Iraq Under Qassem
Uriel Dann
Israel Universities Press
Ever since Iraq attained statehood in 1920, its leaders have had to contend with powerful forces of fragmentation. These have operated in the past and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Their cumulative effect up to the revolution of 1958 will be briefly analyzed in this Introduction.
Iraq is not a geopolitical unit. The country is divided into three sharply defined geographical areas. The valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, river-irrigated and containing some of the most fertile agricultural soil on earth, opens towards the Indian Ocean; it is from here that British influence, ultimately leading to British occupation, penetrated. The mountains of the north and the north-east, rain-fed and poor of soil, adjoin the Armenian Knot which fans out east and west, towards Turkey and Iran, as well as southwards. The steppes of the west, arid and scarcely habitable, merge by degrees into the Mediterranean hinterland towards the north and Arabia in the south.
There is no “Iraqi nation”, nor is there a tradition of cooperation to cement the various communities. This heterogeneity has had a decisive effect on the political life of the country.
The leading political element in Iraq are the Sunni Arabs who populate ...
Contents
Foreword / xiii
Preface / xv
introduction: Iraq 1958 / 1
Part one: the founding of the republic and
The Nationalist Challenge
1: The Antecedents of the Coup / 19
2: The Takeover / 28
3: The Consolidation / 33
4: The Social Promise / 54
5: The Views and Beliefs of Qassem / 62
6: The Prospect of “Unity Now” / 69
7: The Role of ‘Abd al-Salam Aref / 77
Part Two: The Communist Challenge
8: The Communist Build-up before Aref’s Arrest / 93
9: From Aref s Arrest to Shawwaf s Revolt the Communist Advance / 108
10: A Nationalist Interlude—Rashid ‘All’s Plot / 127
11: Non-Communist Forces and the Regime / 136
12: From Arefs Arrest to Shawwaf s Revolt-Relations with the Uar / 156
13: The Shawwaf Revolt / 164
14: The High Tide of Communism: The Backlash of the Revolt / 178
15: The High Tide of Communism: The “National” Parties and Organizations / 195
16: The Approaching Crisis / 204
17: Climax and Break / 223
Part three: the constitutional challenge
18: In Anticipation of Party Activity / 237
19: The Attempt on Qassem’s Life / 253
20: The Associations Law / 265
21: The Communist Movement under the Associations Law / 269
22: The Constitutionalists under the Associations Law / 291
23: The Kurds under the Associations Law / 297
24: The Religious Parties under the Associations Law / 300
25: The Government and the Constitutional Experiment / 304
Part four: decay and death
26: The Political Paralysis / 311
27: The Kurdish War / 332
28: Foreign Affairs / 348
29: The Last Stages / 356
30: The 14th Ramadan Coup / 362
Conclusion / 373
Appendix : The Organization of the Iraqi Communist Party / 379
Sources / 381
Index of Persons / 389
General Index / 397
Maps : Iraq
Landmarks of Qassem’s Baghdad
FOREWORD
In the contemporary Arab world power is pursued, legitimized and employed in ways which often call to mind precedents from other parts of the world. However, these analogies, and the terminologies they suggest, have so far contributed very little to an explanation of phenomena in Arab politics. Nor have the simplistic, highly polarized terms in which the Arabs themselves tend to describe their politics offered much insight into the problem. Surprisingly enough, terms like “Revolutionaries” versus “Reactionaries”, “People” versus “Feudalists and Monopolists” and “Arab Nationalists” versus “Imperialist Stooges” were sometimes adopted uncritically outside the Arab world as well and employed either in their crude forms or in more polished terms. Yet, with the march of events, as one coup d’etat follows the other, and worn-out political slogans give way to new ones, the inadequacy of the popular formulas (most of which had been conceived in the 1950’s under the impact of the rise of Nasserism) become apparent, and a re-examination of Arab politics is called for.
