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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
Calif's head that appears as an ornament on
golden harp from Ur, ca. 2500 B.C.
IRAQ, A REPUBLIC since the 1958 coup d'etat that ended the reign
of King Faisal II, became a sovereign, independent state in 1932.
Although the modern state, the Republic of Iraq, is quite young,
the history of the land and its people dates back more than 5,000
years. Indeed, Iraq contains the world's richest known
archaeological sites. Here, in ancient Mesopotamia (the land
between the rivers), the first civilization--that of Sumer--
appeared in the Near East. Despite the millennium separating the
two epochs, Iraqi history displays a continuity shaped by
adaptation to the ebbings and flowings of the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers (in Arabic, the Dijlis and Furat, respectively).
Allowed to flow unchecked, the rivers wrought destruction in
terrible floods that inundated whole towns. When the rivers were
controlled by irrigation dikes and other waterworks, the land
became extremely fertile.
The dual nature of the Tigris and the Euphrates--their
potential to be destructive or productive--has resulted in two
distinct legacies found throughout Iraqi history. On the one
hand, Mesopotamia's plentiful water resources and lush river
valleys allowed for the production of surplus food that served as
the basis for the civilizing trend begun at Sumer and preserved
by rulers such as Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.), Cyrus (550-530
B.C.), Darius (520-485 B.C.), Alexander (336-323 B.C.), and the
Abbasids (750-1258). The ancient cities of Sumer, Babylon, and
Assyria all were located in what is now Iraq. Surplus food
production and joint irrigation and flood control efforts
facilitated the growth of a powerful and expanding state.
Mesopotamia could also be an extremely threatening
environment, however, driving its peoples to seek security from
the vicissitudes of nature. Throughout Iraqi history, various
groups have formed autonomous, self-contained social units.
Allegiance to ancient religious deities at Ur and Eridu,
membership in the Shiat Ali (or party of Ali, the small group of
followers that supported Ali ibn Abu Talib as rightful leader of
the Islamic community in the seventh century), residence in the
asnaf (guilds) or the mahallat (city quarters) of
Baghdad under the Ottoman Turks, membership in one of a multitude
of tribes--such efforts to build autonomous security-providing
structures have exerted a powerful centrifugal force on Iraqi
culture.
Two other factors that have inhibited political
centralization are the absence of stone and Iraq's geographic
location as the eastern flank of the Arab world. For much of
Iraqi history, the lack of stone has severely hindered the
building of roads. As a result, many parts of the country have
remained beyond government control. Also, because it borders nonArab Turkey and Iran and because of the great agricultural
potential of its river valley, Iraq has attracted waves of
ethnically diverse migrations. Although this influx of people has
enriched Iraqi culture, it also has disrupted the country's
internal balance and has led to deep-seated schisms.
Throughout Iraqi history, the conflict between political
fragmentation and centralization has been reflected in the
struggles among tribes and cities for the food-producing
flatlands of the river valleys. When a central power neglected to
keep the waterworks in repair, land fell into disuse, and tribes
attacked settled peoples for precious and scarce agricultural
commodities. For nearly 600 years, between the collapse of the
Abbasid Empire in the thirteenth century and the waning years of
the Ottoman era in the late nineteenth century, government
authority was tenuous and tribal Iraq was, in effect, autonomous.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Iraq's disconnected,
and often antagonistic, ethnic, religious, and tribal social
groups professed little or no allegiance to the central
government. As a result, the all-consuming concern of
contemporary Iraqi history has been the forging of a nation-state
out of this diverse and conflict-ridden social structure and the
concomitant transformation of parochial loyalties, both tribal
and ethnic, into a national identity.
Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, the
tanzimat reforms (an administrative and legal
reorganization of the Ottoman Empire), the emergence of private
property, and the tying of Iraq to the world capitalist market
severely altered Iraq's social structure. Tribal
shaykhs (see Glossary)
traditionally had provided both spiritual leadership
and tribal security. Land reform and increasing links with the
West transformed many shaykhs into profit-seeking landlords,
whose tribesmen became impoverished sharecroppers. Moreover, as
Western economic penetration increased, the products of Iraq's
once-prosperous craftsmen were displaced by machine-made British
textiles.
During the twentieth century, as the power of tribal Iraq
waned, Baghdad benefited from the rise of a centralized
governmental apparatus, a burgeoning bureaucracy, increased
educational opportunities, and the growth of the oil industry.
The transformation of the urban-tribal balance resulted in a
massive rural-to-urban migration. The disruption of existing
parochial loyalties and the rise of new class relations based on
economics fueled frequent tribal rebellions and urban uprisings
during much of the twentieth century.
Iraq's social fabric was in the throes of a destabilizing
transition in the first half of the twentieth century. At the
same time, because of its foreign roots, the Iraqi political
system suffered from a severe legitimacy crisis. Beginning with
its League of Nations Mandate in 1920, the British government had
laid out the institutional framework for Iraqi government and
politics. Britain imposed a Hashimite (also seen as Hashemite)
monarchy, defined the territorial limits of Iraq with little
correspondence to natural frontiers or traditional tribal and
ethnic settlements, and influenced the writing of a constitution
and the structure of parliament. The British also supported
narrowly based groups--such as the tribal shaykhs--over the
growing, urban-based nationalist movement, and resorted to
military force when British interests were threatened, as in the
1941 Rashid Ali coup.
Between 1918 and 1958, British policy in Iraq had farreaching effects. The majority of Iraqis were divorced from the
political process, and the process itself failed to develop
procedures for resolving internal conflicts other than rule by
decree and the frequent use of repressive measures. Also, because
the formative experiences of Iraq's post-1958 political
leadership centered around clandestine opposition activity,
decision making and government activity in general have been
veiled in secrecy. Furthermore, because the country lacks deeply
rooted national political institutions, political power
frequently has been monopolized by a small elite, the members of
which are often bound by close family or tribal ties.
Between the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958 and the
emergence of Saddam Husayn in the mid-1970s, Iraqi history was a
chronicle of conspiracies, coups, countercoups, and fierce
Kurdish uprisings. Beginning in 1975, however, with the signing
of the Algiers Agreement--an agreement between Saddam Husayn and
the shah of Iran that effectively ended Iranian military support
for the Kurds in Iraq--Saddam Husayn was able to bring Iraq an
unprecedented period of stability. He effectively used rising oil
revenues to fund large-scale development projects, to increase
public sector employment, and significantly to improve education
and health care. This tied increasing numbers of Iraqis to the
ruling Baath (Arab Socialist Resurrection) Party. As a result,
for the first time in contemporary Iraqi history, an Iraqi leader
successfully forged a national identity out of Iraq's diverse
social structure. Saddam Husayn's achievements and Iraq's general
prosperity, however, did not survive long. In September 1980,
Iraqi troops crossed the border into Iran, embroiling the country
in a costly war
(see
fig. 1).
Data as of May 1988
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