Iraq: Nationalism, Communism and Islamism. posted by Richard Seymour

Nationalist thought is “born out of the encounter of a patriotic consciousness with the framework of knowledge imposted on it by colonialism. It leads inevitably to an elitism of the intelligentsia, rooted in a vision of radical regeneration of national culture”. This elite either pursues ‘modernisation’ through a period of tutelage until such time as its institutions and social bases allow for independence; or it takes a more uncompromising position against colonialism, and accentuates what is different, unique, non-Western – this movement is often behind chauvinist or fundamentalist cultural currents. For this elite to stand any chance against the colonists, it has to mobilise the peasantry (in an agrarian economy) – and since it does not intend to revolutionise their social conditions, it must appropriate their power and their consent. (See Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought in the Colonial World, 1986)

Indeed, both of these tendencies in the bourgeois-national elite are caught between on the one hand the desire to replicate the material modes of organisation that has made the West so effective, and on the other the desire to reinforce the national spiritual identity. Materially, the West has better means and methods; spiritually, the East is superior. In this, the justification resides for the selective appropriation of Western ‘modernity’. (Chatterjee quoted in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Critique of Postcolonial Reason, 1999)

“Previous best practise from post-Cold War peace-keeping operations highlights the ‘security vacuum’ that has confronted virtually every transitional administration-type operation’. It stresses that establishing law and order within the first six to twelve weeks of any occupation is crucial for the credibility and legitimacy of the occupiers.” (Toby Dodge, Iraq’s Future: The aftermath of regime change, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2005).

Someone told me once that if the United States had been serious about making the occupation of Iraq work on usable terms for the ruling class, they would have had to oblige every official to read Hanna Batatu's classic tome, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq. That and a few other things besides. As it happens, those driving the policy - while by no means heterodox - went to radical lengths to avoid having to hear from people who knew what they were talking about. We who intend to occupy nowhere but our happy little ruts are faced with all the usual questions: why is the occupation in such trouble; how did Political Islam emerge as a serious force in Iraq; what was the role of the communists, and why have they colluded with the occupiers; how did the Ba'athists develop and come to power; what's the role of Iraqi and Arab nationalism? There are certain 'facts' about Iraq which have been allowed to form as suffocating accretions around the media discourse - stuff about communalism, fundamentalism, tribalism, and the supposed 'culture and traditions' that, according to the BBC, are behind the current brutal situation. This is going to be one of those posts with references, partly because some of what I'll say might seem counterintuitive, but mainly in order to look cool - although much of it is unapologetically distilled from Batatu. It seems to me that the main problem to start with is understanding Ba'athism - we're always propelled toward certain metaphors or proto-concepts in describing it. From the lexicon of totalitarianism, it is always either fascist or Stalinist or both, which is understandable in a sense if you're just concerned with certain superficial modes of state rule. Unlike the great historian of Iraq, Charles Tripp, who appears to take a Weberian approach to social power, I shall argue a fairly orthodox class-based approach. You can't understand what happened in Iraq - from its creation under British occupation to monarchy to Qasim's Free Officers to the Ba'athist dictatorship - without understanding how class structured social power, the state's hegemonic practises and eventually the methods of Ba'athist rule.

Origins, founders & ideology of Ba'athism.

I'm going to start with Ba'athism, because I feel like it. Three principal groups were involved in the foundation of the Ba'ath according to Hanna Batatu: refugees from Alexandretta (which was transferred to Turkey by the French in '39) under the leadership of Zaki al-Arsuzi; peasants from Hama, which became part of independent Syria in 1941, under the leadership of Akram al-Harani; and, principally, Damascan middle class professionals and students under the two intellectual leaders, Michel Aflaq (left) and Salah-ud-Din al-Bitar. Both al-Bitar and Aflaq were from a part of Damascus associated with the 1925-6 uprising against the French, but their differing backgrounds ensured they didn't actually meet until they were students at Sorbonne in 1929. Aflaq was the son of middle class Greek Orthodox Christians, which in Syria was a very enclosed community as it had been under the Ottomans, although his father had travelled widely enough and dealt commercially with enough people of different denominations as to rid himself of any prejudices about Muslims. Al-Bitar was a middle class Sunni, a descendant of a long line of ulama with many religious notables in his family.

The pair, however, met under auspicious circumstances. As capitalism spiralled into deep crisis, they were reading Nietzche, Marx, Lenin, Mazzini (the 19th century Italian nationalist revolutionary), Andre Gide (who was briefly a communist, and wrote his New Fruits of the Earth as a socialist follow-up to 1897's Fruits of the Earth) and so on, and were swept up into the wave of enthusiasm for Marxism. They did not affiliate with any particular party, but were most at home with the communists, and were particularly delighted by the victory of the Popular Front in 1936. However, the failure of the government to fulfil its promises to Syria, and what they saw as the retreat of Soviet internationalist communism into traditional nationalism, profoundly disaffected them. Simultaneously, there was a vacuum of leadership in Syria, with the National Bloc proving itself incapable of getting the French out or avoiding the loss of Alexandretta.

In Autumn of 1939, circles of students began to form around the pair (stay your imaginations, folks, there's no innuendo there) and the nucleus of what would be the Arab Ba'ath party was formed in September 1940. Their first handbill, distributed under the name "al-Ihya al-Arabi" (Arab Renaissance) - they didn't begin to call themselves "al-Ba'ath al-Arabi" until months later - called for a strike against the French. The party grew very slowly - it's said that by 1943, they had fewer than ten members, but when they were joined by al-Arsuzi's group in 1945, they began to grow more rapidly. Al-Arsuzi, who had also attended Sorbonne and read the German idealists alongside Ibn Khaldun, had reacted to the experience of exile from Alexandretta by starting to formulate a distinctive Arab nationalism based on racial theory, idealism, and his Alawi faith (Alawism is an ultra-Shi'i minority sect in largely Sunni Syria which holds that Islam's secrets are revealed only to its members as they are the elect; it has become the chief social strata represented in the Syrian political elite). He had set up an Arab Nationalist party and a cultural organisation called "The Arab Ba'ath" (albeit it has been suggested that this latter was merely the name of his bookshop). At any rate, his "Arab Ba'ath" merged with Aflaq and Bitar's group, and their first newspaper, Al-Ba'ath, was produced in 1946, with the first party conference in April '47 at which time there were a few hundred members, mainly students and professionals. That Congress approved the party's rules, about which more later - for now it is worth mentioning that an intricate pyramid structure of branches and sections was overseen by 'Aflaq as 'Amid' (Doyen) and al-Bitar as secretary-general.

The party could not fail to be swept up in the tragedy in Palestine in 1948, and gained momentum from it, but was also set back in '49 when 'Aflaq announced his retirement from politics. And while 'Aflaq had declared his support for coup leader Husni al-Zaim (a Syrian Colonel who took power following army discontent with the loss of Palestine), the subsequent Ba'ath collaboration with Sami al-Hinnawi, who overthrew al-Zaim, and his oppressive successor signified a propensity to seak easy ascents which partially explains its failure to become a mass party. It did however grow to 4,500 by '52, and it could add another 10,000 members to its ranks following to merger with al-Hurani's Arab Socialist Party. Akram al-Hurani had come from Hama, and was known for his hostility to big landlordry, and his willingness to use violence against the more oppressive landlords. Aside from acquiring a romantic aura among some of the peasants, he gained a foothold in the army (particularly the officer corps at Homs Military Academy) after leading irregulars in attacks on Zionist settlements in '48. It was this foothold, and the fact that al-Hurani could draw mass sympathy, that gained the attention of the Ba'ath. The two parties merged in '52, which significantly reduced 'Aflaq's doctrinal monopoly on the party - even if Iraqi members still overwhelmingly looked to him.

Since 'Aflaq is so crucial in this development, it is worth looking at his ideology in more detail. Batatu describes it as an eclectic mix, rather than a synthesis, of Christianity, Marxism, Jacobinism, Islam and Arab nationalism - in this 'mix', the Arab Nation was the master-signifier, for Arab nationalism was not a means to an end, but a natural right, an expression of 'the Arab soul'. Since Arabs had a shared language and, according to 'Aflaq, a shared culture and history too, and since they had similar physical surroundings and broadly the same feudal agrarian economies, they were bound to be united in a polity, overcoming the artificial boundaries of colonialism. The second principle of the Ba'ath constitution committed it to freedom of speech and assembly and belief and art - but this is vitiated by the national principle, which enforces itself in the clause 'within the limits of the higher Arab national interest'. 'Aflaq embraced socialism, but not communism, and it was always subordinate to Arab nationalism, even when the Ba'ath party moved left (under the leadership of al-Hurani). He rejected class as a legitimate source of division within the Arab nation, and saw ownership and inheritance as natural rights. While arguing for nationalisation and the abolition of concessions to foreign powers, he also argued that the state should guarantee personal property. And even his ultimately tepid, middle-class socialism was to the end of solidifying nationalism, since no one would be part of a national struggle in which they were exploited. 'Aflaq designated 'al-inquilab' as the Ba'ath method of obtaining power - this is usually rendered in commentary as meaning coup d'etat, but 'Aflaq's sense was spiritual revolution, and ideological upheaval. 'Aflaq holds violence a necessity, since the ruling class will not give up power peacefully, but goes further: "An antagonistic theory does not exist by itself. It finds its incarnation in person who must perish so that it too may perish". Further, since the Ba'ath is the implement of 'al-inquilab' and since its leaders embodied the idea of the nation, it had the right to speak for the whole. (All of the above, as noted, is cribbed from Hanna Batatu's The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, chapter 38).

