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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
Like most developing states, but perhaps to a greater extent
because of internal schisms, Iraq was plagued with insecurity and
with political instability after independence in 1932. When
Britain and France redrew boundaries throughout the Middle East
following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after World War
I, the region that eventually became Iraq (under the Sykes-Picot
Agreement) included a wide variety of ethnic and religious groups
with little sense of national unity
(see World War I and the British Mandate
, ch. 1). The absence of nation-building elements
encouraged various sectors of Iraqi society to oppose the
establishment of central authority, often for personal and
ideological reasons. Consequently, clandestine activities against
the state's budding political and military institutions
threatened Iraq's political leaders. Insecurity arising from
domestic opposition to the state was compounded by Iraq's longstanding isolation from neighboring countries because of
ideological rivalries, ethnic and religious differences, and
competition for influence in the Persian Gulf. The Iraqi
political agenda was further burdened in the late 1970s by the
newly inherited Arab leadership role that came with Egypt's
isolation in the wake of the Camp David Accords and the ensuing
separate Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty.
The Baath Party that ruled Iraq in early 1988 came to power
in July 1968 determined to restore order to a country where
political turmoil was the norm
(see The Emergence of Saddam Husayn, 1968-79
, ch. 1). Despite several coup attempts during the
intervening twenty years, notably in 1970 and in 1973, the Baath
successfully ended the political turbulence of the 1950s and the
1960s. Yet, this level of stability was achieved only through
harsh methods imposed by an increasingly disciplined, if
intolerant, party. Antistate conspirators, including fellow
Baathists, were rushed into exile, were kept under house arrest,
or were executed. Actual or alleged coup attempts were forcefully
put down and were followed by systematic purges of the
bureaucracy and the armed forces; moreover, the party's vigilance
on internal security was supported by a thorough indoctrination
program to gain and to maintain formerly uncertain loyalties,
both within the armed forces and in the civilian population.
Baathist success in maintaining internal security resulted
partly from its 1975 limited victory against the Kurds
(see The People
, ch. 2;
Internal Security
, this ch.). The Iraqi-Iranian
border agreement of March 1975, subsequently formalized in the
Baghdad Treaty in June 1975, resolved a number of disputes
between the two states. Its provisions ended Iranian support for
Iraqi Kurds, whose struggles for autonomy had troubled Iraqi
governments since 1932. Bolstered by this limited success,
Baghdad adopted a variety of measures in the succeeding decade in
order to emerge from its political isolation and assert its
strategic value. The 1970s closed under a cloud of insecurity,
however, as the Baathists took stock of the revolutionary Islamic
regime in Tehran. Threatened by Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi
Khomeini's repeated calls to Iraqi Shias to follow in the Iranian
people's footsteps by overthrowing usurpers of power, the
Baathist leadership embarked on an adventurous war. Seven years
later, Baghdad was nowhere near its objective, and it was
struggling to avoid a military defeat. Nevertheless, the Baath
Party continued to maintain its influence in Iraq throughout the
early and mid-1980s. For the most part, the Revolutionary Command
Council (RCC) and its chairman, President Saddam Husayn (also
seen as Hussein), maintained their political positions through
repressive means and by what was justified as a defensive Iraqi
war against a perceived threat. Foreign observers believed that
the government remained vulnerable to challenges to its authority
the lack of any legitimate means of political dissent because of
and because of the reverberations of a war of attrition with
mounting casualties.
Iraq had enjoyed a relatively favorable national security
situation in the late 1970s, but practically all its perceived
politico-military gains were lost after it attacked Iran in 1980,
and in 1988 Iraq faced serious economic and military
difficulties.
Data as of May 1988
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