Dictatorship, Imperialism and Chaos

Iraq since 1989

Thabit A J Abdullah

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781848134997
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Since 1989 the history of Iraq has been one of the world's most traumatic. In this book, Thabit Abdullah places the Iraqi people at the centre of changes which began with the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and ended with the current American-led occupation. Battles for control of oil, the vacuum created by Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and the devastating impact of sanctions have wreaked havoc on Iraqi society over the past two decades. Abdullah argues that current ethnic tensions and religious divisions are a response to this destruction of civil society, rather than a consequence of having 'artificial' borders, inherent in Iraq's very existence. This powerful and often moving account provides a uniquely measured insight into the recent political and social history of Iraq. It is an ideal introduction for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of this important and controversial nation.

1 | The rise of the modern state

The history of the state in the land of Iraq (ancient Mesopotamia) dates back to the dawn of human civilization around 3500 BCE. It was there that humans first established cities with laws regulating the increasingly complex relationships between the rulers and their subjects. By the end of the second millennium BCE, these city-states were gradually unified under several successive empires beginning with the Old Babylonian and ending with the Persian Sassanian. The most important determinant in the rise of the ancient state in Iraq was the existence of the two great rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. Not only were they the chief source of economic surplus but, more crucially, the two rivers also facilitated communication and social interaction which, in turn, led to interdependence and a degree of cultural affinity all along the river valleys. But topography rarely has a one-sided impact on social development since the two rivers were also the cause for divisions among the various peoples of Mesopotamia. In addition to competition between cities over water and land, limited land proprietorship gave rise to class tensions which, at times, broke out in violent peasant uprisings. Yet, perhaps the most unsettling impact on the cohesiveness of Mesopotamian society came from outside. Attracted by the great agricultural wealth of the land, or perhaps because of its central location, the country witnessed periodic waves of mass migrations. Whether peaceful or through violent conquests, these migrations constantly injected new social and cultural norms which were destabilizing but also brought about a sense of dynamism and progressive change to Iraqi society. For these reasons, Iraq remained, throughout its long history, a land inhabited by a highly heterogeneous population brought together by the two rivers.

Arab Islamic rule

In 636 CE, one such invasion was to prove decisive in the formation of the modern Iraqi identity. In that year, an army of Arab tribesmen, united by the new religion of Islam, defeated the main force of the Sassanian Empire and took the capital of Ctesiphon on the Tigris river.¹ In time, most Iraqis came to adopt both the Arabic language and the Islamic religion as their own, a condition that has remained unchanged in contemporary times. During the ninth and most of the tenth centuries, Iraq witnessed what can arguably be called a golden period as it became the center of a massive Muslim empire stretching from northern India and central Asia to Morocco and the Sudan. Under the effective rule of the first two centuries of the Abbasid dynasty (750–945), the country enjoyed great prosperity, cultural efflorescence, scientific enlightenment, and rapid demographic growth. In 762, the Caliph Abu Ja‘far al-Mansur founded the new capital city of Baghdad which, at its height in 900, was the largest city in the world outside China. Baghdad added a new level of administrative and cultural cohesion to the land of Iraq. This period has remained firmly fixed in the modern Iraqi mentality as a source of pride and a reminder of the possibilities. Despite falling on hard times after the decline of the Abbasids in the late tenth century, the city continued to act as a center to which the rest of the country gravitated. This was true even after the highly destructive Mongol and Turkic conquests of the thirteen to fifteenth centuries.

