Iraqi Politics Research Articles

Iraq from monarchy to tyranny: from the Hashemites to the rise of Saddam

This timely book analyzes the political events in Iraq that gave rise to one of the most brutal and sophisticated regimes of the modern era. Analyzing the country's history from 1941 to the Ba'ath Party's takeover of the government in 1968, Michael Eppel re-creates the domestic, social, and ideological climate that led to the establishment of Saddam Hussein's despotic control of Iraq in 1979. Eppel argues that after World War II, Iraq's ruling elites were impotent - trapped in a complex no-win situation that prevented them from adapting to new social conditions, victimized by external threats and a diverse religious and ethnic population. From the country's anti-British, pro-German uprising in 1941 until the fall of the constitutional monarchy in 1958, a relatively mild conservative government ruled the country. Between 1958 and 1968 Iraq was governed by several radical revolutionary regimes, military dicatatorships that allowed some social and political expression and worked to modernize the country. Despite frequent violent disturbances, political life was tolerably stable. However, divisiveness among military officers and the exhaustion of the modern middle class, which remained dependent upon the state and the regime, helped the Ba'ath Party become an effective political force. As the state benefited from financial resources derived from oil revenues, the ruling elites were able to weaken all other forces and the Ba'ath Party exploited these conditions to seize power. After years of behind-the-scenes manipulations, the atmosphere was ripe for Saddam's presidency in 1979. Weaving these events into their global and regional context, Eppel offers a compelling explanation of the failure of the old elites and their successors and of the conditions that allowed Saddam to create his dictatorship. He also includes an epilogue with a general outline of Iraq's history from 1979 until Saddam's fall in 2003. Eppel's primary sources were Iraqi newspapers, memoirs of Iraqi politicians, British and U.S. archives, and United Nations publications, as well as 23 volumes from Iraqi archives that contain the minutes of the revolutionary court that tried both the Hashemite monarchy and those who opposed the revolutionary regime.

PUBLIC RELIGION SECRETARY RICE, AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

Abstract The U.S. foreign policy establishment's insistence on a secular democracy that seeks to privatize religious expression is seen as anti-Islamic by the Muslim world. U.S. religious freedom policy can and should be employed as part of the nation's refurbished democracy project in the Muslim world. However, it must provide a model of democracy that will allow Muslims to elevate into politics those aspects of their faith that value human dignity and freedom. We must work to create space for religion in U.S. and Iraqi politics so that militant Islamic fundamentalists are not justified in their proclamations that democracy is anti-Islam.

Articles: Trapped in the Dead Ground: US Counter-insurgency Strategy in Iraq

This article reassesses US counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq and argues that its relative lack of success has been due to limited intelligence, a failure to secure political conditions which enhance counter-insurgency and an over-reliance on Israeli counter-insurgency methods. The article suggests that this failure of strategy has been in part due to the high political visibility of neoconservative ideology during the first Bush administration. It has led to a situation in Iraq where the outcome remains far from certain and the article suggests that the increasing escalation of insurgency contains the potential to lead to a revolutionary transformation of Iraqi politics and society.

Iraq's political reconstruction

The pressing needs of the Iraqi people in the aftermath of the war make the task of administrative reconstruction relatively straightforward: restoring the public utilities and the ration system, rehabilitating the health service and maintaining public order are clear and uncontroversial tasks for the coalition forces. However, much less straightforward and more contested is the question of Iraq's political reconstruction. Moreover, the relationship between these two tasks is complex and not necessarily complimentary - many inside Iraq and outside the country fear that the process of rapidly reconstructing the state administration may, if mishandled, foreclose the possibility of a genuine departure in Iraqi politics.

Iraq after Saddam

Current speculation over possible US military intervention to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein suggests that 'regime change' in Baghdad is more likely to be brought about in the near future by external intervention than by internal conspiracy. It is worth considering, therefore, what might follow from such action. Much that may occur in the wake of military action cannot be predicted. However, given the enormous problems associated with any attempt to 'refound' Iraqi politics, it is clear that the occupying power would have to work through the existing forces of Iraqi political society – some openly opposed to the current regime, some closely allied to it and others deeply ambivalent.