It becomes evident that whatever new approaches to this subject are to emerge, we shall have to rely on a better knowledge of the realities of Arab politics. Thus a need is felt for more monographs written by well-informed scholars on the various aspects and phases of political developments in the Arab states.
It was this realization which motivated the founders of the Reuven Shiloah Research Center, headed by Mr Yitzhak Oron its animating spirit and first director, to initiate the research programme which has since been occupying the central place in the Center’s rapidly expanding activities. Thus, it was not by chance that the first subject chosen for the
Monograph Series was Qassem’s regime as a case study in Arab revolutions.
It is fitting that Dr Uriel Dann of our Center, whose discipline is political history and whose expertise is the contemporary Fertile Crescent should have devoted himself to this subject. His work, the Center hopes, will serve all those who seek a fuller understanding of Middle Eastern affairs.
Reuven Shiloah Research Center,
Tel Aviv University, August, 1968
Shimon Shami
PREFACE
The subtitle of this study points to a deliberate limitation. The term “political” has been interpreted narrowly to express the nature of the overt and non-violent struggle for supremacy in the state, waged by personalities and groups whose public raison d’etre is to achieve that supremacy by overt and non-violent means. That the present tale is so often of conspiracy and violence is a product of the Iraqi condition, which I have tried to analyse as well as to describe. But to recount these developments is not the purpose of this work, nor do they form its main burden. Following this interpretation of politics, the foreign affairs of Iraq under Qassem also assume a secondary role. They are related, as far as feasible, to the internal struggle for power. Economic and social matters are treated similarly, although their general importance is realized.
Still, politics in this restricted sense remains the most significant aspect of the Iraqi scene between 1958 and 1963. The 1958 revolution opened a new chapter in the modem history of the country. It cleared the ring for a contest where each of the forces which had welcomed the change might hope to achieve its own aims, distinct from, and generally incompatible with, those of the others. This contest is the theme of the present work.
The structure of the work has been facilitated by a chance fact of history: the forces that challenged Qassem’s government developed their impetus in succession. It has therefore been possible to observe a thematic division without disturbing the chronological sequence. Some inconsistencies are apparent rather than real. Thus, for instance, the “Nationalist Interlude” of Rashid ‘All’s plot was mainly a response to the “Communist Challenge”, already the major force by the end of 1958, and is therefore included under that heading. The same criterion applies with even greater pertinence to the Shawwaf revolt.
The most important source for this work has been the contemporary Iraqi press and radio. The former, in particular, is rewarding, not merely for the provision of facts, but for the disclosure of trends and forces in operation. Interviews have been used, but the necessity for anonymity has generally restricted their scope to details of background. The one important exception is acknowledged below.
The Arabic transliteration is that adopted by the University of London Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Exceptions are place names which are rendered as on Bartholomew’s Map of the Middle East, Edinburgh, 1956, and the names of a number of well-known personalities, such as of Qassem himself, [‘Abd al-Salam] Aref, Abdel Nasser and King Hussein.
More friends and colleagues have helped me than I can mention by name. Professor Gabriel Baer of the Hebrew University (who supervised my Ph.D. thesis on which the present work has been based), Professor Elie Kedourie of the London School of Economics and Mr Yitzhak Oron, director of the Reuven Shiloah Research Center while this work was being written, have contributed criticism and advice on many points of detail as well as on the broader issues. My debt to them is great. My teacher, Professor J. L. Talmon, and Dr J. M. Landau, both of the Hebrew University, have read the manuscript and made important suggestions, as did Dr Shimon Shamir, head of the Department of the History of the Middle East and Africa, Tel Aviv University, and the present director of the Reuven Shiloah Research Center. Mr Y. Kojaman of Jerusalem has generously put at my disposal his wide knowledge of communist affairs in Iraq. Dr R. Gabbay, Dr A. Kapeliuk, Professor W. Laqueur, Mr M. Lubowski, Mr N. Rejwan and Mr H. Shaked obtained material for me which I might never have had access to otherwise. Mrs Y. E. Glikson amended the English and offered constructive comment throughout. Mr U. Davis has compiled the index, and Mrs L. Jareh typed the manuscript. To all these I am grateful indeed. The Morning Star, London, The Jerusalem Post Jerusalem, and Al Hamishmar, Bamahaneh, Dvar Hashavua, Haaretz, Lamerhav, Maariv and Yedioth Aharonoth, of Tel-Aviv, have kindly permitted me to use pictures from their archives. I also thank the publishers for their help at every stage. The opinions put forward, and any errors, are my own.
