Iraq through the ages

09/09/2006

Eric Black, Star Tribune
Last update: September 07, 2006 – 5:04 PM

Iraq, which gave the world Saddam Hussein, is also the birthplace of writing, the plow and the first great code of law. It’s also the birthplace of Abraham, father of the Jews and the Arabs.

In earlier epochs, the territory now called Iraq was the center of the greatest powers of the day. At other times it was conquered by Alexander the Great, ravaged by the Mongols and dominated by empires based in Persia, Turkey and Britain.

Follow that history to the present, and you find Iraq at the epicenter of world attention, this time as the likely target of an attack by the greatest power of the early 21st century. Trace the history back about 12,000 years and you find two great rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates - meeting at the cradle of Western civilization.

The Fertile Crescent between those rivers provided the ample water, rich land and favorable climate that made possible major breakthroughs in early human history. Of the many names by which the territory has been known, the most common is Mesopotamia, a Greek term that means the land between the rivers. Agriculture may have started there. The earliest evidence of animal and plant domestication has been found in and around northern Iraq, from more than 10,000 years ago.

Five thousand years ago, territory now in southern Iraq was the home of the Sumerian civilization, which contributed such breakthroughs as the wheel, the plow and writing.

Other ancient civilizations were based in Iraqi territory, such as the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Babylon was about 50 miles south of where Baghdad now stands. Hammurabi, the famous Babylonian king who ruled in the late 18th century B.C., promulgated the most highly developed legal code that survives from early history. It was, for example, the first known legal code that took into account whether a crime had been committed deliberately or accidentally.

Nebuchadnezzar, a later Babylonian king and builder of the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, attacked Jerusalem to put down a rebellion, destroyed the temple King Solomon had built there (587 B.C.), and dragged much of the Jewish population back to Babylon, (the episode known as the Babylonian Captivity), where a number of Bible stories are set. For example Daniel, of lion’s den fame, got his start as a soothsayer by interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, according to the Bible.

Many Bible stories - starting with Adam and Eve - are set in and around Mesopotamia, either literally or according to tradition. The Bible says that the patriarch Abraham came from Ur, a great city of ancient Mesopotamia. The story of the Tower of Babel is set in Babylonia. And Nineveh, the metropolis to which God sent Jonah to warn the people to change their wicked ways, was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, near the northern Iraq city of Mosul.

But after the Nebuchadnezzar period, Mesopotamia’s centuries as a center of empires were mostly over, and the territory instead became one over which other great empires fought. Cyrus the Great, creator of the ancient Persian Empire, conquered Mesopotamia in the mid-6th century B.C.

Alexander the Great took it from the Persians during his brief but action-packed life, made his capital in Babylon, and died there of a sudden illness in 323 B.C. Mesopotamia fell back under Persian domination in the next several centuries. The Iraqi population, mostly Persian-speaking Christians during that period, became mostly Arab-speaking Muslims after Islamic warriors took control of the territory in the 7th century A.D., just after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. Iraq has been a mostly Arab-Muslim nation ever since. Iraq is an Arabic word that appears in the Qu’ran and has been a geographical term for the general area throughout the Muslim era.

The territory also played an important role in the schism between Sunnism and Shiism, the two major Muslim sects, which arose in the 650s between backers of two rivals claiming to be the fourth caliph, the title taken by Mohammed’s successors. Shiites evolved from those who backed the claim of Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, Imam Ali. Ali had his base in Basra, and the first big battle in the intra-Muslim war, known as the Battle of the Camel, was fought on Iraqi territory.

1001 Arabian Nights

Baghdad, the capital of modern Iraq, was a small village until 762, when the rulers of the Abbasid Caliphate built their capital there. It soon became the center of the Muslim world and one of the world’s greatest cities.

The early 9th century was a golden age for Muslim culture, and Baghdad was its center. The tales of the 1001 Arabian Nights, featuring Aladdin, Ali Baba and Sinbad the Sailor, are set in this period’s thriving Baghdad. The classic texts of ancient Greece are alive today because Iraq-based scholars translated them into Arabic during this flowering of arts, science and medicine.

Saladin, the 12th-century Muslim leader of legendary chivalry who defeated the Crusaders, was a Kurd, born in Tikrit - very near where Saddam Hussein was born.

Baghdad remained an important Islamic capital for centuries until the next campaign of conquest swept through the region. Hulagu, a grandson of Genghis Khan, led a Mongol army that utterly destroyed Baghdad in 1258. Hulagu made a pyramid of the skulls of Baghdad’s scholars, religious leaders and poets, and destroyed Iraq’s highly developed canal system.

This incident provided the background for a recent tirade by Saddam. On Jan. 17, pledging to repel any U.S. invasion, Saddam warned that “the people of Baghdad have resolved to compel the Mongols of this age to commit suicide on its walls.” Referring to President Bush as “the Hulagu of this age,” he called on Iraqis to “tell him in a clear, loud voice, `Oh, evil, cease your evil doings against the mother of civilization.’ “

In 1401, another Mongol warrior, Tamerlane, sacked Baghdad, massacred thousands of Iraqis and devastated hundreds of towns.

