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FOREWORD
Iraq, once ancient Mesopotamia, has been in the forefront of world events for several decades. However, the image of our country often has not accurately reflected the history and reality of this region which, located at the nexus of three continents, has been a crossroad of civilizations and exchanges between different cultures since ancient times.
Mirella Galletti, with her great heart and sensitivity, has dedicated her academic career to the study and research of Iraq including the Kurdish issue. In her book, this devoted scholar consolidates and summarizes her almost forty years of experience and field work to share her immense knowledge with a wider international public.
The work is a global overview of Iraq and its history, cultures, languages, religions, political system, economics, cuisine and much more. Readers will no doubt find it an indispensable tool to familiarize them with our country and learn about its greatness as a nation which despite the terrible suffering it has endured has maintained its dignity and soul.
Modern Iraq, which was created in 1921 and achieved independence and membership in the League of Nations in 1932, quickly built a strong identity and a highly-developed constitutional monarchy. However, successive coup d’états soon occurred ending the monarchy and culminating with Iraq falling under the yoke of the Resurrection National Socialist Party (Ba‘th) in 1968. This movement transferred the government into an instrument of totalitarianism and state terror. The civil war, which had started earlier in 1961 between the Kurds and the central government similarly caused great suffering throughout Iraq’s modern history.
To crush the Kurdish revolution in 1975 Saddam Hussein conceded to the Shah of Iran half of the Shatt al-‘Arab. In 1980 this agreement with Iran was rescinded which, in part, triggered a bloody war lasting over eight years. In 1990 Saddam invaded neighbouring Kuwait before being driven back by a U.N. backed international coalition in 1991. In 2003 the regime was toppled by an American lead coalition and a constitution and new institutions of government were created to replace the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
During its tenure, the Ba‘thist regime used weapons of mass destruction against its own people and neighbours and devastated the country’s economy under the crushing weight of war debt. Millions of its citizens were killed or disabled by systematic violence, and millions more were forced to flee the wars and brutal repression and seek refuge in other countries.
After the 2003 liberation, this wounded country experienced new problems when insurgency and sectarian violence accelerated. This was driven by remnants of the defeated Saddam regime and extremists, and to some extent exacerbated by elements in neighbouring countries who feared the success of the new democracy and the risk of contagion. Assistance and encouragement was thus given to the obscurantist and extreme fundamentalist forces seeking to undo the creation of the new Iraq.
Against great odds and under conditions of extreme hardship it can now be said this long-suffering nation has succeeded in defeating the challenge to its existence. Organized and fair elections have been conducted to approve a liberal constitution, create a government and legitimize a new nation. This federal and democratic State which has emerged from the ashes of old Iraq is now ready to take its place in the community of nations.
Indeed our proud country which invented writing, agriculture, law and is the product of cultural interactions between so many ancient civilizations is ready to be great again. With our large reserves of oil and other natural resources, our fertile soil, our plains, mountains, deserts and great rivers, our people will continue in a spirit of generosity and courage to rebuild our nation and showcase our achievements as an example of coexistence and openness.
Our multiplicity of faiths, languages, peoples and cultures which have left such a huge footprint on world history will contribute to the rebirth of our country. This diversity has always been our strength, and the mutual respect between Muslims (Shiite and Sunni), Christians, Yazidis, Mandaeans and other religions, as well as between Arabs, Kurds, Assyrian-Chaldeans, Turkmen, will demonstrate to the world that we can all live together.
As we face the future we should celebrate our diversity and remember that in denying our religious, cultural and linguistic heterogeneity we impoverish our soul and diminish the spirit of our nation.
H.E. Dr Saywan Barzani
Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to the Italian Republic August 8, 2011
Preface
The Republic of Iraq is represented in Rome by two ambassadors from two leading families who have played an integral part of the history of the nation.
H.E. Dr Saywan Barzani is the ambassador to the Italian Republic. He was born in the mountainous northern region of Kurdistan Iraq, in Erbil province. Like many Iraqis, he experienced exile in Iran and later studied in France where he completed his doctorate studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. His grandfather Mala Mustafa Barzani was the legendary leader of the Kurdish Revolution. Saber Barzani, the Ambassador’s father, was killed by the Ba‘thist regime together with thirty-eight members of his family and eight thousand men from the Barzan region in 1983.
