Eisenhower and the Qasim Regime: July 1958–January 1961

Abstract

Iraq’s revolution on July 14, 1958, upended America’s regional containment strategy and opened a dramatic new chapter in the superpowers’ Cold War rivalry in the Middle East. This chapter will provide a brief overview of America’s Middle Eastern strategy following the Second World War, and then analyze the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration’s response to Iraq’s revolution and the chaos that ensued. Moreover, it will review the American decision-making process, assess the effectiveness of the Eisenhower administration’s approach, and identify any missed opportunities, where, had the United States acted differently, it might have been able to salvage a working relationship with the new Iraqi regime. Finally, it is important to understand how US officials in Washington and Baghdad perceived these events, how these perceptions compared or contrasted with those of its allies, and how they translated into the implementation of the US policy. In doing so, it will become clear that following Iraq’s revolution, the Eisenhower administration’s policy ran against the approaches of its regional allies due to concerns about the new Iraqi regime’s flirtation with the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) and its perceived Soviet patron. Consequently, rash decisions were made, opportunities to ensure Iraq’s non-alignment in the Cold War were missed, and America’s actions helped push the Iraqi regime closer to the Soviet Union.