The Elite, theEffendiyya, and the Growth of Nationalism and Pan-Arabism in Hashemite Iraq, 1921–1958

One of the basic characteristics of the social conditions that marked political life in the Arab states in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s was the complex relationship between the politicians from among the elites of traditional notables of the Fertile Crescent cities and theeffendiyya, or Westernized middle stratum. These elites consisted not only of traditional notable families, but also of families newly risen since the Tanzimat reforms in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire. Since the end of World War I, these elites had stood at the center of the new states established by the Western powers—Great Britain and France—and it was now the politicians from within those elites who headed the struggle of those states for independence. This relationship, as well as the character of the elite of notables and theeffendiyya, constituted an important element in the social conditions characterizing the political and ideological environment in which the Iraqi politicians from the elite of notables had operated, and in which Arab nationalism and Pan-Arab ideology became a highly influential factor.

The death of king Ghazi: Iraqi politics, Britain and Kuwait in 1939

The subject of this article is King Ghazi and whether, on 5 April 1939, he died by accident or design. But what may be described as a historical ‘whodunit’ also constitutes the peg on which a broader tale hangs: the story of Iraqi politics in the months and years before and after the king's death. Above all, the intent is to convey some idea of the conditions in which politics have taken place in Iraq and the wider Middle East. This episode offers an opportunity to observe the clash of British and Iraqi versions of historical truth and discover, if we choose to believe the Iraqi version, an example of how British officials and British or pro‐British witnesses and historians have denied, fabricated, omitted or diverted attention from the facts.

A Case of Imported Identity: The Modernizing Secular Ruling Elites of Iraq and the Concept of Mesopotamian-Inspired Territorial Nationalism, 1922-1992

Despite the fact that some major archaeological finds were discovered in Iraq in the 1920s, the secular Iraqi political and intellectual elite of that decade all but ignored their country's pre-Islamic past, leaving it largely to the attentions of enthusiastic Westerners. In the 1930s, 1940s, and, more emphatically, the 1950s, however, the Iraqis launched an educational campaign to inform their countrymen about the significance and historical relevance of their Mesopotamian heritage, an endeavor that peaked under the Pan-Arabist Baath Party (1968-). Similarly, in the course of the seventy-odd years of the Iraqi nation-state's existence, the ruling elite's perception of the nature of the connection between contemporary Iraqis and the ancient Mesopotamians has undergone a major transformation. Some oscillations notwithstanding, with every passing decade, and with the gradual evaporation of the Hashimite hope for an early Fertile Crescent unity, this bond has increasingly come to be seen as tighter and more direct, to the exclusion of other Arabs. This article discusses the cultivation of the European concept of territorial nationalism by the modernizing, secular ruling elite of Iraq through the introduction of a Mesopotamian component into the Iraqi national pantheon, focusing predominantly on the manipulation of history.

The wars of Saddam Hussein

The underlying theme of all but one of the books listed below is the society and politics of Iraq under the rule of the Baath party, which seized power in a military coup in 1968.* All of them are concerned with the emergence of Saddam Hussein as a dominant figure in Baathist, Iraqi and Arab politics. His quest for the attainment and retention of power has been relentless. It has been accompanied by constant strife and colossal violence. Wars have been waged on many fronts to secure his position and ensure his survival. His merry-go-round wasted hundreds of thousands of lives and inflicted enormous destruction on Iraq as well as the neighbouring countries. In many ways Saddam's approach to politics and his methods of wielding power are neither peculiar nor an accident of history. It is a product of a political culture where frequent resort to violent means has remained the principal instrument for the resolution of political conflicts. The modern state of Iraq has no historical antecedents for its present territorial dimensions. The heterogeneity of its society has precluded the development of a sense of political community among its diverse constituents. Hardly any community in a conglomeration of minorities ethnic, religious, sectarian and denominational wanted the state in the form it was created. Muslims, Sunnis and Shiis, Arabs, Kurds and Turcomans, Christians and Jews entertained divergent political ends. Their new state was as artificial as the lines drawn to demarcate its