I'll get back to the future development of Ba'athism in time, but a quick summary is called for at this point. On the one hand, Ba'athism developed as a variant of Arab nationalism, which had began as a serious political movement after World War I, and should be understood as an anti-imperialist movement. (On this, see Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair, 2003). On the other, its insipid socialism derives from peasant grievances, student idealism and the concerns of an urban middle class desperate for 'modernisation'. And finally, on some other limb entirely, its authoritarianism derives directly from the fact that it did not represent the working class, or even the peasants, but its primary social base was and would be in the middle class. As an elite-nationalist movement, it would have to rely on tribal, ethnic and familial ties in both Syria and Iraq, not to mention support within various security and military apparati. To win the support or acquiescence of workers and peasants alike, it would have to give some expression to their demands, but it usually succeeded in turning this to the advantage of the emerging capitalist class.

Iraq's formation: Britain, oil, Kurds, social classes and 'communalism'.

Iraq's formation has to be understood within the following co-ordinates: the rise of colonial nationalism (particularly an incipient Arab nationalism); the rise of the US as a power, and the accompany Wilsonian doctrine (usually described as 'idealism'); the legacy of the moribund Ottoman empire and its impact on the social structure of what would become Iraq. These all contribute fairly directly to how Ba'athism, Communism and Islamism developed and were shaped as political forces in Iraq.

The first thing is that the Ottomans had initially diminished the power of (Arab) sheikhs and (Kurdish) begs or aghas, the most significant section of the landed class in Iraq. The distribution of land ownership in Iraq was obviously extremely unequal, but there had been a preponderance of small landowners which Batatu (chapter 5) attributes in part to Islamic laws of inheritance, which weakened the landowning aristocracy (about 49 families controlled 16.8% of the land in the last year of the monarch, and this was the core of the landlord class). The landlords had been strengthened and refashioned as a bureacratic class by the Ottoman Land Code of 1858, which, deriving from European precedent, required land to be registered in the name of individual owners (often absentee landowners), which gave them a bunch of land that previously had been communal or allotted under traditional forms of tenure. The smaller landowners, however, made up the bulk of the peasantry until 1958, and had been most prominent as a social force in Iraq after the tenth century because of the decline of towns and cities, which resulted from the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols, the incursions from Central Asia, the conquest by the Turks and the Ottoman-Persian wars. Under the Ottomans, however, they had been weakened, their military federations had been broken up, and many of the sheikhs and aghas became tax farmers. Their status weakened as cities grew, and inequalities within the sheikhs were substantially reinforced by Ottoman land laws. What the British did in colonising Iraq was to bolster the sheikhs and aghas as a class, by various means, as a counter-balance to King Faisal whom they wished to deter from serious moves toward independence. (Sami Zubaida, Islam, The People & The State: Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East, IB Tauris, 1993, chapter 4, ‘Class and community in urban politics’; Batatu, chapter 6).

The other aspect of Ottoman land law that was important in the formation and solidification of classes that the British would encounter was the Vilayet Law of 1864, which was intended to reorganise the empire into various regions where the central state administration would be devolved and which would, in theory at least, involve representatives of the local population. (Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq, Cambridge University Press 2002, chapter one). So, while the former law transformed many sheikhs into tenant farmers and converted others into landowners dependent on the state for their title to the land, the latter helped imbricate that class with the state (even if some distance remained over the matter of taxation).

Anyway, the British were somewhat broke after WWI and found it convenient to use the sheikhs to maintain a sort of equilibrium between multiple powers. (They preferred not to rely on former Turkish officials or educated urbanites, whom they distrusted.) Faisal was allowed to be stronger than any one tribal sheikh, but much weaker than a number of them put together - or as he complained, "in this kingdom there are more than 100,000 rifles, whereas the government has only 15,000". The sheikhs would prove important allies of the British, a number of whom protested to the High Commissioner when Faisal tried to end the Mandate (more on that in a bit). The sheikhs openly reminded Faisal that they had accepted his power on the basis of his acceptance of British 'guidance', and in return the High Commissioner effectively blocked the attempt by the Ministry of Finance to end the leasing of large tracts of the country to semi-feudal tribal cheifs in 1926. The British even went so far as to create a special code, the Tribal Criminal and Civil Disputes Regulation, which excluded tribesmen from the jurisdiction of national courts, thus keeping townspeople and tribesmen separated and imparting binding force to tribal usage and customs. Section 40 allowed the removal of ‘undesirable’ townspeople from tribal areas. The British even planned for a special residential school for sons of tribal sheikhs since they ‘should not be sent to urban schools to herd with townsmen and be corrupted by the manifold vices of an Iraq city’. (Batatu, chapter six).

It would be a mistake to suppose the sheikhs were always or exclusively on the side of the British, since they were numerically the strongest element in the 1920 revolt - but their revolt was about the imposition of military taxation rather than about nationalism, since the nationalists were initially small in number and tended rather to manipulate the sheikhs protests to their own ends. (Toby Dodge, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied, 2003, chapter two; Batatu chapter six). But the British strengthening of the sheikhs meant that the distrusted urban centres didn't come into their own until after the 1930s.

The other social layer that the British were to encounter were, of course, the merchants, many of whom would become urban capitalists, while the landowners were becoming agrarian capitalists. Take Chalabi, for instance - is there any name closer to God? Apparently not, since the name derives from a Turkish word (chalapi) meaning 'near to God', and was used as an appellation of honour for big merchants in Iraq who were well-established and had status, rather than wealthy parvenus (and it was usually, though not exclusively, a name given to Muslim merchants). Its capacity as a class was not great - they tended to be sole traders rather than corporations, and had been disadvantaged considerably by the English commercial-capitalist ascendancy, represented by the East India Company. Steam-propelled transport on Iraqi rivers hastened the British penetration of Iraqi markets, as did the opening of the Suez, with the bulk of profits going back to Manchester. In this way, the merchant class was already a kind of adjunct of the British Empire, functioning as intermediaries in the penetration of markets. (Batatu, chapter nine).

Under the monarchy, this class expanded, capitalised and gained some measure of independence. The value of public limited companies rose from 751,350 dinars in 1929 to 21,321,277 dinars in 1957, the year before the Qasimist coup. Partially this was because of the opportunities during and between two world wars in which large numbers of troops, with spending power, had been stationed in Iraq. It was also in large part because of Britain's imperial decline, the related commercial decline and of course, belatedly, the termination of the East India company's monopoly. One of the main reasons they could accumulate sufficient wealth to capitalise (not to be confused with Primitive Accumulation!) was because they paid close to zero tax until 1927, when they paid about 3.6 per cent and often cheated at that, and even after 1956 when a graduated system was introduced, they paid comparatively little. Of course, the prominent overseas investors, even not including oil companies, were the British, followed by the French and then the Americans. (Ibid).

And what of communalism? Well, the standard picture is roughly as follows: The Ottomans maintained a Sunni supremacy. Iraq’s invention by UK after WWI comprised 20-22% Sunnis, 18-20% Kurds and 55-60% Shi’ites (Raymond Hinnebusch & Anoushiravan Ehteshami (eds), The Foreign Policies of Middle East States, 2002, Charles Tripp, ‘The Foreign Policy of Iraq’), but Sunni hegemony persisted under the monarchy, with the political and military elite being largely Sunni, and this in turn continued under the Ba'ath. The Shi'ites, because disenfranchised, are seen as oppositional and associated with left-wing causes, while Sunnis are identified with Arab nationalism and a certain amount of conservatism. This picture is inaccurate and incomplete, even if the old marxist metaphor about a 'kernel' of truth applies. Under the monarchy, Shi'ite sheikh landlords were a prominent part of the political establishment, for reasons already adumbrated. As exploitative landlords associated with the state and imperialism, they were strongly attacked by leftists and nationalists. Shi'ite ulama and merchants tended to shift alliances and attitudes depending on circumstances. Shi'ites from the labouring classes were associated with the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), but their representation in it was no higher and perhaps a little lower than in the reference population. Poor Shi'ite areas were often hotbeds for communist activism, but this was in part because of the propensity for clandestine organisation, distrust of government and the geographical nuances of narrow streets, alleyways, hidden courtyards etc. Although Shi’ite areas offered most communist resistance to the initial Ba’athist coup in 1963, this was in part because Sunnis fled to Shi’ite areas where they could be protected and which were, at any rate, the poorest in Baghdad. The ICP did, to their credit, much to politicise the working class, but this was not communally bound. What's striking about Shi'ite politics is the level of engagement not the particular kind of engagement - there were many forms of Shi'ite politics and nationalism was one such inasmuch as it offered the prospect of formal equality either in an Iraqi or Arab polity. Further the equation of Arab nationalism with Sunnis (in an Arab world that is overwhelmingly Sunni) is inadequate. Conservative nationalist outfits like Istiqlal were overwhelmingly Sunni, but more radical forms of Arab nationalism, like Nasserism and indeed Ba'athism, drew in many Shi'ites. (Zubaida, op cit). Further, the importance of Shi'ite merchants and capitalists grew dramatically after the exodus of Jews in 1949-52 (I'll come back to this in a while). (Batatu, chapter nine).

Of course, the British were not above stirring the sectarian pot to retain influence. For instance, when Faisal made moves alongside former Sharifian officers to implement universal military service (and thereby strenghten the central state against its internal adversaries and by logical extension its external master), the British High Commissioner was behind encouraging the Nahdah party and its paper An-Nahdah to stir up sectarian resentment among Shi’i, revisiting or exaggerating past disputes with Sunnis and railing against Sunni domination of the government. Much of the Shi’i ulama would have nothing to do with this, but many had been alienated by Faisal's acceptance of the Treaty and his banishing of anti-Treaty Shi’i ulama as ‘aliens’ despite the fact that they were Arabs rather than Persians and the King himself was a Hijazi. They also utilised the demands of some mallaks from the former Vilayet of Basrah for independence under British protection. (Tripp, chapter two; Batatu, chapter ten).

