This Day In Iraqi History - Mar 18 4 pro-Najaf Hashd units asked to join Defense Min to protest pro-Iran groups control of Hashd Commission

 

1914 US consulate in Baghdad reported Ottomans had reconciled with Sayid Talib and Sheikh

Ajaimi of Montafiq Confederation They had de facto control of Basra vilayet

Iraq Continues To Import Iranian Energy Despite Losing US Waiver To Do So

In February President Trump signed a new presidential memorandum restarting his Maximum Pressure campaign against Iran. Iraq was actually the first country to feel the effects as Washington ended its waiver to buy natural gas and electricity from Tehran at the start of March.

This Day In Iraqi History - Mar 17 Yasin al-Hashemi became PM 2nd time Was widely feared that he wanted to become dictator of Iraq

 

1639 Treaty of Zuhab ended Ottoman-Safavid War and gave Ottomans most of Mesopotamia

(Musings On Iraq review An Analysis of Hanna Batatu’s The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq)

This Day In Iraqi History - Mar 16 Iraqi WMD attack upon Halabja 5,000 killed

 

1917 UK War Cabinet created Mesopotamia administration committee to decide on form of

govt in captured areas

(Musings On Iraq review When God Made Hell, The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921)

This Day In Iraqi History - Mar 15 Ayatollah Khomeini called on Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam

 

1915 Viceroy of India wrote UK interests were protecting Persian oil concession which meant Basra

vilayet should be controlled by UK while Baghdad vilayet should be ceded by Turkey and given native administration under UK influence

(Musings On Iraq review Enemy On The Euphrates, The Battle For Iraq 1914-1921)

(Musings On Iraq review When God Made Hell, The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921)

Review Timothy Andrews Sayle, Engel, Jeffrey, Brands, Hal and Inboden, William, Edited by, The Last Card, Inside George W. Bush’s Decision To Surge In Iraq, Cornell University Press, 2019

Sayle, Timothy Andrews, Engel, Jeffrey, Brands, Hal and Inboden, William, Edited by, The Last Card, Inside George W. Bush’s Decision To Surge In Iraq, Cornell University Press, 2019

 

The Last Card, Inside George W. Bush’s Decision To Surge In Iraq provides the most comprehensive view of how the Bush administration decided to order the Surge in 2007. It consists of two halves. The first is interviews with 28 members of the White House starting with President Bush himself along with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and various members of the National Security Council, State Department, and Pentagon. The second part is a series of articles by academics trying to evaluate the decision making process and giving some views of whether the Surge worked or not. It’s those firsthand accounts of most of the major players within the government that makes this a must read for those interested in the Surge.

This Day In Iraqi History - Mar 14 Operation to free Tikrit stalled due to high Hashd casualties

 

1921 Colonial Sec Churchill wrote PM Lloyd George Said making Faisal king of Iraq best

chance for UK to save money in Iraq

(Musings On Iraq review Cairo 1921, Ten Days That Made the Middle East)

(Musings On Iraq review Empires of the Sand, The Struggle For Mastery In The Middle East 1789-1923)