Iraqi politics and regional policies, 1945–49

The changes which took place in the Middle East in the last days of World War II, including the establishment of the Arab League and the crystallization of the Arab world as an international system, made Iraq aware of the need to formulate its regional policy. Iraq's geopolitical location on the fringes of the Arab world, as well as its lax internal structure, provided the basis for its interest in establishing cooperative relations with its stronger non-Arab neighbors, Turkey and Iran. It also strengthened the Iraqi trend toward achieving dominance in Syria and the Fertile Crescent and a status of leadership in the Arab world. An explicit expression of that trend was provided by Iraq's efforts toward domination or takeover of Syria, as well as by Nuri al-Said's initiative, raised during World War II, to establish a Fertile Crescent Federation. Between 1945 and 1949 that is, from the formation of the Arab League to the initiation of the process which was to turn the inter-Arab Middle Eastern arena into one more front of the Cold War between the Communist Bloc and the West Iraq's regional foreign policy swung back and forth between various trends, and exhibited a wealth of internal contradictions. The aim of the present article is to present the main trends of Iraq's regional foreign policy, and to examine their internal political background, during the years 1945-49. The Alexandria Conference in October 1944, and the foundation of the Arab League in January 1945, inaugurated a new stage in the interArab arena. The idea of establishing the Arab League was a component of the plans brought forward in late 1942 and early 1943 by Nuri al-Said, then Prime Minister of Iraq, who planned to exploit the conditions of World War II in order to promote the unification of the Fertile Crescent and to bring Syria into a union or federation with Iraq. Egypt's entrance into the inter-Arab arena made it into a dominant force in the area. Its size, political and cultural importance, and the human resources at its disposal, relative to the poverty, backwardness, and weakness of the other Arab countries, as well as the backing of the powerful British representation in Cairo, all helped Egypt become the strongest member of the Arab League. In this way, the moves initiated by Nuri al-Said in 1942-43, and intended to remove the obstacles preventing the

The Iran-Iraq War: Impact and Implications.

Part 1 The war and the belligerents: Iran and the war - from stalemate to ceasefire, Shahram Chubin from ideological zeal to geopolitical realism - the Islamic republic and the Gulf, Efraim Karsh Iran - doctrine and reality, David Menashri the consequences of the Iran-Iraq war for Iraqi politics, Charles Tripp Iraq - between East and West, Amazia Baram. Part 2 Regional implications: the impact on the Arab world, Itamar Rabinovich the war and the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, Robin Wright the Gulf states and the Iran-Iraq war, Barry Rubin the silent victor - Turkey's role in the Gulf war, Henri J.Barkey Israel and the Iran-Iraq war, Joseph Alpher. Part 3 The war and the world: walking tightropes in the Gulf, Thomas L.McNaugher the Soviet Union and the Iran-Iraq war, Robert S.Litwak Europe and the Iran-Iraq war, John Chipman. Part 4 The economics of war: economic implications for the region and world oil market, Eliyahu Kanovsky. Part 5 Strategic and military implications: a military-strategic overview, Chaim Herzog the arms race after the Iran-Iraq war, Geoffrey Kemp escalation in the Iran-Iraq war, Philip A.G.Sabin.

Iraqi Politics 1921–1941: The Interaction between Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy, by Ahmad A. R. Shikara. 227 pages, index, bibliography. LAAM, London 1987.