The Kurdish question is unavoidable in any discussion of 'communalism', although properly speaking it is a national question. The Kurds are said to be the most numerous group in the Middle East after Arabs, Turks and Persians. By the time British troops arrived in Basra in 1914, Kurds had already been fighting for the return of their independence for some 65 years. It had only been ended by the Ottoman absorption of Kurdish principalities in 1848, and it had seemed likely at the end of WWI, with the collapse of the Ottomans, that they might finally get it. Unfortunately for them, the Kurdish areas (which comprise parts of modern Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria) are rich in two precious resources - oil and water. In the former case, it was an irresistible pinch for the British, while in the latter it could be damned by the Ba'athists and converted into electrical power. (Reeva Spector Simon & Eleanor H Tejirian (eds), The Creation of Iraq, 1914-21, 2003, chapter 6, 'Kurds and the Formation of the State of Iraq: 1917-1932'; Stephen C Pelletiere, The Kurds: An Unstable Element in the Gulf, Westview, 1984 - this latter was written as a study while Pelletiere was a CIA analyst and not an antiwar activist).

Estimates of the Kurdish population in the four countries they now principally inhabit are very difficult to assess because governments tend to downplay it, while the Kurds themselves might have obvious reason to inflate their numbers, but to give some idea of the proportions, it has been estimated that there are 2 million in Iraq, 4 or 5 million in Turkey, 3 million in Iran and 175,000 in Syria. (Pelletiere, op cit). So, how'd that happen? Well, as you know, while the British were promising the Arabs an independent Kingdom (the Hussein-McMahon correspondence), they were busily negotiating with the French this Sykes-Picot deal, which Lenin made public to the great embarrassment of colonial powers. This divided the former empire into 'economic zones' and spheres of influence, with absolutely zero regard for the ethnic, cultural and religious facts on the ground. Not only did the Entente powers have designs on the former Ottoman territories, (and Russia before the revolution, after which it relinquished its claim to Turkey), but smaller countries like Greece, the short-lived Armenia and Georgia (which was subsumed into the USSR in 1921) had claims of their own. The big problem with this, as I hinted at the start of this section, was that two forces were making it impossible from opposite ends. On the one hand the rise of colonial nationalism meant that colonial powers were less able to impose relations of pure subjugation, and on the other the rise of American power and its desire to break up the old empires and use its commercial dominance through 'free trade' meant that the old colonial powers had to find normative justifications for their activities. Woodrow Wilson wished to recreate what is incorrectly referred to as the 'Westphalian system' on a global level, with limited self-determination for nations as both a counter to rival imperial powers and a bulwark against colonialism. Given an American colony in the Philippines, for instance, the US could hardly be precious about this, but the UK was in no position to argue. It had been in relative economic decline since the 1870s, and the sway of the City of London was further submerged in the post-WWI tendency toward autarky. Britain had hoped initially just to annexe Basra, the most strategically and economically important site in Iraq, but since Wilson insisted on national self-determination of some kind, and since Mosul was stuffed with oil, the script had to be rewritten several times over. There's also the matter of the increasing formalisation of international law, which the British were naturally still trying to avoid. (Habibollah Atarodi, Great powers, oil and the Kurds in Mosul: (Southern Kurdistan/Northern Iraq) 1910-1925, 2003, chapter one; Simon & Tejirian, op cit; Dodge, 2003, op cit, chapters one and two).

At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, therefore, the appearance of a Kurdish delegation with a very modest proposal for a Kurdish state (not including the bulk of Kurdish-majority areas, largely on account of fears about the rival claims of neighbours) coincided with the invention of the Mandate, a US-sponsored idea in which the colonial powers could run states temporarily as paternal sponsors of their development toward independence. Jan Smuts, of British Empire delegation, had negotiated a compromised version of this, in which a distinction was enforced between those states “inhabited by barbarians” and those ready for self-governance fairly quickly. So, the Mandate would ready states from the former Ottoman Empire for self-governance, according to the classifications: A, B & C – C was the least developed and would be under overseas rule for longest, and this nuance helped satisfy arch-imperialists in Africa. The British undertook, “under the auspices of the League of Nations and in the eyes of the world”, to create and support “a constitutional monarchy under King Faisal”. The Kurds' claim appeared to be received sympathetically, and the subsequent Treaty of Sevres provided for the creation of a new Kurdish state. The Kurds were to present themselves to the Council of the League of Nations the following year (in 1921) and prove that there was a majority support for independence from Turkey, then, supposing the Council accepted that they were prepared for independence, Turkey would renounce all rights and title to these areas. The proposed state was a small portion of the Kurdish-majority areas, surrounded by Ottoman Turkey, Armenia, French Mandate Syria, British Mandate Iraq, Persia and the Vilayet of Mosul (itself making up most of Iraqi Kurdistan). However, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Ataturk) did not consider himself bound to accept a treaty signed by the moribund Ottoman Sultanate, and at any rate, Wilson was in bed, comatose, and would soon be out of office. The US itself did not ratify its adhesion to the League of Nations and became briefly "isolationist" (it tried to Britify its imperial pretensions). Britain and France tried to persuade the US to accept mandates over Constantinople, Armenia and Kurdistan, but the US refused. By 1921, the Turks had massacred and driven out the Anatolian Armenians, so that the Kurds were almost the sole remaining residents, and only Soviet Armenia remained Armenian. Since the UK had decided to annexe and keep central Kurdistan, it would not be profitable for the US to take a mandate. So, the UK simply annexed Mosul as part of Arab-majority Mandate Iraq. On June 24th, 1923, a new treaty signed in Laussane ceded all of Anatolia, including northern and western Kurdistan, to the new Republic of Turkey. Iraq received all of the Kurdish lands below the Brussels line, and since Britain would have found an independent Kurdistan disruptive to its oil interests in those parts which it had annexed, it obliged the Turks by allowing them to have all that remained of former Ottoman Kurdistan. Articles 37-44 in the Treaty bent a knee to Wilson’s fourteen points, embedding rights for ethnic and religious minorities, but since no one intended to insist on this, Turkey took less than a year to ban all Kurdish schools, organisations, publications, religious fraternities and seminars. February 1925 saw the first in a series of uprisings by the Kurds against the Turkish Republic. Not a decade has gone by since the failure of the Kurdish national aspirations without a bloody uprising against local rulers who have, in various ways, repressed the Kurds. (Dodge, chapter two, op cit; Simon and Tejiriani, op cit).

About that Mosul oil, by the way. The British navy had been converting from coal to oil under First Sea Lord Fisher, and First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill. Unfortunately, and this is a real bummer, oil production and distribution was then entirely in American and Dutch hands. A Royal Commission sent out to investigate the Persian fields controlled by what had been the D'arcy group but was renamed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company upon the striking of oil, decided that the government should support this company. The Asquith cabinet concluded that Britain could not allow oil controlled by APOC to fall into the hands of 'foreign or cosmopolitan companies'. The government worked hard to lobby Constantinople: dropping ultimatums and protesting against Turkish plans to develop an oil company of its own in Mesopotamia; forcing a merger between the Turkish Petroleum Company and APOC (the TPC was a consortium of British, German and Dutch interests, not a Turkish company, but the Turkish National Bank did have a stake and was driven out); demanding and receiving a monopoly over oil production in Baghdad and Mosul Vilayets; and purchasing fifty-one per cent of APOC's shares days before the outbreak of WWI. The British sent an Indian expeditionary force to the Persian Gulf six weeks before any state of war existed between Britain and Turkey, which Asquith told parliament was for the aim of protecting the oil fields. From what? Well, the Turkish government had instructed APOC that their claims on oil in Mesopotamia were null and void. Much of the subsequent war activity was over who would control the oil fields, and the San Remo Conference of 1920 allocated Germany's interest in Mesopotamian oil to the French, while the British, of course, became the main power. (Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq: 1914-1932, 1976; Atarodi, op cit, chapter two). The subsequent history of oil in Iraq is obviously crucial, but one quick question - whatever happened to APOC?


Revolution: From Monarchy, to Free Officers, to the Ba'ath.

Much like the present occupiers of Iraq, the British had sought in creating the state to ensure that its placemen ('advisors') were in every ministry and that the High Commissioner (Mister Ambassador these days) was effectively in charge - all the while occluding this as far as possible. The intention was to create the form of a liberal state while maintaining effective British power. There were some elements in the British colonial elite who were not even willing to cede this much power - Colonel AT Wilson, the first Civil Commissioner shipped in from the India Political Office, tried to run the show more or less as the British did in India - with British appointed officers running local administrative centres and reporting a central administration run by the British. He urged the administration to ignore all signs of protest, ascribing them to a few outspoken extremists. Gertrude Bell, Oriental Secretary and honorary secretary of the Women's Anti-Suffrage League, agreed that only a "vociferous minority" was arguing for independence anyway. Following the 1920 revolt, which was put down by bombing and gassing villages, and cutting down fleeing civilians with machine guns on low flying planes, Wilson was replaced by Sir Percy Cox. The advisors in the Council of Ministers, the Iraqi institution created under British auspices, acted as the eyes and ears of the High Commissioner (HC). Faisal's role was seen as rallying support behind the new state while acting as the pivotal point of control for the HC. He was charismatic, and had been overwhelmingly approved by a plebiscite, but had no constituency of his own, and it was hoped that he could build a coalition of moderate nationalists against the radicals. Churchill regarded him as “the best chance of saving our money”. (Dodge, op cit; Batatu, chapter ten).

