Review Edmund Ghareeb, The Kurdish Question In Iraq, Syracuse University Press, 1981

  

Edmund Ghareeb’s The Kurdish Question In Iraq is a bit of an oddity. On the one hand it takes much of what the Baath government said about Arab nationalism and the Kurdish issue in the 1960s and 70s at face value. On the other hand it gives a very good criticism of Mulla Mustafa Barzani and his struggle against the Iraqi government. His thesis is that Barzani’s miscalculations and autocracy led to his downfall.

Review Oles Smolansky with Bettie Smolansky, The USSR And Iraq, The Soviet Quest For Influence, Duke University Press, 1991

  

Until the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 Moscow was Iraq’s biggest supporter. Those ties were developed under the Bakr government and the Soviet Union in the late-1960s. Oles and Bettie Smolanky’s The USSR And Iraq, The Soviet Quest For Influence studies this relationship from the 1950s to the end of the Iran-Iraq War. They refute the common Cold War belief that the Soviets created clientist states like Iraq. Instead the two had common interests that created an alliance between them. The Smolankys argue that Baghdad was able to follow its own national interests without threatening that relationship.

Review Committee Against Repression and For Democratic Rights In Iraq, Saddam’s Iraq Revolution Or Reaction? Zed Books Ltd, 1989

  

Saddam’s Iraq Revolution Or Reaction? was an anthology put together by the Committee Against Repression and For Democratic Rights In Iraq. It is part history and part diatribe against Saddam Hussein. Like any collection the chapters are up and down. The historical sections are good as well as the analysis of the development of the economy. That’s thanks to the inclusion of authors such as historians Marion and Peter Sluglett.

Review A People’s History Of Iraq, The Iraqi Communist Party, Workers’ Movements, and the Left 1924-2004

Salucci, Ilario, A People’s History Of Iraq, The Iraqi Communist Party, Workers’ Movements, and the Left 1924-2004, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005

 

Ilario Salucci wrote a very short and concise history of the Communists in Iraq. The Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) used to be the largest in the country, leading protests and being one of the main opposition groups. However it consistently undermined itself following Soviet doctrine and policy. The author documents how the Communists constantly subordinated themselves to other groups believing that a nationalist bourgeoise and capitalism had to develop before socialism could be established. The party therefore faced defeat after defeat at its own hands.

Review Wings of Iraq: Volume 2: The Iraqi Air Force, 1970-1980

Cooper, Tom, Sipos, Milos, Wings of Iraq: Volume 2: The Iraqi Air Force, 1970-1980, Worwick: Helion & Company Limited, 2022

 

The second volume of the Wings of Iraq by Tom Cooper and Milos Sipos picks up right where the last one left off. The main topic is Iraq’s attempt to modernize its force after it found itself outclassed in the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars. The air arm was split over whether to turn to the Soviets or France to accomplish this. The authors rely upon both Iraqi and Iranian sources plus many interviews with former Iraqi personnel. It provides the best coverage of this arm of the military published so far. The main takeaway was that Baghdad became completely reliant upon the USSR but Moscow was an unreliable partner.

Review Memories of State, Politics, History, and Collective Identity In Modern Iraq

Davis, Eric, Memories of State, Politics, History, and Collective Identity In Modern Iraq, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2005

 

Memories of State, Politics, History, and Collective Identity In Modern Iraq is an academic look at how the Iraqi elite tried to forge a common history and political culture to bring the populace under its control. Author Professor Eric Davis argues that this effort was never successful for two reasons. First, the country was divided between nationalists and pan-Arabists for its first thirty years of its existence leading to constant instability. Eventually the pan-Arab Baath Party came to power but it quickly gave up those ideas for a cult of personality around Saddam Hussein which was rejected by wide swaths of the populace. Davis’ argument is convincing in some parts and has faults in others.  

Review People Without A Country, The Kurds and Kurdistan

Chaliand, Gerard, Editor, People Without A Country, The Kurds and Kurdistan, London: Zed Books, 1980

 

People Without A Country, The Kurds and Kurdistan is an anthology trying to cover the Kurdish populations in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the Soviet Union. All but one of the writers was a Marxist or leftist. While they all believed in the Kurdish desire for independence it noted that these efforts failed for a number of reasons. That included tribalism, depending upon unreliable foreign powers, and the lack of a revolutionary ideology that would link the parties with the people. The chapters on the Ottomans, Turkey, Iran and Iraq were quite good providing a historical overview of the Kurdish question up to the 1970s, while there is very little on Syria and the U.S.S.R. due to a lack of resources.