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The Shiite issue in Iraqi politics, 1941

In the April 1988 number of Middle Eastern Studies I published a despatch of December 1950 from the British Ambassador in Baghdad dealing with SunniShiite tensions and both their immediate and their more remote causes. As I wrote in the introductory note preceding the despatch, to judge by the records, the Shiite problem in Iraqi politics is hardly ever reported or discussed by British officials or representatives in Iraq. This was certainly the case in the period immediately preceding the outbreak of Anglo-Iraqi hostilities following Rashid Ali's seizure of power at the beginning of April 1941. Nor is there any evidence that in the period immediately following the collapse of Rashid Ali's movement, the British Ambassador, Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, thought it worthy of his attention. The issue, interestingly enough, was raised neither by the Foreign Office nor by the Baghdad Embassy, but by the War Office. The Foreign Office files include the copy of a telegram of 6 May 1941 sent by the War Office to the General in command of the British troops at Basra and repeated to the Commander-in-Chief, Middle East. The telegram declared:

Hakham sasson in 1949

The article which follows was found among the papers of the late Emile Marmorstein. It was published in The Jewish Chronicle on 30 December 1949 as 'By a Correspondent' under the title 'Baghdad Jewry's Leader Resigns'. It is reprinted here by kind permission of The Jewish Chronicle and of Mrs J. Marmorstein. The article deals with a critical point in the history of Baghdad Jewry, when Hakham Sasson Khadouri, the head of the Baghdad Jewish Community, resigned his position in December 1949 following a demonstration against him by members of the community the previous October. Marmorstein's article describes this event, but what is more important also discusses the little-known history of the Iraqi Jewish communal organization and politics in the preceding decades and offers a portrait of Hakham Sasson as valuable as his discussion of the communal scene. The article is a good example of Marmorstein's detailed and exact knowledge of the Baghdadi scene exemplified in the portrait of Dr Fritz Grobba printed in Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.23 No.3 (1987). The demonstration which led to Hakham Sasson's resignation was in protest against the indiscriminate and arbitrary arrests of Iraqi Jews, through which the authorities hoped to discover and break an underground Zionist network directed from Israel. A former network participant arrested in another connection led them to discover other group members. Marmorstein writes in the penultimate paragraph of his article that the Jews of Baghdad 'are attached to their homes, traditions, and the shrines of their prophets, and would not like to leave them in order to begin life once more in an immigrants' camp in Israel, where they believe, people are not particularly friendly to Oriental Jews'. These would certainly have been Hakham Sasson's sentiments, and the opposition to such views by a small, secret group of Zionist activists may have led to his downfall. There is little doubt that the views outlined by Marmorstein were prevalent at the time. However this did not prevent the swift dissolution of the community which began a few months after the publication of this article in response to a variety of powerful pressures from both Iraq and Israel pressures which the Iraqi Jews could by no means comprehend, let alone withstand, and which irresistibly led them by a snowball effect to abandon a land in which they had dwelt for two and a half millennia. Hakham Sasson was succeeded in his office by a notable, Heskel Shemtob, who served until 1953. During his tenure the ancient Baghdadi community was all but completely liquidated. Hakham Sasson thereafter resumed his post, remaining the official head of a now insignificant group until his death in 1971. Marmorstein's article was noticed in the Foreign Office in London, where a minute described it as 'singularly frank and well-founded'. The Baghdad

Book reviews: The Islamic World

The Palestine Problem in International Law and World Order. W Thomas Mallison and Sally V Mallison London: Longman. 1986. 564pp. £36.00hb Prisoners of God: The Modern‐Day Conflict of Arab and Jew. David Smith. London: Quartet. 1987. 243pp. £12.95hb Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land. David K Shipler. London: Bloomsbury. 1987. 562pp. £17.95hb Tunisia: Crossroads of the Islamic and European Worlds. Kenneth J Perkins. Boulder, Colorado: Westview/London: Croom Helm. 1986. 192pp. n/p. Habib Bourguiba, Islam and the Creation of Tunisia. Norma Salem. London: Croom Helm. 1986. 270pp. £19.95hb Iraqi Politics 1921–41: The Interaction between Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy. Ahmad Abdul Razzaq Shikara London: LAAM. 1987. 227pp. £11.95pb Iraq since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship. Marion Farouk‐Sluglett and Peter Sluglett. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1987. 332pp. £29.95hb Iraq, the Gulf States and the War: A Changing Relationship 1980–1986 and Beyond. Gerd Nonneman. London: Ithaca Press...