Faisal accepted British supervision of foreign and financial affairs, but insisted that no formal direct control by the HC be enshrined in law. Churchill and Cox agreed that it would be best to make the King look like an independent ruler. However, this meant that when Faisal did refuse or override British demands, there was little formal recourse against him. Faisal in due course did press the Council of Ministers to impose anti-Mandate legislation, and appointed loyalists to the government to undermine the power of pro-British sheikhs. He also let his name be used on an anti-British letter that emanated from the Palace. The one recourse the British had was a threat to withdraw forces, and when this didn't work, the British deployed their influence with various groups in Iraq to undermine the King. The British are also thought to have been behind various incursions by the Ikhwan al-Nejd, a Wahabbi outfit of fighters who seemed to mount their attacks precisely when the King was acting up - since the British were formally in control of securing Iraq's borders, it is doubtful that they could have mounted raids without British complicity at least. The raids had the effect of reminding the King exactly how much Iraq relied on British tutelage. And the British were not above suspending the administration when it got out of hand - when Faisal refused to accept the Treaty of Alliance (which he saw as a straightforward replacement of the Mandate), Cox used his sudden illness and the felicitous absence of the Council of Ministers (who were out of the country) to suspend the fledgling institutions, close two opposition newspapers and ban two political parties. Once Cox had defeated the radical nationalists, he was able to oblige the King and his ministers to accept the Treaty. (Batatu, ch 10; Dodge, op cit). Nevertheless, the uprisings continued and a nascent communist movement formed, and by 1927 it was clear that the British could no longer remain in Iraq. They had been appalled by their lack of power, and at the same time worried by the expense of keeping large numbers of troops in the country - they decided to get out as quickly and cheaply as possible. By 1932, Iraq had become formally independent under the House of Hashem, but the continuing 'advisory' power of the British became evident at crisis points, such as the military coups in 1936 and 1941. Ghazi, who succeeded to the throne after Faisal's death in 1933, had nothing of the latter's appeal and differed from him in that he preferred to sponsor a specific Iraqi nationalism rather than Arab nationalism. (Batatu, chapter ten; Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair, 2003). Ghazi also had considerable difficulty with the increasing power of the ex-Sharifian officers, whom Faisal had relied on to build his state. These had initially been sympathetic to the Iraqi revolts against the British, coming as they did from middle or lower-middle class backgrounds. They were often hostile to the rich, particularly Colonel Salah-ud-Din as-Sabbagh, who considered the middle class and ‘common people’ the repository of patriotism and was the outstanding figure of the 1941 military movement. Under the influence of the Young Turks, they believed that the only way to defeat reactionary tribalism was to unite the citizens as an army under a modernising military leadership. The older ruling classes resented these upstarts, and sheikhs and aghas petitioned the King to accept into government only those of “nobility of race and birth”. But for the most part, they had become a conservative force over time, and among them was an ambitious fellow called Nuri as-Said. As-Said had been Faisal's "right hand" - as chief of police, he had invited many of his officer comrades into select positions, while the ex-Sharifians penetrated the military establishment. He appeared to be very amenable, but the British regarded him with suspicion, and suspected him of involvement in the Al-Istiqlal, an uncompromisingly nationalist paper. Nuri was, however, the only Iraqi politician to seek refuge at the British embassy after a briefly successful military coup by Bakr Sidqi, a Kurd by birth, but an Arab nationalist by ideology.

Sidqi’s opposition to democratic reforms and his repressive tendencies lost him support in the officer corps and he was assassinated in Mosul in 1937. Nuri returned to government and tried to turn the situation to his advantage, forming alliances with other officers like Colonel al-Sabbagh, and begging the British to support him in any coup attempt. He did eventually bring off a coup in December 1938 and became premiere – instantly, he set about trying to have Ghazi replaced by Faisal’s brother Zaid, since he could exert no influence on the King. His disagreements with Ghazi became such that he told the British that “We are not bound to the House of Faisal” and made arrangements to try and field a son of King Ibn Sa’ud for the role of King. He is believed to have been behind the death of Ghazi behind the wheel of his car in 1939. Ghazi’s support for Iraqi nationalism, particularly his radio communications importing the unity of Kuwait with Iraq, had appalled the British who were fearful of the growing intensity of nationalist feeling. The British did support Nuri after Ghazi’s death, since he was at the time ‘the most friendly of the politicians in Iraq’. The new 27-year-old King Zaid was most malleable. But Nuri suffered when he lost his principal source of power, the support of Colonel al-Sabbagh’s army unit, on account of his pro-British orientation. And since that lost him the ability to affect events, he was less useful to the British. Nevertheless, as a crisis built up in 1941, he and the regent fled and could only return after the British had crushed the uprising. They returned to a country that held them in contempt and the regime became more and more authoritarian, locking ‘dangerous nationalists’ up in concentration camps and invoking martial law four times before the Qasimist coup in 1958. Changes in the social structure and the waning British imperium which sustained the regime caused problems for the monarchy – urban rebellions and agrarian unrest were more and more frequent. The urban population was growing rapidly, as was the educated middle class. Out of these would grow Ba'athism, Nasserism and Communism. Meanwhile, within the officer corps, a movement would develop. The nineteenth brigade called itself the Free Officers, a movement founded by Engineer Major Rif'at al-Hajj Sirri. They were particularly mobilised against the Baghdad Pact which they saw as typical of the corrupt pro-British monarchy, and eventually were led in a coup by Brigadier 'Abd-ul-Karim Qasim and Colonel 'Abd al-Salam 'Arif, a grand nephew of King Faisal. (Malcolm E Yapp, The Near East Since the First World War: A History to 1995, 1996, chapter nine; Tripp, chapter three; Batatu, chapter ten and chapter forty one).

Like many similar nationalist military revolts in the Middle East, the 1958 coup replaced a monarchy and a landowning elite with a republic and a state-oriented civil and military bureacracy. Both 'Arif and Qasim had come from unusually poor backgrounds, but Qasim led because he was the only general officer among them. The Free Officers that carried out the coup comprised a central council of fourteen officers leading 200. When they came to power, no revolutionary command council was created - both 'Arif and Qasim tended to treat the revolution as their personal property. I say 'revolution', but the state more or less remained intact - the main problem for existing officials was how to calculate their own future positions. No strong new institutions were created under either, since an ambiguity of rules protected them both from censure, and the institutions that were created largely excluded civilian politicians from power, preferring technocrats and military officers. One of the first splits to occur was between 'Arif and Qasim over precisely how rapidly to unite with Egypt and Syria, who had already formed the United Arab Republic. 'Arif was a fervent Nasserist, firmly in favour of rapid unity, while Qasim was more sympathetic to the NDP, and favoured building and modernising the Iraqi state first. Couple with this ideological dispute was a more mundane one - 'Arif believed he, not Qasim, represented the core of the Free Officers. He was exiled in September of 1958, and was arrested when he attempted to sneak back into the country in October of the same year. (Yapp, op cit; Tripp, chapter five; Batatu, chapter 42).

About this split, a couple of points are worth making. There was no necessary priority of Arab nationalism over Iraqi nationalism. It so happened that the former was the most prevalent discourse among Arabs at the time, inspiring various political movements and regimes. It is true that all the conditions Benedict Anderson described as necessary to the emergence of a popular nationalism were present - namely, a shared language and a mass print press that reinforced the imagined community. Nevertheless, of all 'nationalities' under the Ottomans, the Arabs and the Turks came to nationalism last. Indeed, until 1914 (so Rashid Khalidi argues in Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, Columbia University Press, 1997), Arabism as a cultural-semiotic artefact was entirely separate from the extreme fringe of political Arab nationalism. The emergence of the latter was largely the effect of the arrival of the colonial powers. Sati al-Husri, the main theorist of Arab nationalism, saw Islam as an insufficient response to imperialism, as it was diffuse, atomised and not territorially bounded. He coined the notion of Umma al-Arabiyya, and like Rousseau and Fichte, he placed a great premium on education for the achievement of nationalism. Husri and followers set out to reshape Iraq’s education, to make it the beacon of Arab nationalism. Iraq was one of four countries in the 1920s and 30s with any independence (others were Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia). Egypt, as the most advanced Arab country, would have been the natural leader but was as yet unwilling to assume that role. Iraq also had historical validity, with great civilisation in Baghdad flourishing under the Abbasid Dynasty. History lessons were therefore given two ‘parametric elements’: the unity of the Arab nation, and the Arabism of Iraq. Much attention was given to Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties and civilisational advances under these – very little to Ottoman rule, and even less to the colonial period, except to amplify its perfidy. This did have the desired effect, but note that the unity of the Arab nation can and almost always did include the leadership of a particular country within it. Indeed, nationalisms were for some time liberal and constitutionalist, limited to the particular reference country (Egypt, Syria, etc). It was the arrival of a new layer of intellectuals and activists from the growing middle class who radicalised nationalism, orienting it toward social justice and pan-Arab unity, rather than liberal nationalist nostrums of constitutionalism, parliamentarism and so forth. This is to say that the 'imagined community' in this sense might expand or contract and that the urgency with which it seeks political expression varies according to the class interests that it intersects with, and the appropriateness of a particular polity for meeting those interests. As it transpired, the national-states in, say, Egypt, Iraq and Syria were sufficient for the emerging middle class, while the working class had not the numbers or the independence at the time to substantially alter this equation. (See Dawisha, op cit).

At any rate, the Qasim regime embarked on a programme of fairly substantial reform, legalising trade unions and peasants associations in 1959, formally recognising the bi-national character of the state (but failing to grant Kurds any institutions on account of it), sequestrating the estates of the largest landowners and distributing them to the landless peasants (Law 30), introducing social welfare programmes, house-building, education and literacy programmes, rent controls and so forth. However, land reforms did not have quite the impact hoped for by the poor. In 1958, 2% of landholders owned 68% of cultivated land – this was especially concentrated in the south where the land belonged to tribal shaykhs. The average holding was 50 hectares, although three quarters had less than 12.5 hectares. The 1958 reform imposed a ceiling of 250 hectares on wet land, and 500 hectares on dry land. Land above these limits was expropriated with compensation and distributed in packages of 12 hectares (wet) and 23 hectares (dry). Uncultivated land became state-owned. Peasants receiving this land were obliged to join cooperatives. The relatively high ceilings limited the impact of the reforms, by about 1963 only a quarter of the estates had been sequestrated, and less than half of these were redistributed. Cooperatives were often not formed (the Ba'athists would later substitute state ownership in their wave of land reform from 1969-70, and then privatisation in 1987). In effect, those who benefited most were those best placed to exploit the existing regime. Land reform eventually replaced big landlordism with agricultural production dominated by middling landholders – by 1971, 95% of 4 million agricultural populace owned land, compared with 15% in 1958. The ICP, for its part, had hoped for mass state agriculture to revolutionise society, as had the Ba’ath in a more radical phase: but they actually created a conservative rural society. In 1958, Iraq exported food – by 1982, food constituted 15% of all imports. (Yapp, op cit; Tripp, chapter five).