During these turbulent centuries, known to Iraqis as the “Dark Period,” a number of petty dynasties rose and fell over different parts of the country. Nevertheless, Baghdad maintained its position as the most important administrative center in the region with either real or at least nominal control over the other Iraqi towns. As the power of the central state waned, a number of protest movements rose to fill the vacuum. Normally, these movements sought to secure their legitimacy by challenging orthodox Sunni Islam, which had acted as the ideological base of the Baghdad Caliphate, by claiming allegiance to its rival Shi‘i sect of Islam. Not until the mid-sixteenth century was this state of constant warfare, fragmentation, impoverishment, and steep demographic decline slowly reversed. During the course of the sixteenth century, the Middle East was reunified under the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. Though the two were implacable foes, often contesting each other on Iraqi soil, they nevertheless managed to bring relative order to the region after centuries of deprivation. The Safavids, who ruled much of Iraq from 1508 to 1534 and from 1623 to 1638, adhered to the Shi‘i branch of Islam. Their founder, the young Shah Isma‘il, believed that he was the instrument of God’s will to purify Islam from within by imposing the Shi‘i creed on conquered lands. For the Safavids, controlling Iraq was not only important because of its location, but, more crucially, because it contained the shrines of the most venerated Shi‘i figures in the towns of Najaf, Karbala, Samarra, and Kazim. The Ottomans, on the other hand, were champions of Sunni Islam and sought legitimacy in their relentless expansion into non-Islamic Europe. Iraq, and Baghdad in particular, was valued as a defensive shield against their Safavid enemies, and because it was the seat of the great Abbasid caliphs whom the Ottoman sultans claimed to emulate.

Transformations under the Ottomans

Most of the time, the Ottomans governed Iraq through three provinces: Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra. The governor of Baghdad, however, was usually given powers over those of the other two provinces. Nevertheless, during their four-century rule of Iraq, the Ottomans had repeatedly to fight to keep the Safavids and their successors at bay. Over the course of this struggle the two belligerents signed a number of treaties in an effort to find lasting peace.² The treaties gradually delineated the eastern border of Iraq, though a number of sticking points remained unresolved well into the twentieth century, notably in the south around the area of Shatt al-‘Arab. The Ottoman conflict with Iran also had serious repercussions on Iraq’s Sunni–Shi‘i relations. To justify waging war on fellow Muslims, each side had to declare the other’s faith a heresy. While most local Sunni and Shi‘i leaders counseled tolerance, sectarian tensions were heightened during this period. The most serious repressions took place shortly after the conquest of new territory where religious shrines or places of scholarship would be desecrated by partisans of the victorious power. This was more often done by the Safavids who destroyed such Sunni centers as the Abu Hanifa and Gaylani mosques, only to be rebuilt once the Ottomans resumed control. Ottoman measures against the Shi‘i establishment took the form of freezing their leaders out of government positions. Over the long period of Ottoman rule, the Shi‘i community adapted to this situation by turning inward. They established their own judicial courts, welfare institutions, and informal local governing bodies. Shi‘i religious institutions gradually evolved a clearer hierarchy and an ability to function more autonomously than those of their Sunni counterparts, which continued to rely on government patronage. These divisions, however, were by no means absolute as many neighborhoods remained mixed and Sunni–Shi‘i business partnerships were quite common. Likewise, Iraqi Shi‘is tended to underline their Arab identity and different ideological leanings which separated them from their Iranian counterparts. The rivalry with Iran notwithstanding, Ottoman Iraq witnessed a gradual rise in population, the growth of towns, and an overall improvement in security. This, in turn, served to strengthen Iraqi elites, particularly the merchants, landholders, government officials, religious leaders, and tribal sheikhs. As their fortunes improved, these elites also became politically emboldened and brought greater vitality to a number of social institutions such as the many guilds, mystical orders, associations of descendants of the Prophet, neighborhood notables, and kinship groups. Although the borders between these groups were porous, on the whole they tended to be vertically organized.

By the mid-nineteenth century, the Middle East began to experience two interconnected transformations which, in many ways, have continued to fashion its development today. The first was a series of reforms and regulations intended to increase the power of the central state. For the Ottomans, who faced a growing danger from a resurgent Europe, this was a necessary change to strengthen the military by organizing the country’s resources more efficiently. Ambitious reforms were announced in 1839, beginning with the creation of a modern army and taxation system, moving, in later years, to areas such as secular education and the establishment of a constitution in 1876. These reforms remained distant from the Iraqi provinces until 1869 when Midhat Pasha assumed the governorship of Baghdad. Under his enlightened leadership, Baghdad, as well as Basra and Mosul, modernized their bureaucracy, standardized administrative divisions, constructed new secular schools, put into effect laws encouraging private control of the land, and improved communications. The new Ottoman Sixth Army was stationed near Baghdad with a mandate to enforce the state’s authority over all three provinces. The second transformation related to the region’s gradual integration in the growing world economy dominated by European capital. Initially, this integration took place through a rapid increase in trade. This was particularly evident after the opening of the Suez Canal and the use of steamship navigation. Most of Iraq’s foreign trade was with India, giving Britain the advantage in penetrating the Iraqi market.