The Hikmat Sulayman‐Bakir Sidqi government in Iraq, 1936–37, and the Palestine question

Preoccupation with the Palestine question began to penetrate the domestic and foreign policy of Iraq in the late 1920s, and principally in the early 1930s. The awareness of the Palestine question in Baghdad, both among politicians and as part of political public opinion, was related to the antiBritish feelings aroused by nationalist elements, as well as to the increased Iraqi activity in Syria initiated in the early 1930s by King Feisal I and the pan-Arabist politicians. Identification with the Arabs of Palestine, and the Palestine question in general, became the concrete expression of the pan-Arab facet of antiBritish nationalism in Iraq. The strike and the Arab revolt of 1936 in Palestine increased the awareness of the Palestine question, both among the efendya, in Baghdad, and among those politicians of the ruling elite who supported the pan-Arab ideology or used it to strengthen their political position by enlisting the support of the new middle class. Despite the fact that public identification with the Arabs of Palestine and their claims rapidly became a yardstick used by politicians and nationalist segments of the middle class to measure nationalism, awareness of and sympathy toward the Palestine question remained characteristic of a relatively limited stratum in Baghdad and the other large cities. Most of those who favored pan-Arabism and identified with the Arabs of Palestine were, in fact, members of the middle class, concentrated in Baghdad, and comprised but a small minority compared with the largely tribaVrural population of Iraq. At the same time, the pan-Arabists were noted for their political consciousness and involvement, and their place in Iraqi society and politics soon made them extremely influential, due to their role in education, administration, the military, and the press. The politicians of the ruling elite used pan-Arab, anti-British nationalist slogans in their efforts to enlist the support of the efendyas, in order both to strengthen their own position and to undermine that of their rivals, in the framework of the personal power struggles. This enlistment of support by means of pan-Arab slogans, in addition to the influence exerted by panArab activists on the education system and the press, made the Palestine question something of a fixture in Iraqi politics. The Arab strike and revolt in Palestine in 1936 marked a turning point in the nature of the JewishArab conflict in Palestine, and in the involvement of the Arab world in events taking place in that country. In 1936, the government was headed by Yasin al-Hashimi, considered a heroic leader in pan-Arab circles, and expected to become the Bismarck of the Arab world. In fact, however, al-Hashimi, despite his nationalist, anti-British image, did his best to stay on good terms with Britain and to

Islam in the Political Process

Contributors Preface 1. Introduction James P. Piscatori 2. In the Pharaoh's shadow: religion and authority in Egypt Fouad Ajami 3. Islam and politics in the Sudan Alexander S. Cudsi 4. Ideological politics in Saudi Arabia James P. Piscatori 5. The Islamic factor in Syrian and Iraqi politics Michael C. Hudson 6. Popular Puritanism versus state reformism: Islam in Algeria Jean-Claude Vatin 7. Sufi politics in Senegal Donal B. Cruise O'Brien 8. Religion and politics in modern Turkey Serif Mardin 9. Iran: Khumayni's concept of the 'Guardianship of the Jurisconsult' Hamid Enayat 10. The politics of Islam and Islamization in Pakistan David Taylor 11. Faith as the outsider: Islam in Indonesian politics Ruth McVey 12. Conclusion Albert Hourani Index.

Majid Khadduri, Socialist Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics since 1968 (Washington, D.C.: The Middle East Institute, 1978). Pp. x, 265.

Majid Khadduri, Socialist Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics since 1968 (Washington, D.C.: The Middle East Institute, 1978). Pp. x, 265.

Majid Khadduri. Socialist Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics Since 1968. Washington, D.C.: The Middle East Institute, 1978. 181 pp. Appendices, notes, bibliography.

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Socialist Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics Since 1968

Socialist Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics Since 1968