Qasim also negotiated with the Iraq Petroleum Company (successor to the Turkish Petroleum Company) before losing patience and simply taking 99.5% of the concession, leaving only Kirkuk to the IPC. This was emblematic of the kind of economic reform that, deepened by the Ba'ath, would substantially empower the state, while creating a class of urban-based middling bureacrats and transforming the economy's population from a rural into and overwhelmingly urban one. (Ibid). Prior to 1958, the Iraqi state pursued policies of assisting private capital through infrastructural development and banking credit – this obviously deprived the populace (it's called ‘deferred consumption’). The Development Board absorbed 70% of oil revenues for this purpose. ‘Abd al-Karim Qassim disbanded the Development Board, replacing it with Planning Board and Ministry of Planning – major shift toward investment in industry, promotion of public sector and supervision of private sector. (Alan Richards & John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 1998).

There were, nevertheless, immense problems for Qasim from the start. He had never created any representative institutions, which weakened his legitimacy, and while he won the supprt of much of the working class and poor with his reforms, he alienated the capitalist class and also religious figures who were put off by secularising measures including limitations on polygamy, forbidding of child marriage and equal inheritance rights for women. Further, the growing prominence of the communists, who vocally supported Qasim (even though he took over the Popular Resistance institutions they tried to set up and made life very difficult for them at times), was distressing the small industrial entrepreneurs and middling landowners of the NDP as well as some of Qasim's fellow officers. The ICP had shown its ability to generate mass rallies, particularly with the Pease Partisans rally in Mosul in 1959 that unfortunately ended with a coup attempt by a disgruntled Free Officer, violent resistance to that and a lot of fractious fighting along class, sectarian and tribal lines. Qasim tried to solve the problem by cracking down on the activities of the Popular Resistance, reiterating the ban on all party activities and coopting one party member, Naziha al-Dulaimi, and two sympathisers into ministerial posts.

The ICP organised a mass demonstration on the anniversary of the overthrow of the monarchy, in Kirkuk, and ended up having to fight off ideological opponents, some of whom were terrified by the Kurdish connection with the ICP in that city. Government troops eventually enforced order, and large numbers of communists were arrested. The government took the opportunity to remove communist activists from key posts in peasant unions and trade unions. When Qasim legalised parties in 1960, he specifically did not include the ICP. Another more serious problem facing Qasim temporarily was the Ba'ath who, in 1959, tried to assassinate Qasim - the young Saddam Hussein was directly involved in this attempt. Qasim responded with arrests, a purge, and mass demonstrations in support of the Sole Leader. Nevertheless, the attempt presses home the fact that Qasim's power base was very narrow and relied on the loyalty of officer corps and intelligence services that he had inherited to a large extent from the monarchy. (Tripp, chapter five).

Qasim also tried to partially solve the conflict with the Kurds by patronising the KDP, many of whose members were former ICP, and who retained a closeness to the ideology. He granted them a license to operate and, although he was unwilling or unable to offer any kind of statehood, the KDP did make use of its license to gain recognition as the foremost organisation in the Kurdish areas of Iraq, and also tried to lobby the USSR, which was increasingly close to Qasim, to support their cause. The USSR declined, and Qasim at any rate began to harrass the KDP, lending support to their tribal rivals, while rejecting Barzani's memorandum on autonomy in 1961. Fighting broke out between Barzani's forces and those that the government had been assisting, and when units of the Iraqi army were attacked, Qasim bombed several villages - by the autumn of 1961, a full-scale war had broken out, which the government described as a struggle against the 'feudal' and 'reactionary' tribal leaders - true enough, Barzani was a parochial sheikh for all his Marxist rhetoric, but then Qasim had been helping the sheikhs opposed to him. The KDP was outlawed - but since it had its peshmerga and a solid base of support, it did not need state patronage to survive. What it needed was the support and protection of tribal leaders, which caused it to dilute its commitment to radical change in the pursuit of a pan-Kurdish struggle.

Another 'national' issue for Qasim was the status of Kuwait. Having tussled with Iran over the status of the Shatt al-'Arab - another issue that would recur - the government thought of averting the problem by resuscitating a 1930s plan to build a port at Umm Qasr near the Kuwaiti border, something that had been associated with Iraq's claim to Kuwait. Qasim demanded that Kuwait be 'returned' to Iraq a few days after it attained independence in 1961, claiming that Kuwait had been a district of the Ottoman province of Basra, which the British had unjustly severed from the whole when Iraq was created, an animating myth in Iraqi nationalism. (It had been governed from Basra under the Ottomans, and it is true that the British separation of Kuwait was due to imperial considerations and relations it had been forming with the province's rulers from the start of the century - but it also had a history of independence and had closer to ties to other Gulf states than to Iraq). Partly, Qasim was motivated by a desire to assert Iraqi leadership in the Arab east as a counter-balance to Egypt's dominance of the Levant. Although he never threatened to back up his claim with force, the British were there in short order, and when they left they were replaced by forces from the UAR, which had been pissed off by Qasim's upstartmanship.

It was shortly after this fiasco, which seriously reduced Qasim's standing among Arab nationalists in Iraq and further isolated him, that he embarked on his more ambitious reforms, with the reclaimation of 99.5% of the IPC's concession, using the funds to pay for housing schemes, education and so forth. This restored his popularity, briefly, and his opposition appeared to disintegrate. The ICP was under constant surveillance and the KDP's guerilla war was seen as marginal from Baghdad. However, it was precisely the KDP which was to initiate plans to overthrow Qasim - by approaching the Ba'ath. (Tripp, chapter five)

And what had the Ba'ath been up to? Well, picking up the thread from the start of the post, the first 'national command' (national as in Arab national) had been created in 1954, shortly following union with Hurani in which the party structure was changed, the 'Amid' annulled and 'Aflaq's influence substantially reduced. On the national command, four countries were represented - with Iraqis, Lebanese, Jordanians and Syrians represented in ratio of 1:1:2:3. Unlike Syria, where commands were dominated by middle & lower middle class, Iraq's regional command had 25.5% representation of the poor (partly because the middle class was broader in Syria, Lebanon & Jordan than Iraq). Also, most of the Iraqi command unlike elsewhere initially came from Shi’ite sect. (Batatu, chapter thirty eight). Syria's leadership was initially Sunni, but of course eventually consolidated state power using the narrow base of Alawi Shias. The Iraqi Ba'ath was a very secretive and stratified organisation, with only a few hundred members recognised as 'active members', with the rest in various subordinate ranks. Its elitism and tight internal control raised 'Aflaq's eyebrow: "From such a secret group no authentic will could emerge." (Batatu, chapter fifty-five).

So, the Iraqi Ba'athists, thus constituted, had been organising clandestinely, getting themselves well-placed in the state administration and armed forces, and occasionally demonstrating an ability - like the communists - to 'control the street' at crucial moments. By the time the KDP made their approach, the Ba'ath were already growing in confidence. In 1962, it formed a Military Bureau comprising civilian leaders and senior Ba'athist officers like Brigadier Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and Lieutenant-Colonel Salih Mahdi 'Ammash. The Bureau successfully recruited a number of leading officers, while the Ba'ath had formed connections with 'Arif, recently released from prison. On 8th February 1963, they launched their coup, killing the communist commander of the air force, neutralising the airfield at Rashid military base and sending theit tanks in to Baghdad.

The communists, despite all, threw their lot into defending the Qasim regime, mobilising its members on the streets. Their request for arms was refused by Qasim, who as a military officer could not countenance having an armed civilian population. The Ba'athists and Arab nationalists therefore broke through the civilian resistance with ease, took the Ministry of Defense, caught Qasim and his colleagues, and killed them. Qasim's autocratic tendencies, his refusal to create representative institutions that could support him or devolve power, meant that he was always susceptible to military conspiracy. After the coup, the Ba'ath unambiguously dominated the new administration, with Lt Gen Salih Mahdi Ammash as minister of defense; Taleb Shabib as minister of foreign affairs; Hamid Khalkal as minister of labour; and Brigadier Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr as premier. Bakr had come to be seen as a central figure, even though he had only joined the Ba'ath in 1960. The only two non-Ba’ath members of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC) were Abd-us-Salam ‘Arif and ‘Abd-ul-Ghani ar-Rawi, the former a Nasserist and the latter a 'pan-Islamicist'. The NCRC was also dominated by Sunnis, with only 27.8% Shi'ites and 5.5% Kurds.

And since the Ba'ath was still a relatively small organisation, spread thin in the armed forces, it sought to buttress its support by using the National Guard it had built up as a major security apparatus. One thing all factions in the new government could agree on was that they weren't having it from the communists. A terrifying campaign of murder and torture began, which claimed an estimated 3,000 victims. The Ba'ath used the National Guard as the main implement in this, and an organisation that had been 5,000 strong on the day of their coup was 34,000 strong by that August - and that was only accountable to the leadership of the Ba'ath. However, the Guard command became so flushed with power that it stopped, searched and even abused army officers - its vindictiveness toward opponents made it despised. Meanwhile, the leadership of the Ba'ath was inept and unimaginative. Michel 'Aflaq complained of individualism, rashness, conceit, negligence, personal rivalries and so on, and in government the party lost direction very quickly. (Tripp, chapter five; Batatu, chapter fifty-five).

