops back in to protect Kuwait, forcing the Iraqi Prime Minister to back down. In the years that followed, Iraq became a key focus of Arab nationalism, and a leading opponent of Israel. At the same time, after the nationalisation of the Iraqi oil industry in 1972, Iraq became a very wealthy country.
Iran
In 1979 the Middle East was turned upside down by two dramatic regime changes. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein came to power, and began to establish his dictatorial rule, whilst over the border in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini’s fundamentalist regime was brought to power by the Islamic Revolution.
There was a strong personal dislike between the two men, whose countries had disputed their mutual border for so long. Hostilities soon flared, sparked by the long-running border dispute and the prospect that the Iranian Islamic revolution might spread to Iraq. In 1980 the Iran-Iraq war began.
During the war, Saddam Hussein had substantial international support from countries concerned about Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime. The USSR, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and France all supplied Saddam Hussein with weapons and support. Whilst America remained theoretically neutral, it pointedly re-established diplomatic communications with Iraq, and its naval force in the Gulf effectively fought for Iraq. Nonetheless, as the war continued, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi armed forces faced increasing problems of morale and desertion: it was during this time that Hussein infamously used biological weapons against his own people – deserters who had taken control of an Iraqi town. After eight years of fighting, and at the cost of an estimated 1 million lives, the war ended in a stalemate.
Kuwait and the Gulf War
Having failed to win a decisive victory against Iran, Saddam Hussein quickly turned his attention to another, weaker neighbour – Kuwait. The tiny country on Iraq’s southern border would not only be strategically important to Iraq’s defensive position, but the contested border between the two countries was a large, and extremely lucrative oil field.
Encouraged by a US assurance that America would not get involved, Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2nd August 1990. They were immediately condemned by both the Arab League and the United Nations, and when Iraq refused to give up the territory, the Persian Gulf War began – Operation Desert Storm.
US and other UN troops descended on the Middle East, and the conflict lasted only six weeks before Iraq was forced to surrender. By the end of the war, the Allied forces had lost only 131 people (many of them to ‘friendly fire’), whilst the Iraqis had lost up to 250,000. The Iraqi people bore much of the brunt of the war – many of the victims of Allied attacks were civilians, or conscripts, and massive popular uprisings against Saddam Hussein’s regime were put down by the Iraqi authorities with great brutality. After more than a decade of war, Iraq’s economy was now in tatters – the UN described Iraq as reduced to a pre-industrial state, with subsistence level living.