Review Iraq Since 1958, From Revolution To Dictatorship

Farouk-Sluglett, Marion and Sluglett, Peter, Iraq Since 1958, From Revolution To Dictatorship, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003

 

Iraq Since 1958, From Revolution To Dictatorship by Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett is one of the seminal Iraqi History books in English. It covers the history of Iraq from the monarchy to Saddam Hussein’s rule in the 1990s. The Slugletts main focus is on the governments that came after the 1958 coup and how they struggled to stay in power because they lacked a popular base.

Review Iraqi Women, Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present

Al-Ali, Nadje Sadig, Iraqi Women, Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present, London & New York: Zed Books, 2007

 

As author Nadje Al-Ali wrote in her conclusion Iraqi Women, Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present was an attempt to create a people’s history of Iraq through the eyes of the country’s women. This was in contrast to traditional histories that focus upon the elite and politicians. She based her book upon interviews mostly with women in the diaspora living in several different countries such as America, Jordan and England along with some who were living in Iraq. She asked them to tell their stories about Iraq’s past and present from the monarchy to the U.S. occupation. She found that women’s social class, their political leanings, and whether they lived in the cities or in the country determined their experiences and how they remembered Iraq.

Review Iraq’s Burdens, Oil, Sanctions, and Underdevelopment

Alnasrawi, Abbas, Iraq’s Burdens, Oil, Sanctions, and Underdevelopment, Westport London: Greenwood Press, 2002

Iraq’s Burdens, Oil, Sanctions, and Underdevelopment by Abbas Alnasrawi is a very good academic book about the impact of oil and the 1990s United Nations sanctions upon Iraq. It’s a very short read but it packs some real insights into how Iraq developed. The one drawback is that the author repeats himself quite often. His thesis was that in the 1950s the Iraqi government had the opportunity to use its vast oil wealth to really grow its economy. Instead it became dependent upon oil which led to the total demise of the nation when wars and sanctions cut off this most important industry.

Review Unholy Babylon, The Secret History of Saddam’s War

Darwish, Adel and Alexander, Gregory, Unholy Babylon, The Secret History of Saddam’s War, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991

 

Unholy Babylon, The Secret History of Saddam’s War was released right after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It starts by providing some historical background to Iraq-Kuwait relations, the rise of Iraq as a regional power and then finishes with the events that led Saddam Hussein to take over his neighbor. Journalist Adel Darwish and Gregory Alexander which was a pseudonym argue that Baghdad’s regional ambitions which were ignored by the West led to the Gulf conflict.

Review Socialist Iraq, A Study in Iraqi Politics Since 1968

Khadduri, Majid, Socialist Iraq, A Study in Iraqi Politics Since 1968, Washington D.C.: The Middle East Institute, 1978

Majid Khadduri was a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He wrote four books about Iraq. This was the third after Independent Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics, 1932-1958 and Republican Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics Since the Revolution of 1958. All of his books were known for their detailed histories since independence and his access to Iraq’s top officials. Socialist Iraq, A Study in Iraqi Politics Since 1968 for instance was based upon three trips to Iraq in 1974, 1976 and 1977 that included interviews with President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, his lieutenant Saddam Hussein, various ministers and one of the founders of the Baath Party Michel Aflaq. This book and his last one on Iraq, The Gulf War, The Origins and Implications of the Iraq-Iran Conflict, showed a decline in his writing as he became a fan of the Baath. Socialist Iraq for instance took everything Bakr’s government told him at face value, and laid praise upon the president and Saddam Hussein.

Baathist Origins Of Iraq’s Agriculture System

(AFP)

Like the rest of the economy agriculture is facing a crisis in Iraq. That’s because the system is dominated by the state, which is not making enough money to pay its bills. This is a legacy of the Baathist system implemented in the 1970s which placed the government at the center of all transactions in the farming business.