Quite aside from their brutality, the absence of a transitional programme meant that the government was scrabbling around for a coherent set of policies from their arrival in power. There was no attempt at analysis of Iraqi society in Ba'athist literature, which tended toward emotionally potent over-simplifications, Manicheanisms, parochialism and so on. This was partly due to the lower-middle and middle-class character of membership. The diversity of interests and 'callings' tended to undermine cohesion, and they had been united for the most part under vague slogans. Because they fell out with the Nasserists quite early on, this meant that they lost the support of Egypt: Iraq had previously joined Nasser and the Syrian government to plan a federation of their states, but by July ’63 this was in ruins (although in fact this was also partly to do with Syria's experience of the UAR, in which Egypt had been excessively domineering and had frightened the propertied classes with its radical policies). In November of that year, 'Arif mounted an internal coup, eventually ousting the Ba'athists, dissolving the NRC and consolidating a radical nationalist regime under a paper party called the 'Arab Socialist Union' and oriented strongly toward Egypt. (Ibid).

'Aref, described by Yapp as a 'dashing and extrovert figure', embarked on a process of radical reforms, nationalising all banks and thirty-two large industrial and commercial firms – the state’s share in manufacturing rose to 62% of gross output, 46% of employment, and 55% of wages by May 1964. His main successes were in relations with other Arab states, most obviously Egypt, but his purging of the Ba'athists, later accompanied by the Arab nationalist officers in September 1965, isolated his regime in the state structure. He had tried to make it into a more civilian affair, with a commonplace bureaucracy, but a) the state was not yet strong enough for this, b) there was not a sufficiently developed independent working class or even capitalist class capable of pushing for even limited representative institutions which would have weakened the military's power (and therefore the power of parties well-placed within the military), and c) 'Aref's tendency in this situation to centralise power in his own hands curtailed any propensity to separate powers. His 'Arab Socialist Union' certainly didn't succeed in uniting all other Iraqi parties under its umbrella, most of which continued to operate underground. When he died in a plane crash on April 13th, 1966, he was replaced by his apparently much duller brother, Abd al-Rahman ‘Arif, who was president until the second Ba’athist coup in July 1968. Dull or not, he was certainly the more radical of the two, pushing forward a new raft of economic reforms which, while often benefitting the poor and middle class, also gave great leverage to the state. And yet, the regime remained weak, and was in considerable trouble after its role (or lack thereof) in the totally failed war with Israel in 1967. The conservative middle-class and nobility were angered by the ‘drift toward socialism’, while nationalists were dismayed by the failure to improve relations with Arab states, and there was continual affray with Kurdish groups. There was regime infighting, which culminated in July 1968 with the resignation of Tahir Yahya - and then the second Ba'athist coup.

Ba'ath, Kurds, communism and Political Islam.
The Ba’ath made contact with three of four individuals whom security of ‘Arif depended on – Colonel ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Nayyif, Director of Military Intelligence; Colonel Ibrahim ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Da’ud, commander of the Republican Guard; Colonel Sa’dun Ghaydan, commander of the 10th armoured brigade. On 17th July, Ghaydan brought al-Bakr and Ammash into HQ of 10th armoured brigade; al-Da’ud took radio station, while al-Nayyif took MoD. ‘Arif allowed to go into ‘honourable exile’ – at this stage, it looked like a coup by one faction over others. But these were a prelude to much bigger movements, with Saddam Hussein and al-Bakr seizing complete power for their wing of the Ba’ath thirteen days later – this was effected by successful approach to the commander of the Baghdad garrison (a cousin of al-Bakr) and Ghaydan, (who was motivated by personal ambition). On 29th July, al-Da’ud was in Jordan inspecting Iraqi troops, so Hardan al-Tikriti, a trusted associate of al-Bakr, was in charge of the armed forces. Prime Minister Nayyif was arrested by officers led by Hussein after having had lunch with al-Bakr at the presidential palace. Al-Da’ud was instructed to remain in Jordan and Al-Nayyif was exiled to Spain, before moving to London - only to be assassinated by the Ba’ath there in 1978. Ghaydan and al-Da’ud were declared 'Ba’athists' and therefore the composition of RCC was now solidly controlled by the Ba'ath. (Ibid; Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship, 2001.)

The role of the CIA here should at least be mentioned. According to Said K Aburish, (A Brutal Friendship: The West and The Arab Elite, 1997), the CIA closely controlled the planning stages but also played a central role in the subsequent purge of suspected leftists after the coup. 5,000 were killed, including many doctors, lawyers, teachers and professors who formed Iraq's educated elite. The massacre was carried out on the basis of death lists provided by the CIA. The lists were compiled in CIA stations throughout the Middle East with the assistance of Iraqi exiles like Saddam, who was based in Egypt. An Egyptian intelligence officer, who obtained a good deal of his information from Saddam, helped the Cairo CIA station draw up its list. According to Aburish, however, the American agent who produced the longest list was William McHale, who operated under the cover of a news correspondent for the Beirut bureau of Time magazine. 'Aref also asserts that some of those involved had been purchased by oil companies. (Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett, op cit; Batatu, ch 58). Evidently, the worry was that the communists might become the main opposition to 'Aref and pursue an even more radical and even pro-Soviet course. Nevertheless, the Ba'ath had changed in several respects since 1963, and this had placed them in a good position to take power. Whereas previously it had included Shi'ites in a broad and genuine pan-Arab alliance, it had become overwhelmingly Sunni in its leadership by 1968, so that of the top command 84.9% were Sunnis. What's important about this for the rise to power is that the reason for it lay behind the Ba'athists growing penetration of the security forces disadvantaged Shi'ites who were discriminated against. Also, the repression of the party under 'Aref disproportionately rested on Shi'ites, this time because the discriminatory practises of the police. The Ba'ath had also developed military intelligence and was more tightly controlled than before. The even greater centralisation of control is bound up with what Batatu calls 'Takritization', especially in progress after the leadership fell into the hands of Bakr and Hussein in 1964. Both belonged to the same section of the same tribe in Tikrit and were closely related. The only politically important difference between them was that Hussein was much tougher and more cunning, and more inclined to take sides in intra-party disputes, while Bakr remained aloof. This centralisation made decisions easier to take, and unity easier to impose. The Ba'ath were elitist, but the situation favoured elitism. They were Machiavellans, but this enabled them to spot fortuna and muster virtu when the old regime proved inadequate to the situation. The CIA backed a coup by what had become a cruel, ruthless and mercenary bunch, but in doing so they backed a winning horse. (Ibid; Yapp, op cit).

The first gesture of the Ba'athists was to attempt some kind of serenading of the ICP and the KDP, but they certainly didn't initially offer terms that either could accept. Talks with Barzani failed because of regime’s partiality to Jalal Talabani, and his two supporters in cabinet resigned in protest. The communists, given three ministerial portfolios at end of August, refused to participate unless full civil liberties were restored, full elections granted and political parties legalised – they hadn't forgotten that tens of thousands of their supporters killed in 1963. The Ba'ath obviously refused, and instead promulgated its own new provisional constitution in September 1968. Islam was made the religion of state (this presumably on Bakr's insistence); ‘socialism’ was made the basis of the economy; the RCC was recognised as the supreme legislative and executive authority, accountable only to Ba’ath, and this only formally. Two other institutions were recognised - a cabinet and national assembly. The former was a technocratic body and the latter a purely decorative outfit only actually formed in 1980. (Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett, op cit).

Following the announcement of this constitution was a series of internal moves by Hussein against opponents, and a wave of terror accompanied by blandishments directed at external foes. Communists, Nasserists, pro-Syrian Ba’athists, former ministers and alleged ‘spies’ were all rounded up, many imprisoned, some tortured so badly they died, others executed in the streets. Private houses were raided in the middle of the night, armed thugs roamed the streets, the National Guard were ever-present at demonstrations and strikes – often arresting or even killing participants. The internal struggles were between Hussein, Ammash and Hardan al-Takriti, all of whom had some following in the armed forces. Ammash and Takriti competed over lines of demarcation of their respective ministries (Interior and Defense), both building separate security bodies to bolster their own power. Bakr, meanwhile, built his own security apparatus, headed by Hussein, and using the Ba’ath Party. A special Revolutionary Court was established to try ‘enemies of the people’ some of whom had to confess on television. Yet this, and the spate of accusations against former officials and executions, testified to regime’s awareness of its vulnerability. It lacked support domestically, but also faced hostility of Iran and (to a lesser extent) most Arab states. Many of their policies were designed to make up for this. On the one hand, they sought to impress the public with their hostility to imperialism, the Shah, Israel, the US and Britain etc – but also, by recognising the GDR in ’69 and forging alliances with other ‘socialist’ countries, sought to outbid ICP’s claim to being the ‘real left’. Domestically, they took the important step of nationalising the Iraqi Petroleum Company in 1972-75. This was seen as anti-imperialist, but also commensurable with the government's commitment to 'socialism'. Yet it also granted the dictatorship a matchless capacity to coopt, a huge leverage over Iraqi society, fusing the capillary logic of capital with the territorial logic of the state, thereby melding developmental, modernising policies with repressive ones. With first big jump in oil prices after 1973, the state’s share in GDP rose to 75% by 1978. By 1977, 410,000 or more than half the workforce was employed by the state: plus the armed services (250,000); militias (175,000); and police (260,000). About this decision, it is worth mentioning that during the 1973 crisis, the US was preparing to use military force to sieze the oil fields. The Ba'ath in government often incurred the disfavour of the US, with this policy and with the Soviet Friendship Treaty signed in 1972. The US in turn used the Kurds and Iran where they could to secure an advantage (usually then abandoning the Kurds to the wrath of the Iraqi state). (Ibid; Waterbury & Richards, op cit).

