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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
When the Baath Party came to power in 1968, relations between
Iraq and the West were strained. The Baathists believed that most
Western countries, and particularly the United States, opposed
the goal of Arab unity. The Baathists viewed the 1948 partition
of Palestine and the creation of Israel as evidence of an
imperialist plot to keep the Arabs divided. Refusal to recognize
Israel and support for the reestablishment of Palestine
consequently became central tenets of Baath ideology. The party
based Iraq's relations with other countries on those countries'
attitudes toward the Palestinian issue. The Soviet Union, which
had supported the Arabs during the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War and
again during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, was regarded as
having an acceptable position on the Palestine issue. Thus, the
Baath cultivated relations with Moscow to counter the perceived
hostility of the United States.
In 1972 the Baathist regime signed a Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation with the Soviet Union. Article 1 stated that the
treaty's objective was to develop broad cooperation between Iraq
and the Soviet Union in economic, trade, scientific, technical,
and other fields on the basis of "respect for sovereignty,
territorial integrity and non-interference in one another's
internal affairs." Under the treaty, Iraq obtained extensive
technical assistance and military equipment from the Soviet
Union.
Despite the importance that both the Bakr and the Saddam
Husayn governments attached to the relationship with the Soviet
Union, they were reluctant to have Iraq become too closely
entangled with the Soviet Union or with its sphere of influence.
Ideologically, the Baath Party espoused nonalignment vis-a-vis
the superpower rivalry, and the party perceived Iraq as being
part of the Nonaligned Movement. Indeed, as early as 1974, the
more pragmatic elements in the party advocated broadening
relations with the West to counterbalance those with the East and
to ensure that Iraq maintained a genuine nonaligned status. The
dramatic increase in oil revenues following the December 1973
quadrupling of prices by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) provided the government with the financial
resources to expand economic relations with numerous private and
public enterprises in Western Europe, Japan, and the United
States. Iraq also was able to diversify its source of weapons by
purchasing arms from France.
The major impetus for Iraq's retreat from its close
relationship with the Soviet Union was not economic, despite
Iraq's increasing commercial ties with the West, but political.
Iraqis were shocked by the December 1979 Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, and Saddam Husayn's government took a lead among the
Arab states in condemning the invasion. Additional strain was
placed on Iraqi-Soviet relations in the fall of 1980, when the
Soviet Union cut off arms shipments to Iraq (and to Iran) as part
of its efforts to induce a cease-fire. This action angered Saddam
Husayn and his colleagues, because Iraq had already paid more
than US$1 billion dollars for the interdicted weapons. Although
Moscow resumed arms supplies to Iraq in the summer of 1982,
following the Iranian advance into Iraqi territory, Iraqi leaders
remained bitter over the initial halt.
Despite Iraq's apparent ambivalence about its relationship
with the Soviet Union, in early 1988 relations remained correct.
The Soviets were still the main source of weapons for the Iraqi
military, a fact that restrained public criticism. Nevertheless,
the Saddam Husayn government generally suspected that the Soviet
Union was more interested in gaining influence in Iran than in
preserving its friendship with Iraq. Consequently, Iraqi leaders
were skeptical of Soviet declarations that Moscow was trying to
persuade Iran to agree to a cease-fire. They expressed
disappointment in late 1987 that the Soviet Union had not exerted
sufficient pressure upon Iran to force it to cooperate with the
UN Security Council cease-fire resolution of July 1987.
Data as of May 1988
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