Nemir Kirdar was born in Iraq but left in 1969 due to the Baathist dictatorship. He went into business and became a multi-millionaire running his own investment firm. His book Saving Iraq, Rebuilding A Broken Nation represents everything that was wrong with Iraqi exiles. They had no idea what happened in Iraq since they left and valorized the past as an idyllic period that could be recreated in the present.
Saving Iraq is broken up into two sections. The first is about how he wanted the Hashemite monarchy which he lived under to be re-established in Iraq. Halfway through he states that couldn’t happen anymore which leads to the second half which is about having the United Nations create an interim government that would create a Western style state and economy. He spends lots of time valorizing the monarchy and his experience being a businessman but little on how his plans could actually be realized. That’s because there is no way either plan could ever come to life.
Kirdar grew up in a wealthy family who was connected to the monarchy. Because his family prospered during that period he not only believed that it was the best time in modern Iraqi history but should be recreated.
His recollections of the monarchy are fatally flawed. He claimed that the Hashemite royal family brought a constitutional democracy that represented all elements of the population. The bureaucracy was based upon merit. The economy was open to investment and helped develop the country. He doesn’t have a single criticism of the era.
In reality the monarchy was a period of elite rule and poverty for the masses. He brings up Prime Minister Nuri al-Said as one of his heroes of the era who rose through his hard work. He got his position because he joined the Arab Revolt in Syria led by the future King Faisal. He then became one of the founders of the Iraqi army because his brother in law was put in charge of building the force. Rather than being a democracy Said and other premiers fixed elections and picked most of the winners. He was also famous for being an autocrat who arrested the opposition and called out the police to put down protests with force. The economy on the other hand was controlled by a small group of landed elites while the farm workers were serfs. The development program was based upon enriching the estates rather than the populace.
Kirdar quotes several well known Iraqi historians such as Phebe Marr and Charles Tripp but it appears he ignored anything bad they had to say about the monarchy.
As if that wasn’t enough his idea was to have Iraq placed under the King of Jordan. The author was friends with the king and thought he was the type of leader who could bring people together. Why Iraqis would want to be under a Jordanian monarch is never seriously discussed. This isn’t the first time that he doesn’t consider popular feelings in the country.
The second half of the book argued that the United Nations should create an interim government that would create a Western style democracy and economy. There would be three branches of government with checks and balances, minority rights would be protected, there would be a separation of religion and the state, the private sector would be developed using oil revenues and a modern banking system created.
The fact that it is against the U.N. mandate to remove governments and put in another one is never discussed. Nor is there any talk about why the post-Saddam Iraqi elite would go along with any of this. What would a religious figure such as Moqtada al-Sadr with his militia or Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani say about this plan? What about the insurgency as nothing is said about how to deal with the violence in Iraq.
Saving Iraq is a deeply personal argument by Nemir Kirdar. First he wanted to recreate the Iraq of his childhood with the monarchy. Then he argued for a westernized Iraq based upon the life he was living as a businessman. How either could realistically be created or what Iraqis would think is never seriously discussed. Kirdar is like other Iraqi exiles who left their homeland decades ago and had no concept of how it had developed since then. The idea that Iraqis would welcome a foreign king as their sovereign is a glaring example of how disconnected he was.
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