The Kurdish question remained crucial. One March 11th 1970, the regime issued the 'March Manifesto', which offered the Kurds recognition of their nationality, a provisional administrative council and an assembly to deal with their affairs - contributing to the ‘progressive’ image it cultivated in its bid for popular support. When Mulla Mustafa al-Barzani continued to press for implementation of the March Manifesto and returned to fighting, the Ba’ath sought a clearer policy of cooperation with the ICP. By doing this, and talking up its commitment to ‘socialism’, the Baath simultaneously gained for itself a measure of popular support but also alienated its traditional middle class supporters who opposed such policies. Nevertheless, the measures necessary to achieve ICP acquiescence and popular support did have tangible benefits – the state control of the economy gave it unlimited opportunities for cooptation and combination of protectionism and state grants meant that businessmen could thrive without foreign competition, thus securing the allegiance of the capitalist class. But this meant that the alliance with the ICP was bound to be short-lived.

Now, the ICP's response here is interesting, because although they had previously refused to work with the regime, they were wooed with the offer of a National Patriotic Front. They had been convinced that the Ba'ath were victims of imperialist manipulation thanks to the subventions of the US and its reactionary Iranian ally, and although the rank and file had been very distrustful, since they had experienced Ba’ath brutality first-hand, the first communist ministers appointed in May ’72, and in July ’73, the ICP took the collective decision to participate in the NPF because the regime appeared to pursue its line and the NPF was accompanied by the ICP’s legalisation as a party, thereby giving it more freedom to disseminate literature and so on. The USSR and ‘socialist’ countries supported the Front, and many ICP leaders portrayed Hussein as a new Castro, someone who could be influenced to move the government to the left. The party's unrevised line since 1959 had been that there was no chance of democratic participation in the government, so the choice was either to support the government of the day or go underground. Its commitment to a "legal and evolutionary path" (in Batatu's phrase) appeared to have borne fruit. Many communists had been freed from prison, and the security services turned their attention toward nationalist opponents of the regime, not least Fu’ad al-Rikabi, who had been secretary-general of the Ba’ath between ’52 and ’59. Saddam also moved against Ammash, who – following the dismissal of Hardan al-Takriti, had been placed in charge of the Interior as well as made VP. On 28th Sept ’71, while he visited an Arab League meeting in Morocco, he was dismissed from all positions. The army was steadily being subordinated to party. (Said K Aburish, Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge, 2001; Farouk-Sluglett & Sluglett, op cit; Batatu, ch 58).

However, it was a suicidal move: the Ba'ath only needed the ICP as long as the Kurds were a problem. Once they found a way to neutralise the Kurdish rebellion, the communists would once more find themselves being repressed and ordered to liquidate themselves. Not only were elements of Ba’athist dogma questionable, and its anti-communism integral, but regime’s most vociferous and best-organised opponents would effectively be muzzled by collusion. No ICP or KDP members were to be allowed on RCC, the supreme decision-making body. The major determinant of relations between the Ba’ath and the communists was the Kurdish question – particularly the relationship with Mulla Mustafa al-Barzani. Barzani was already complaining by 1971 that regime was trying to create ‘demographic facts’ by moving Arabs, particularly Christians to Kirkuk. It came to light in 1973 that the Ba’ath had attempted to assassinate Barzani, while repression of Kurdish newspapers continued. The Iraqi government deported 40-50,000 ‘Iranians’ across border in late ’71 early ’72 apparently as reprisal for Iran’s seizure of Tunbs and Abu Musa – they were only ‘Iranians’ in sense that forebears had come from Iran. By Spring of ’72, Barzani had re-established relations with Iran. The Kurds, under the influence of CIA, shifted from seeking support from the USSR to placing its hopes in the US. But there continued to be contact and negotiations continued between the two parties, as well as fights in Sulaymaniyya and Sinjar where several thousand people were forced to leave their homes in one of the Ba’ath’s periodic population ‘redistribution’ exercises in ’73. By the end of the year, the Ba’ath were bombing villages in the north in response to a campaign of sabotage and cooperation with Iran. By spring of ’74 a major conflict had broken out. Hussein portrayed the KDP as unrepresentative of the Kurdish people and as having been taken over by outside agents – he was assisted in this by an interview Barzani gave to the Washington Post, indicating that the Kirkuk oil-fields were the inalienable property of the Kurdish people and that Washington could have a share in the oil if they’d send him forces to assist in the struggle against Baghdad. The KDP were accused of separatism, and the government determined to impose its own version of autonomy on the Kurdish areas. The Kurds would not join the NPF without solid guarantees of participation in government and would not accept the Ba’ath version of the Kurdish area. Al-Bakr declared that the March Manifesto provisions had mostly been met despite Kurdish intransigence. Meanwhile, relations between the ICP and KDP became strained as the Kurdish Parastin started to attack Kurdish Communists – the ICP complained that the KDP was waging an anti-communist campaign in Kurdistan. By mid-February ’74, Iran and Iraq had resumed cross-border violations, reaching such a pitch that a hundred casualties accrued on the two sides and both parties requested UN observers on the frontier. Barzani had reacted to the Autonomy Law and the ‘last chance’ to join the NPF by demanding an extension of the autonomous area and a share of the country’s oil revenues. This may have ensured Barzani got widespread Kurdish support despite concerns about his ‘tribal’, ‘feudal’ and ‘reactionary’ style of leadership, and particularly his external contacts. The Ba’athists got only one notable Kurd on their side: Barzani’s eldest son Ubaydullah. Thousands of Kurdish volunteers joined Barzani’s peshmerga and irregular forces in fighting, while 110,000 refugees fled to camps in Iran. Iraqi armed forces had superior firepower and imposed an economic blockade, but the Kurds showed no sign of wavering and at the beginning of ’75 began to receive increased Iranian assistance, who provided Kurds with Rapier missiles and bombed Iraqi targets from their side of the frontier. The war risked spiralling into an all-out war with Iran, which the Ba’athists knew they could not win. There was no end of hostilities in sight either because, although the Iranians wanted to weaken Baghdad, they had no interest in allowing the Kurds to become strong enough to defeat the Iraqi army. Nevertheless, Barzani had become totally reliant on Iran. After the Rabat summit in October ’74, King Husayn of Jordan managed to arrange preliminary meetings between Iran and Iraq, which were followed up by successive negotiations. The end result was the Algiers Agreement, which terminated hostilities in Kurdistan and paved the way for a permanent demarcation of the border between the two. Kurdish resistance collapsed as Iranian guns were taken away. The boundary set at the ‘thalweg’ line in the Shatt al-Arab and elsewhere on the basis of the 1913 Constantinople Protocol. The agreement made no reference to three islands in the Gulf that Iran had occupied since November ’71 and the frontier meant that Khuzestan, which Iraq had often claimed, was now firmly in Iran. Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett, op cit).

This border was never accepted by Iraq, and it would become one of the main justifications for invading Iran in 1980. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of Iraqi politics was the nation-state's sense of insecurity about its own existence: the recency of British imperialist involvement, the growing power of the US in the region, the immense military strength of Israel, and then the Islamic Revolution in Iran compounded this sense that the country could be broken up with relative ease if it were in the interests of an outside power to do it. The regime was completely blindsided by the Iranian revolution, and the subsequent upheaval among Iraqi Shi'ites, and the immediate concern as expressed by Hussein himself was that Iran might be more of a danger to Iraqi unity than the insurgent Kurds or even Israel. To some extent, much of Iraq was 'foreign' as far as the government in Baghdad was concerned, since much of it could at various times be accused of working with outside powers to destabilise Iraq. Shi'ites, Kurds, communists, Nasserists, the wrong kind of Ba'athist, the wrong kind of Takriti, even the wrong kind of relative of Saddam Hussein was potentially untrustworthy. And certainly anyone in power who exhibited any cosmopolitan proclivities and whose name wasn't Tariq Aziz was already suspect. The parochial purview of the Ba'athist leadership and its repressive policies infirmed its projection of state nationalism, since there was a complete absence of the kind of equality that would allow the notion to gain widespread acceptance. The highly centralised, patrimonial basis of state authority, based on the Dawlat al-Mukhabirat (secret police) and the Ahl al-Thiqa (‘trusted people’), was allowing the regime to keep power, but its very narrow social basis (which became only narrower in the 1990s) and the constant (perceived and actual) threats from external powers made it perpetually insecure and obliged it to resort to more and more brutal methods, including, as we now know, some fairly mad war-making. (Ibid; Tripp in Hinnebusch & Ehteshami, op cit).

However, back to the communists. Following the Algiers deal, the Ba'ath had sought to limit Communist influence, while making use of their expertise for such matters as the formulation of a new Labour Law. For instance, the NPF’s rules were deemed to extend to mass organisations and trade unions formerly controlled by the ICP and it was determined that both the Ba’ath and the ICP should dissolve their organisations into the NPF – but since the Ba’ath had limitless supplies of funds and control over all the state machinery, this was hugely to the ICP’s detriment. Iraq’s oil revenues, meanwhile, provided a huge economic boost, vast opportunities for employment, and therefore a population shift from rural to urban areas – the ICP’s traditional working class base was now bigger, but also overwhelmed with new entrants who had no experience of class struggle. The Ba’ath began to change union membership rules in such a way that no leader could be elected who was not a Ba’athist, and many union officers were full-time Ba’ath officials rather than members of the workforce. The ICP was pressured not to involve itself in the unions or mass organisations – such that they did close down their ‘centres’ and tried to confine their work to the party itself. Various pro-Ba’ath Kurdish organisations were appointed to the NPF and the legislative assembly, and a new breakway KDP was formed. The government, between ’74 and ’79, loosened its ties with ‘socialist’ countries and moved into the general orbit of the West and moderate Arab states. Iraq diversified its contracts and sources for military material, moving away from USSR and ‘socialist’ countries because they did not provide the best contracts and the Ba’ath were determined to implement their development programme rapidly. Trade with ‘socialist’ countries declined from 13 per cent in ’74 to 2.6 per cent in ’81. The neo-KDP lost any support it had from Kurds unhappy with Barzani especially given the regime’s repressive policies, so the major opponent remained the ICP. The widely expected turn against them began in late ’75, with a number of rank an file members arrested for brief periods at random, often tortured, then released. In the May ’76 party congress, the communists openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the Ba’ath, while demanding that the NPF be transformed into an organisation for all progressive forces. The Ba’ath was asked to end its demands for the dissolution of several mass organisations traditionally under the control of the communists. Increasingly bilious propaganda was issued against the communists, culminating in witch hunts redolent of the vicious ’63 campaigns. In July ’78, it was made illegal for all former members of the armed forces to engage in non-Ba’athist political activity – in a country with near universal conscription, almost any adult male could be sentenced to death. The regime tortured and killed many communists during this period even while the NPF still officially existed, and the outbreak of war with Iran expedited an intensification of this practise. (Farouk-Sluglett & Sluglett, op cit).