Iraq has never regained the global importance it achieved between the time of Sumer and the Mongol destruction.

Historian Eva von Dassow, who teaches about ancient civilization at the University of Minnesota, said that “regardless of what Americans nowadays think of Iraq now, it indisputably has a long and impressive cultural history and has made enormous contributions to the world. It is valid to call the ancient Near East, including Mesopotamia and Egypt, the cradle of the civilization that became Western.”

British rule

In the centuries after the Mongol disaster, Iraq served mostly as a buffer or battleground between the great empires based in Turkey and Persia. During most of the period from 1538 to 1914, Iraq was dominated by the Ottoman Turks, who divided what is now Iraq into three provinces.

During World War I, the tottering Ottoman Empire finally fell apart, and the British took control of Iraq. This was a source of substantial bitterness, since the British had encouraged Arabs during the war to believe that they would have independence.

Instead, Iraq got the status, under the League of Nations, of a “mandate” territory, which meant it would be under British supervision while preparing for full independence. The Iraqi population was enraged, and a major rebellion broke out in 1920, which was put down by British aerial bombardment. It was the first use of bombardment from airplanes in such an operation.

Resentment over British imperialism continued for four decades, and that tradition of resenting outside powers almost certainly feeds anti-American attitudes today.

The boundaries of modern Iraq were settled by British officials, including Winston Churchill, who combined three Ottoman districts, the northern mostly Kurdish district administered from Mosul; the middle mostly Sunni Arab district, which contained Baghdad; and the southern mostly Shiite district, whose major city was Basra.

In Arab nationalist thinking, these decisions reflected the British desire to create an inherently unstable nation, lacking historical legitimacy and forcing three antagonistic groups to live together, so the country would never be strong and unified and would be more easily controlled by outsiders.

When the British drew Iraq’s boundaries, they lopped off Kuwait, even though it had been part of the Basra district during Ottoman times. This map-drawing was at the core of Saddam’s argument that by invading Kuwait, he was only recapturing Iraq’s lost 13th province.

Historian Renee Worringer, who teaches Mideast history at the University of Minnesota, said many Americans seem unaware of the degree to which Iraqi attitudes toward the United States are shaped by their previous experience with Western imperialism.

“The perception is that the modern boundaries of Iraq were created by outsiders, who ignored historic divisions within the country between Sunni, Shia and Kurd, because they were guided by their own interests. In the case of the British, their interests were to control the oil, and to have a land route to India. . . .

“People tend to forget the profoundness of the anti-imperial sentiment created by this period. It still exists and it has an effect on views of the U.S. today, especially after 10 years of sanctions that have starved and frustrated people. It has reminded Iraqis that there is still an imperial power out there trying to control us and to exploit our oil wealth. If I was Iraqi, given the experience they’ve had with outside powers . . . I would assume the oil is the main motive for the Americans now.”

The period of British rule brought an outsider to the Iraqi throne. The Mecca-based Hashemite clan had been the main British ally during World War I and believed the Brits had promised to help them become the royal family of a post-war independent pan-Arab nation. Instead, the Brits paid them back piecemeal. One Hashemite prince, Abdullah, was placed on the throne of the newly created nation of Transjordan (now Jordan).

Another Hashemite prince, Faisal, was briefly king of post-war Syria, but Syria was controlled by the French, who ousted Faisal. The Brits then slipped him in as ruler of newly created Iraq in 1921. The Brits carefully staged a plebiscite, in which 96 percent of Iraqis voted to accept Faisal as king. The ballot, foreshadowing Saddam’s later electoral style, offered voters only one name. In 1932, under an agreement with Britain, Iraq gained the status of an independent nation, although it remained under British influence.

King Faisal died in 1933, while undergoing medical treatment in Switzerland. His son Ghazi, the new king, was only 21, Western-educated and lacking background in Iraqi tribal politics. In 1936, Iraq underwent the first of many military coups (they didn’t overthrow the king, but rather the civilian government). Ghazi died in a 1939 car crash and was succeeded by his infant son, Faisal II.

Saddam Hussein, by the way, was born under King Ghazi on April 28, 1937, in the village of Ouija outside Tikrit. His father died (according to some accounts) or abandoned the family about the time Saddam was born. He was raised by his mother and at times by a physically abusive stepfather and his uncles. The family was not well off.

Over the next decades, the monarchy declined in power and Iraq was riven by conflict fueled by pan-Arabism, anti-imperialism and other trends. The British reinvaded and occupied Iraq during World War II to keep it from falling under German influence.

The monarchy was overthrown in 1958 by a pan-Arabist faction that executed Faisal II and ended British domination of Iraq. Iraq has called itself a republic ever since, although it lacks the democratic trappings that Westerners associate with that term.

Saddam emerges

At the tender age of 22, Saddam made his first small impact on the world stage when he tried, but failed, to murder the dictator of Iraq.

