‘Coping with a Coup d'Etat’: British Policy towards Post-Revolutionary Iraq, 1958–63

Abstract

The Iraqi revolution greatly undermined a British Middle Eastern strategy which, from 1954, had increasingly centred on Iraq. At one stroke, the ability of Britain to rely on Iraq's support in the pursuit of wider regional goals through the Baghdad pact had become uncertain. To British policymakers, it seemed that Nasser had successfully taken yet another step to achieving the expulsion of British influence from the entire region. Yet British assessments would soon change to the belief that the new Iraqi leader, Abd al-Karim Qasim could form a useful tool in Britain's own cold war with Egypt throughout the Middle East. This article argues that British policy towards post-revolutionary Iraq evolved through four clear stages, before concluding in mid-1961 that Qasim's Iraq represented a fundamental threat to British oil interests throughout Iraq and neighbouring Kuwait.