I've already written a bit about the development of Shi'ite political Islam here, and I don't propose to make this exhausting post any longer than it already is by repeating it. Suffice to say, the long percolating development of specifically Shi'ite political Islam in the south of Iraq was a total shock to the dictatorship, which might have had reason to assume that all its days of trouble were over (they never are). The answering repression, particularly of Shi’i mujtahids in Najaf, drove many into exile in Iran, where they formed the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a deeply sectarian outfit whose Badr Brigades are today providing death squads to eradicate their opponents for their benefit and that of the occupiers. They, along with the Kurds, attempted to turn Iraq's embroilment in war with Iran into an opportunity for revolution, although they did not initially do this in reaction to the US bombardment in 1991 - quite the contrary, they urged supporters to join the Iraqi army. It was the disastrous defeat, and the return of angry soldiers to their localities, that led to the insurgency in the Shi'ite south. Ironically, when the Shi'ites rose up against Saddam Hussein for disuniting Iraq through repressive policies, for disadvantaging Shi'ites, bankrupting the country, and for failing to defend it against the imperialists - in short, for not being the nationalist, anti-imperialist, socialist leader he claimed to be - he took the opportunity to turn to a more religious discourse, sponsoring the very mosques that would become the source of much of the opposition to him. (Faleh A Jabar, The Shiite Movement in Iraq, 2002).

Well, now we're getting into very familiar territory: US-backed war with Iran (which was in turn backed by the US for fear it would actually be defeated and then align with the USSR); lots of US, French and Russian weapons; the incurrence of massive debt to the Saudis and Kuwaitis (according to Fred Halliday, he borrowed about $40bn - see The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology, 2005); a campaign of mass murder and 'Arabisation' in Kurdish areas, particularly those closest to the Iranian border; an invasion of Kuwait, which April Glaspie gently hinted might be okay (according to David Harvey, the US had already planned a confrontation with Iraq as part of its long-standing aim to weaken and destroy Arab nationalist regimes - see The New Imperialism, 2005), but which despite its presentation as a pan-Arab struggle actually terrified surrounding states who largely backed the US war which destroyed much of the country's infrastructure and killed hundreds of thousands and deliberately targeted civilians (see Abbas Alnasrawi 'Economic devastation, underdevelopment and outlook', in Fran Hazleton (ed), Iraqi Since the Gulf War: Prospects for Democracy, Z Books, 1994); sanctions which killed hundreds of thousands, further destroyed the infrastructure and rendered the population reliant on the regime, which in turn was converted into an economic dependency of the US via the UNSC; Saddam starts trading UN-sanctioned oil in Euros rather than dollars, which sets a dangerous precedent; and then the invasion.

So what?
A few final things, then. US policy during the 1990s tended toward the use of what IR scholar and Clintonite policymaker Joseph Nye calls 'soft power', although he had stressed the regime's readiness to use military force against Iraq (which Clinton did on a number of occasions). In the absence of a Pearl Harbour-style attack, which the authors of a 1999 PNAC report said would be necessary to galvanise support for a military strike on Iraq, Clinton pursued a policy of trying to overthrow Hussein with the use of splitters, reactionary exiles, a bit of CIA terrorism and what have you. Nevertheless, the policy was precisely to reconstitute Iraq as a US outpost which would both destroy an old rival and the last vestige of Arab nationalism and allow it, by controlling one of the largest sources of oil in the world, to exercise enormous economic leverage over the world, perhaps for another fifty years. In this respect, Clinton's neoliberal policy was indistinguishable from that proposed by the neoconservatives. Some of the more extreme wings of neoconservatism were proposing the total re-making of the Middle East, since the old boundaries had been created by the British and French in their interests and, well, 'our' interests are what matter now. Lately, one element of this insanity has started to appear in respectable, mainstream journals of opinion and analysis: the breaking up of Iraq. In a way, it's already policy. The neoliberal constitution approved last year contained seriously disastrous sectarian provisions for the creation of separate internal polities - contrary to the impression given by some reports, this was opposed by Iraqis at the time, who had evidently been misled about the contents of the constitution. Sectarianism is being promoted by the occupiers against the wishes of most Iraqis. The death squads, the massacres, and the use of sectarian Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni militias against one another in Iraq are evidently intended to expedite this.

Go back to the bit about British rule: think about the tricks they used to try and prevent a puppet government gaining independence: the parcelling out of feudal style powers to tribal sheikhs and aghas; the use of Wahabbi fighters from what would be Saudi Arabia to emphasise the government's need of externally provided security; the use of sectarianism; the naked intervention in the political process where that didn't work; and the use of extremely brutal crackdowns on resistance wherever it appeared. The US has mimicked these in various ways, and obviously for the aim of creating a disciplined, pliable government which is weakened by cooptable devolved authorities. However, it took from 1914 to 1932 for the British to be forced out of Iraq. The US would like to stay for decades, and breaking up Iraq may be one way to ensure that their bases can remain. But they haven't had, as the British at least did, a peaceful day since they got there. Iraqis have, in growing numbers, resisted the occupation in various ways - armed or unarmed, they have wrested large areas of the country from the control of the occupiers. The rhythms of any struggle rise and fall, but it has largely been in one direction here: the resistance keeps growing, and attacks on troops become more frequent. Both halves of US power continue to support committed involvement in Iraq, because losing it would be much more serious than losing Vietnam. Yet, the support of capital for the venture is not limitless, partly because by defunding the treasury and running up a huge balance of payments deficit, the government is reducing the prospects of future growth. By being caught in the middle of more and atrocities, the occupation is drawing to itself more and more military and non-military resistance. The US is losing its hegemony in the region, and there are serious moves by a number of oil-producing states to start trading oil in Euros - which could precipitate, if initiated and replicated, a catastrophic collapse of the dollar. Invading and occupying Iraq made some of Bush's friends fabulously rich (for the time being), but he relies on the support of more than a narrow layer of energy companies, and the executive branch of government is more than Bush and his friends. The strategy of invading Iraq was a risky, controversial and ultimately divisive one for the US ruling class and its political executive, but not one about which there was a difference of principle. The state was mobilised behind this policy without substantial dissent or controversy because the aim was to establish a friendly client and ensure the continued dominance of the American capitalist class in the global system (which was exactly the almost open aim of the PNACers who have since got into the White House), not simply to grab loot for Halliburton. Driving up oil prices put more money in Exxon's account, but by increasing the costs of production so dramatically, it has resulted in a slowing down of US manufacturing growth. It has also put more power in the hands of Iran and Venezuela, who are providing much-needed oil to China, a potentially major geopolitical rival of the US and emerging economic giant in South East Asia. The political prominence of Iran in the Middle East has also been driven up because the US has kindly (if reluctantly) helped their allies to power in Iraq and annihilated its recalcitrant neighbour, which was harbouring and defending opponents of the theocracy. The neoliberal doctrine imposed on Iraq's economy (in some parts temporarily), the radical dismantling of the state and the failure to reconstruct may well have been geared simply to enrich one or two of Bush's capitalist cronies, but if it was then the administration has actually endangered its own major bid for expanding and consolidating the empire, put the US economy at huge risk, and strengthened opponents for the sake of lining the pockets of a few who will hardly benefit if Iraq is lost, as it may very well be.

My suspicion is that those who made the policy didn't care to know anything about Iraqi society, any more than the British did when they invaded. They weren't interested, and assumed that they could rely on the complicity of a grateful population and some brutal, direct force against a handful of wreckers. They underestimated the anti-imperialism of a population that had, some of them, seen direct combat with previous interlopers, and who had experienced the impact of sanctions, and who had listened to the reports of the negotiations at the UN on their radios: who understood that the occupiers didn't come for their benefit. They didn't grasp that there would be a popular rejection of any puppet whether from Washington or Baghdad. They entertained a racist underestimation of the intelligence and motivation of Iraqis. The policymakers also failed to understand that the cohesion on which they relied for a docile client-state to be formed would be ripped apart by the destruction of the state, that there were important class interests embedded in public industries and services, including those of the middle class whom they might have hoped to be the most accepting of colonial rule. Good portions of the working and middle classes in Iraq had been convoked, brought into being, by a state-led process of development, and the attempt to privatise the oil industry produced intense resistance from oil workers. The decision to decommission the army and the de-Baathification policy both robbed the infrastructure of needed professionals and created 400,000 potential resistance fighters. Now, the neoconservative-cum-nationalist policymakers might have been trying to turn his flagstone imperial policy, the great leap forward that they had been seeking, the sign and symbol of US's benign power and leadership, into a chaotic quagmire in which they stand a chance of being obliged to make a humiliating retreat - I just doubt it is all. I don't think the Reaganites wanted to make a hash of their involvement in Lebanon, but they did. Clinton didn't want the civilising/humanitarian mission in Somalia to go down in a conglagration, but it did. My guess is that like most state actors, they approached this with a mixture of self-interest, imperial ambition and ideological imperatives. Indeed, one suspects that these political radicals are even more purblindly hubristic than the usual inhabitants of the executive branch. For that, and for their reckless, callous, inhuman venture into Iraq, they are being punished. Not nearly hard enough yet, but this matter is far from settled.