|
Iraq
THE IRAN-IRAQ CONFLICT
In February 1979, Saddam Husayn's ambitious plans and the course
of Iraqi history were drastically altered by the overthrow of
the shah of Iran. Husayn viewed the 1979 Islamic Revolution in
Iran as both a threat and an opportunity. The downfall of the
shah and the confusion prevailing in postrevolutionary Iran suited
Saddam Husayn's regional ambitions. A weakened Iran seemed to
offer an opportunity to project Iraqi power over the Gulf, to
regain control over the Shatt al Arab waterway, and to augment
Iraqi claims to leadership of the Arab world. More ominously,
the activist Shia Islam preached by the leader of the revolution
in Iran, Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, threatened
to upset the delicate Sunni-Shia balance in Iraq, and a hostile
Iran would threaten Iraqi security in the Gulf. Furthermore, deepseated
personal animosities separated the two leaders. The two men held
widely divergent ideologies, and in 1978 Husayn had expelled Khomeini
from Iraq--reportedly at the request of the shah--after he had
lived thirteen years in exile in An Najaf.
For much of Iraqi history, the Shias have been both politically
impotent and economically depressed. Beginning in the sixteenth
century, when the Ottoman Sunnis favored their Iraqi coreligionists
in the matter of educational and employment opportunities, the
Shias consistently have been denied political power. Thus, although
the Shias constitute more then 50 percent of the population, they
occupy a relatively insignificant number of government posts.
On the economic level, aside from a small number of wealthy landowners
and merchants, the Shias historically were exploited as sharecropping
peasants or menially employed slum dwellers. Even the prosperity
brought by the oil boom of the 1970s only trickled down slowly
to the Shias; however, beginning in the latter half of the 1970s,
Saddam's populist economic policies had a favorable impact on
them, enabling many to join the ranks of a new Shia middle class.
Widespread Shia demonstrations took place in Iraq in February
1977, when the government, suspecting a bomb, closed Karbala to
pilgrimage at the height of a religious ceremony. Violent clashes
between police and Shia pilgrims spread from Karbala to An Najaf
and lasted for several days before army troops were called in
to quell the unrest. It was the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran,
however, that transformed Shia dissatisfaction with the Baath
into an organized religiously based opposition. The Baath leadership
feared that the success of Iran's Islamic Revolution would serve
as an inspiration to Iraqi Shias. These fears escalated in July
1979, when riots broke out in An Najaf and in Karbala after the
government had refused Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir as Sadr's request
to lead a procession to Iran to congratulate Khomeini. Even more
worrisome to the Baath was the discovery of a clandestine Shia
group headed by religious leaders having ties to Iran. Baqir as
Sadr was the inspirational leader of the group, named Ad Dawah
al Islamiyah (the Islamic Call), commonly referred to as Ad Dawah.
He espoused a program similar to Khomeini's, which called for
a return to Islamic precepts of government and for social justice.
Despite the Iraqi government's concern, the eruption of the 1979
Islamic Revolution in Iran did not immediately destroy the Iraqi-Iranian
rapprochement that had prevailed since the 1975 Algiers Agreement.
As a sign of Iraq's desire to maintain good relations with the
new government in Tehran, President Bakr sent a personal message
to Khomeini offering "his best wishes for the friendly Iranian
people on the occasion of the establishment of the Islamic Republic."
In addition, as late as the end of August 1979, Iraqi authorities
extended an invitation to Mehdi Bazargan, the first president
of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to visit Iraq with the aim of
improving bilateral relations. The fall of the moderate Bazargan
government in late 1979, however, and the rise of Islamic militants
preaching an expansionist foreign policy soured Iraqi-Iranian
relations.
The principal events that touched off the rapid deterioration
in relations occurred during the spring of 1980. In April the
Iranian-supported Ad Dawah attempted to assassinate Iraqi foreign
minister Tariq Aziz. Shortly after the failed grenade attack on
Tariq Aziz, Ad Dawah was suspected of attempting to assassinate
another Iraqi leader, Minister of Culture and Information Latif
Nayyif Jasim. In response, the Iraqis immediately rounded up members
and supporters of Ad Dawah and deported to Iran thousands of Shias
of Iranian origin. In the summer of 1980, Saddam Husayn ordered
the executions of presumed Ad Dawah leader Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad
Baqr as Sadr and his sister.
In September 1980, border skirmishes erupted in the central sector
near Qasr-e Shirin, with an exchange of artillery fire by both
sides. A few weeks later, Saddam Husayn officially abrogated the
1975 treaty between Iraq and Iran and announced that the Shatt
al Arab was returning to Iraqi sovereignty. Iran rejected this
action and hostilities escalated as the two sides exchanged bombing
raids deep into each other's territory. Finally, on September
23, Iraqi troops marched into Iranian territory, beginning what
was to be a protracted and extremely costly war (see The Iran-Iraq
War , ch. 5).
The Iran-Iraq War permanently altered the course of Iraqi history.
It strained Iraqi political and social life, and led to severe
economic dislocations (see Growth and Structure of the Economy
, ch. 3). Viewed from a historical perspective, the outbreak of
hostilities in 1980 was, in part, just another phase of the ancient
Persian-Arab conflict that had been fueled by twentieth-century
border disputes. Many observers, however, believe that Saddam
Husayn's decision to invade Iran was a personal miscalculation
based on ambition and a sense of vulnerability. Saddam Husayn,
despite having made significant strides in forging an Iraqi nation-state,
feared that Iran's new revolutionary leadership would threaten
Iraq's delicate SunniShia balance and would exploit Iraq's geostrategic
vulnerabilities--Iraq's minimal access to the Persian Gulf, for
example. In this respect, Saddam Husayn's decision to invade Iran
has historical precedent; the ancient rulers of Mesopotamia, fearing
internal strife and foreign conquest, also engaged in frequent
battles with the peoples of the highlands.
* * *
The most reliable work on the ancient history of Iraq is George
Roux's Ancient Iraq, which covers the period from prehistory
through the Hellenistic period. Another good source, which places
Sumer in the context of world history, is J.M. Roberts's The
Pelican History of the World. A concise and authoritative
work on Shia Islam is Moojan Momen's An Introduction to Shii
Islam. The article by D. Sourdel, "The Abbasid Caliphate,"
in The Cambridge History of Islam, provides an excellent
overview of the medieval period. Stephen Longrigg's and Frank
Stoakes's Iraq contains a historical summary of events
before independence as well as a detailed account of the period
from independence to 1958. Majid Khadduri's Republican Iraq
is one of the best studies of Iraqi politics from the 1958 revolution
to the Baath coup of 1968. His Socialist Iraq: A Study in
Iraqi Politics since 1968 details events up to 1977. A seminal
work on Iraqi socioeconomic movements and trends between the Ottoman
period and the late 1970s is Hanna Batatu's The Old Social
Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq. The most
comprehensive study of Iraq in the modern period is Phebe Marr's
The Modern History of Iraq. Another good study, which
focuses on the political and the economic development of Iraq
from its foundation as a state until 1977, is Edith and E.F. Penrose's
Iraq: International Relations and National Development.
An excellent recent account of the Iraqi Baath is provided by
Christine Helms's Iraq, Eastern Flank of the Arab World.
(For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)
Data as of May 1988
|