Review Desert Storm, Volume 1: The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Shield 1990-1991

Review Hooton, E.R. and Cooper, Tom, Desert Storm, Volume 1: The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Shield 1990-1991, Warwick: Helion & Company, 2019

Desert Storm, Volume 1 had great potential, but got lost in a breakdown of all the military forces involved in the aftermath of the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The book starts with some history on the creation of Kuwait, Iraq-Kuwait relations and then the militaries of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The invasion of Kuwait is next, and then all the forces and logistics involved in Operation Desert Shield. It’s the later that really brings down the book as it takes up nearly a third of the text and begins to read like a list of all the different pieces of equipment that were deployed.

Review Red Star Over Iraq, Iraqi Communism Before Saddam

Review Franzen, Johan, Red Star Over Iraq, Iraqi Communism Before Saddam, New York: Columbia University Press, 2011

The Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) returned to the news when in May 2018 it helped Moqtada al-Sadr’s Sairoon list win the most seats in Iraq’s parliamentary elections. Before that the group had been organizing demonstrations over the lack of services, corruption, and poor governance. This harkened back to the party’s long history of opposition politics during the monarchy when it led two large protest movements. Johan Franzen in Red Star Over Iraq, Iraqi Communism Before Saddam is a history of the party from its start in the 1930s when Iraqi politics were shifting from individual based parties to ones focused around ideology, through its opposition to English imperialism, and then its sudden decision to back a series of governments brought about by coups starting with the Qasim government through the Arif brothers and up to the Baathists. Franzen’s thesis is that the ICP’s adherence to Communist ideology, and especially pronouncements by the Soviets, led to its own undoing as it aligned itself with Iraqi regimes that were intent on co-opting it and then destroying its cadres.

When The Shah and Nixon Manipulated The Kurds

(National Archives)

In 1976 part of the secret Senate Intelligence Committee’s Pike report was leaked to the Village Voice. The Pike Committee was put together in 1975 to investigate the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency. It included information on how the Nixon Administration began supporting the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to help the Shah pressure Iraq over a border dispute. Once that issue was resolved the U.S. and Iran abandoned the Kurds whose rebellion was crushed.

An Alternative Look At Iraq’s 1970s Economic Development

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The 1970s is widely considered a golden period for Iraq. During this time, oil production increased, and astute government planning was able to use that revenue to nearly quadrupled per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Life expectancy, school enrolment, and literacy all increased as well. Indiana State University Economics Professor Bassam Yousif studied this period, and while acknowledging the great gains that were made also argued that it was eventually undercut by politicization by the Baathist government.

Iraq’s economy and society saw tremendous development in the 1970s. From 1970 to 1979 real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) more than doubled due to rising oil production and prices. In 1970 oil production averaged 1.5 million barrels a day. By 1979 it was up to 3.5 million. During that same time per capita GDP went from $232 to $851. At the same time life expectancy, school enrolment, and literacy also increased. Industry got a large boost, but agriculture was largely stagnant. That was partly due to government subsidies that pushed down prices for farm products, and political decisions to control rural areas. These were all important gains. What was most impressive was that not only were the aggregate numbers like GDP going up, but that the general public was benefiting as well through things like education.

Bassem doesn’t disputes the development that Iraq experienced during the decade, his argument was that it was undercut by the Baath Party. The professor believed that institutional capacity is the main factor in economic development. That is especially true in Iraq where most of the country’s revenue comes from oil, which is deposited with the state. Bassem defined capacity as the ability of the government to form and carry out policies, regulations, and provide services. That works best when there is a level of autonomy within the bureaucracy that allows it to carry out its plans, and when there is a highly trained and educated staff. The development in Iraq in the 1970s helped with the latter because of the huge growth in schooling and middle class professionals, which the state could draw upon. On the other hand, President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr’s government and his Baath Party began politicizing the public sector, undermining the former. For example, the regime began rewarding its supporters through patronage. That included appointing Baath members and its backers to important posts undermining the meritocracy and efficiency of the administration. The government also started moving away from long term economic planning to annual investment plans that were partly based upon giving benefits to its friends. That brought into question whether the growth witnessed in the 1970s would continue into the 1980s. That can never be tested however as the Iran-Iraq War started and completely derailed the economy.

SOURCES

Yousif, Bassam, “Iraq’s stunted growth: human and economic development in perspective,” Contemporary Arab Affairs, 3/31/16