The lucrative foreign trade coupled with state centralization brought about deep economic and social changes. Midhat Pasha’s land laws and increasing trade with India transformed many of the tribal sheikhs into large landowners focusing on cash-crop production. This, in turn, reduced the tribesmen to sharecroppers, deepened class divisions, and weakened tribal solidarity. Some tribal sheikhs owed their positions to Ottoman favoritism and became strong supporters of government expansion into the countryside. Nomadic tribes were also brought closer to central control through policies aimed at their settlement. Settlement and class divisions tended to weaken many of the tribes though others remained defiant of state control well into the next century. In the cities, merchants, especially minorities, benefited by the increase in the import–export trade with Europe and India. Perhaps even more important was the introduction and spread of secular education. A new class of graduates emerged to threaten the position of the traditional elites. Valued for their modern education, they quickly came to dominate government posts and many of the professions, especially law. Minorities such as the Jews of Baghdad, found in secular education new opportunities for social advancement by enrolling to become lawyers, teachers, and doctors. Such steps resulted in the greater social, political, and economic integration of Iraq, but one cannot yet speak of an accompanying ideological nationalism.

Many of these changes accelerated after the 1908 Young Turk revolution in Istanbul which restored the constitution and expanded the reform movement. Recently there has been much talk of the novelty of elections in Iraq. Yet as far back as 1908 and again in 1912, elections were held for a new Ottoman parliament as well as local councils in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. Though suffrage was quite limited, the elections still created a sense of political excitement with several, newly established, political parties participating. Shi‘is were also drawn into many of these events, especially after the development of a strong constitutional movement in Iran in 1906. As Shi‘i leaders followed closely the debates of their coreligionists in Iran, many wondered aloud whether such political reforms might work in their own country. The Young Turk period also saw the development of a budding Arab and Iraqi nationalism, mostly as a reaction to a perceived sense of ethnic discrimination. In keeping with their goal of creating stronger national unity, the Young Turk government adopted a policy of “Turkification” which essentially enforced Turkish as the single official language of the empire. All over the Arabic-speaking parts of the empire this policy was met with stiff resistance, often in the form of cultural clubs which glorified Arab history and language. In Iraq, opinions differed over the appropriate political response to the Young Turk challenge. While some expressed notions of Arab unity and secession, others focused on a specifically Iraqi autonomy. Prior to the First World War, a number of secret organizations appeared with specifically Arab nationalist goals. The most important was the Covenant Society which included several Iraqis, usually officers in the Ottoman army, many of whom would later play a leading role in the formation of the modern Iraqi state. Many of these clubs and political groups were secular with a particularly high participation of non-Muslims. Other groups, especially those that attracted elements from the Shi‘i community, sought to define the nationalist project in Islamist terms by emphasizing the need to protect Islamic laws and culture.

This was also the time when foreign intervention intensified. In 1908, the region drew added international attention with the discovery of oil in southern Iran, not far from the Iraqi border. Britain was the most interested country, especially after the conversion of its naval fleet from coal to oil fuel. Oil, the region’s strategic location, and the growing political crisis in Europe all encouraged an intense rivalry among several European powers including Britain, Germany, Russia, and France. In 1912, a British-dominated consortium, the Turkish Petroleum Company, was established in the hopes that oil would be found in Iraq. Britain also tried to sabotage an earlier Ottoman–German agreement to construct the so-called Berlin-to-Baghdad railway. Later, Britain agreed to drop its objections to this line provided it could control the construction and management of the southern part connecting Baghdad to the Persian Gulf.