H.E. Habeeb Mohammed Hadi al-Sadr is the ambassador to the Holy See. He was born in the holy city of Karbala, from the most important Shiite Arab family. The al-Sadr family has paid a very high blood price under the Ba'thist regime. The Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister Bint al-Huda were among the martyrs killed in 1980 and the Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was assassinated with his two sons in 1999.
These two ambassadors presented their credentials to the Quirinale and to the Vatican in the summer of 2010. It is a great honour for Italy to host the members of the two most representative families of the new Iraq, two families which have lived for centuries in harmony with their own territory and people, and whose importance goes beyond national borders.
For me their appointment far more than a dream come true. For too many decades in Italy, Europe and the world, Realpolitik imposed silence on the massacres and genocides committed in Iraq. A small group of people have tried to keep alive the fight against this system of collusion and horrors as well as rekindle the memory of the martyrs. Since the fall of that bloodthirsty regime, the linking between old and new terrorism is making the Iraqi people pay a high price in blood.
The new democratic and pluralist Iraq fuels the hope that the people from Iraq and its institutions can finally live in peace and prosperity. This book aims to relate the present to the past, and to the epochal upheavals suffered by Iraq over the millennia. But Iraq has always risen again from its ruins and the light of its civilization still enlightens our hearts and minds.
For his support, cooperation and friendship I deeply thank H.E. Dr Saywan Barzani who entrusted me with such a prestigious task. I also extend my sincer gratitude to H.E. Habeeb Mohammed Hadi al-Sadr as well as the entire staff of the Embassy of Iraq in Rome, the First Secretary of the Italian Embassy in Baghdad Dr. Nicola Bazzano, the Department of Oriental Studies and the Department of Anthropological, Archaeological and Historical Sciences of the University of Turin.
I am also grateful to Robert Pingeon for his invaluable editing of this book.
Mirella Galletti
Part One
Chapter 1
Geography, population, resources
Iraq is one of thè key countries of thè Near and Middle East: for its centrai position, thè size of its population (30 million), thè water resources of its two rivers, thè Tigris and thè Euphrates, its oil reserves place it second in thè world, and its important bureaucratic apparatus. Iraq is thè only Arab state to have a large population, and extensive oil and water resources.
The first civilization in thè Near East was born in ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians were well established by 4500 B.C. and invented thè first cuneiform writing towards thè end of thè fourth millennium. Sargon of Akkad founded thè world’s first multiethnic empire including Mesopotamia and thè Near East in thè 23rd century. Assyria then ruled thè Near East as far as Egypt from thè ninth to thè seventh century B.C. Alexander thè Great occupied Mesopotamia (334-327 B.C.) which, after thè brief Hellenistic period, was governed by thè Parthians.
The Romans and thè Parthians fought for thè conquest of thè region which, despite Hadrian’s and Septimius Severus’s campaigns, remained largely alien to thè Roman conquest and was then incorporated into thè Sasanid Empire.
The swift seventh century Arab conquest was made easier by an earlier infiltration of nomadic peoples from thè southern steppe regions. Islam gave Mesopotamia five centuries of splendour and thè whole world links its greatness also to thè legendary Baghdad of The Thousand and One Nights, thè magnificence of thè Abbasid dynasty and thè character of Caliph Harun al-Rashid (ca. 763-809).
Geography
In Mesopotamia, «thè land between thè rivers», thè mighty Tigris and thè Euphrates flow towards thè Gulf. After thè break-up of thè Ottoman Empire in 1920, Mesopotamia took thè ancient name of Iraq.
Its borders (about 3713 km), largely artificially drawn by thè great European powers after World War I, are potentially conducive to conflicts. Iraq borders on thè North with Turkey (352 km), on thè East with Iran (1458 km), on thè South with Kuwait (240 km), on thè South-West with Saudi Arabia (814 km), on thè West with Jordan (181 km) and Syria (605 km), while its South-Eastern border overlooks thè Gulf (63 km).
Border demarcation was not often followed by effective arrangements necessary to ensure thè sovereignty of neighboring States. For this reason, Iraq has lived in a state of permanent conflict. Given thè complexity and thè relevance of this topic, please see chapter 5, «Iraq in thè 20th centuiy», under thè section «Saddam’s legacy: a destroyed and mutilated country».
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