Tel Aviv University,
December, 1968
Uriel Dann
Introduction
Iraq, 1958
Ever since Iraq attained statehood in 1920, its leaders have had to contend with powerful forces of fragmentation. These have operated in the past and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Their cumulative effect up to the revolution of 1958 will be briefly analyzed in this Introduction.
Iraq is not a geopolitical unit. The country is divided into three sharply defined geographical areas. The valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, river-irrigated and containing some of the most fertile agricultural soil on earth, opens towards the Indian Ocean; it is from here that British influence, ultimately leading to British occupation, penetrated. The mountains of the north and the north-east, rain-fed and poor of soil, adjoin the Armenian Knot which fans out east and west, towards Turkey and Iran, as well as southwards. The steppes of the west, arid and scarcely habitable, merge by degrees into the Mediterranean hinterland towards the north and Arabia in the south.
There is no “Iraqi nation”, nor is there a tradition of cooperation to cement the various communities. This heterogeneity has had a decisive effect on the political life of the country.
The leading political element in Iraq are the Sunni Arabs who populate the river valley from the vicinity of Baghdad northwards up to the foothills and the Syrian frontier. They have held the lion’s share in government as far back as the Ottoman conquest in the sixteenth century, as the rulers at Constantinople had to rely on the cooperation of their co-sectaries against the ever-present threat from Shi‘i Persia. The emergence of an Iraqi state made no difference; an example of Sunni preeminence is that Sunni Arabs headed all but five of the fifty-nine Cabinets before the 1958 revolution. That this virtually ruling community is a minority group, constituting at most one-quarter of the country’s population, furnishes a key to understanding the perennial difficulties which beset Iraq. The affinity of the Sunni Arabs with the bulk of the Arab world by virtue of their geographical position and cultural traditions makes them the backbone of pan-Arab nationalism in the country.
The largest community is that of the Shi’i Arabs, settled from Baghdad southwards and constituting about half the population. Prima facie they might have formed the nucleus for a distinct Iraqi nation; they are separated from their neighbours in Iran both through language and by centuries of political history; they form a distinctive unit by contrast with the Arabic-speaking population to the north by virtue of their sectarianism, and with the nomadic tribes to the south in their way of life. In fact, they ...
Uriel Dann
Iraq Under Qassem
A Political History, 1958-1963
Israel Universities Press
Israel Universities Press
Iraq Under Qassem
A Political History, 1958-1963
Uriel Dann
Reuven Shiloah Research Center
Tel Aviv University
Praeger - Pall Mall
Published in the United States of America in 1969 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc.,
Publishers 111 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003
Published in Great Britain in 1969 by Pall Mall Press
5, Cromwell Place, London, S.W. 7
Published in Israel by Israel Universities Press,
Jerusalem, Israel. 1969.
©Uriel Dann, Jerusalem, 1969
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-54317
SBN: 269 67064 5
This book has been composed and
printed at the Israel Program for
Scientific Translations, Jerusalem,
Israel; 1969.
The Reuven Shiloah Research Center forms a part of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. Its main purpose is to contribute, by research, to the expansion of knowledge and understanding of the modern history and current affairs, both political and social, of the Middle East and Africa; emphasis is laid on fields where Israel scholarship is in a position to make specialized contributions.
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