War and the formation of the modern state

It took the Ottomans several months before they finally decided to throw their full weight behind the German war effort in 1914. Scarcely a day after the Ottoman entry into the war, British forces landed in Basra, starting one of the most grueling campaigns of the war. Initially, the British sought to take only Basra and its hinterland to secure its oil operations in Iran and its trade links with India. Yet the ease with which they accomplished this task and the urging of a number of important Iraqi figures to move on Baghdad changed their thinking. After some serious setbacks and nearly 100,000 casualties, the British army entered Baghdad in 1917 and Mosul in 1918. During the war, the British publicly promised independence to the Arabs on several occasions. General Stanley Maude, leader of the British army in Iraq, repeated this line when he famously declared: “Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.” At the same time, however, they secretly agreed to divide their control of the Fertile Crescent with the French. According to the so-called Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916, France would receive the lands which later formed Syria and Lebanon, while Britain would get Iraq, Jordan and Palestine. After the war, the newly established League of Nations recognized the British occupation of Iraq as a “Mandate.” The country was to remain under British control “until such time as … [it is] able to stand alone.” This was a bitter blow to the country’s embryonic national leadership which had hoped for a rapid move to independence.

Other sources of tension developed as a result of the ongoing economic and social changes. Chief among these was the steady march of state centralization. Under British control this process continued but appeared even less coherent than it had been under the Ottomans. To win over some local support, the British granted tribal leaders greater administrative powers through the Tribal Criminal and Civil Disputes Regulations of 1916. According to this law, which was later installed in the constitution, tribal sheikhs were allowed to collect taxes, administer, police, and uphold customary tribal law, in their own recognized territories. At the same time, however, other aspects of centralization, such as the appointment of tribal sheikhs, decisions concerning major development projects, the distribution of funds, control over water rights, and stricter control over the towns, received greater attention. These two factors – nationalist disillusionment with British policies and fears of state centralization – combined to create a strong resistance movement which would eventually succeed in establishing the modern state of Iraq.

Rebellion and independence

In 1920, the tribes of the mid-Euphrates region rebelled in opposition to state encroachment. Nationalists in Baghdad and religious leaders in Najaf and Karbala quickly moved to lend the rebellion ideological direction. It took the British four months to put the rebellion down after it had spread to various parts of the country including the Kurdish north. Over 10,000 Iraqis were killed in the process. While the rebellion failed to evict the British, it did leave a prominent mark in two ways. First, by bringing together various communities (albeit briefly) in a common fight under specifically Iraqi patriotic slogans, it enhanced national consciousness and broadened the ideological appeal of the independence movement. Notions of national unity were amplified by poets such as Muhammad al-‘Ubaydi who wrote:

Do not talk of Ja‘fari or Hanafi
do not talk of Shafi‘i or Zaydi
for the shari‘a of Muhammad has united us
and it rejects the Western mandate.³

Second, the uprising forced the British to alter their policy of direct control. After some consideration, they opted for the establishment of an independent Iraqi state tied to Britain through treaties ensuring British interests. This, of course, meant that the emerging state would suffer from serious limitations to its independence, a condition guaranteeing a continuation of tensions. Nevertheless, in 1921, Faisal, the son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca and leader of the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, was crowned Iraq’s first king. At that time, the country’s 2.5–3 million people were still deeply divided along religious, ethnic, linguistic, regional, and tribal lines. About 55 percent were Arab Shi‘is inhabiting the regions south of Baghdad; 20 percent were Arab Sunnis occupying the areas north of Baghdad; 20 percent were Sunni Kurds in the northern part of the country along the Turkish and Iranian borders; and the balance was made up of various Christian sects, Jews, Yazidis, Mandaeans, and others. The Kurds were the most distinct of all the non-Arab communities and represented the greatest challenge to national integration. In trying to manage the new country, colonial leaders often assumed that ethnic identities superseded all others when, in fact, issues of economic well-being tended to play the decisive role. A good example of this can be seen with respect to the so-called Mosul question. Soon after the end of the war, Turkey, now reconstituted as a vibrant republic, officially claimed the northern part of Iraq. It argued that technically Mosul was still part of Turkey since the British seized much of this territory after the signing of the armistice. The British, on the other hand, argued that Mosul was historically tied to Baghdad and that the new state of Iraq would lose its viability without its n...