The Baath Party - which Saddam joined in 1957, when he was 20, and to which he has remained loyal throughout his life - grew in popularity and influence during the early Republican period. Founded by two Syrians in the early 1940s, the Baathist ideology combines elements of Arab nationalism, anti-imperialism and socialism. Its slogan is “Unity, Freedom, Socialism” - unity among Arabs, freedom from Western imperialism and socialism of a different style than the economic system Marx envisioned. Rather, in the case of Syria and Iraq - the two countries dominated by Baathism over recent decades - it has meant absolute dictatorship.

After the 1958 coup, the first dictator of Iraq, Abd al Karim Qassim, was not a Baathist or a Communist, but he did take the country into the Soviet bloc, receiving military and economic aid from Moscow.

The young Saddam participated in a 1959 attempt to assassinate Qassim. His assignment was to provide covering fire, with a submachine gun, for the four men assigned to kill Qassim as he rode by in his car.

The assassins killed Qassim’s driver and wounded Qassim, but not fatally. One of the assassins was killed, and Saddam was shot in the leg and got away. (The embellished story of Saddam’s escape - on foot, on horseback, swimming across the Tigris with his leg wound, slipping through checkpoints disguised as a Bedouin - is the subject of an epic Iraqi novel and official government movie, “The Long Days.")

Saddam has since told interviewers that, having thought he was going to die that day in 1959, he has viewed every day since as a gift from God. Those who want to see Saddam’s various reckless life choices as evidence of an almost suicidal fatalism sometimes rely on this incident and the comments he has made about it. He once said: “I consider myself to have died on that day.”

After the botched assassination, Saddam had to flee Iraq. He spent the next four years in Egypt and Syria, the only period he has lived outside Iraq. He attended law school in Cairo and is believed to have made frequent visits to the U.S. embassy there. The Iraqi Baathists and the CIA had a common interest in getting rid of pro-Soviet Qassim. Several authors believe that Saddam was helping the CIA and the Baathists coordinate a coup.

In 1963, the Baathists overthrew Qassim, with help from the CIA, and this time they killed him, but held power only briefly, setting off a a period of coups and counter-coups.

Said K. Aburish, author of “Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge,” who worked with Saddam in the 1970s, has said that the CIA’s role in the coup against Qassim was “substantial.” CIA agents were in touch with army officers who helped in the coup, operated an electronic command center in Kuwait to guide the anti-Qassim forces, and supplied the conspirators with lists of people to be killed.

“The relationship between the Americans and the Baath Party at that moment in time was very close indeed,” Aburish said. The coup plotters repaid the CIA with access to Soviet-made jets and tanks the Americans hadn’t yet acquired.

The coup enabled Saddam to return to Iraq. But the success was short-lived. The Baath was ousted and prominent Baathists were jailed. Saddam went underground, then was arrested and spent portions of 1964-66 as a political prisoner. He apparently was held under relatively comfortable conditions and low security. He escaped, apparently walking away from guards at a restaurant, and went back underground to help plot the Baath’s return to power.

The disgrace of those who had lost power so soon after the 1963 coup created openings in the party leadership, and Saddam rose quickly to the No. 2 position, behind his relative Ahmed Hassan Bakr.

In 1967, Iraq gave token assistance to the front-line Arab states in the six-day war with Israel. It broke diplomatic relations with the United States to protest U.S. support for Israel.

In 1968, the Baathists seized power again. The coup actually was organized by non-Baathists in the military, but the Baath outmaneuvered its coup-mates and ended up with control. This time, Saddam was on the front lines, wearing a military uniform and participating in an attack on the presidential palace. The Baathists have held power ever since.

Saddam Hussein was vice president and head of security services in the new regime, serving under Bakr. He soon emerged as the real power behind the throne. Employing sham trials, confessions extracted by torture, executions and assassinations, Saddam eliminated all political rivals.

One charming practice during this period: After executing a political opponent, the regime would send the family members an invoice demanding that they reimburse the government for the bullets used.

The leadership of the party, and therefore of the country, was increasingly concentrated in a circle of Tikritis, many of them related by blood and intermarriage.

A CIA role?

Some writers claim that the CIA played a role in the 1968 coup, as well. They argue that the CIA believed the pre-Baath government of Iraq was preparing to give the Soviets and the French the oil and other mineral concessions. If the CIA was involved, they failed to put in place a pro-American government.

In April 1972, Iraq signed a 15-year friendship pact with the Soviet Union and agreed to cooperate in political, economic, and military affairs. The Soviets supplied Iraq with arms. President Bakr nationalized Iraq’s oil industry. U.S., British and Dutch oil corporations lost their holdings, including the 25 percent share of the Iraq Petroleum Company that had been owned by U.S.-based Exxon and Mobil. The Soviet Union, and later France, provided technical aid and capital to Iraq’s oil industry.

Among Saddam’s responsibilities in the post-1968 government was as chief interlocutor between the regime and the Kurds of northern Iraq, whose quest for independence had been a thorn in the side of almost all Iraqi governments. The Baath Party came to power promising a better deal for the Kurds. In 1970, Kurdish leaders negotiated an agreement that recognized Kurdish cultural rights and promised a transition to Kurdish autonomy within Iraq by 1974.

But by 1974, Kurdish leaders felt that the Baathists were reneging on the agreement, and civil war broke out. The shah of Iran - not out of any love of the Kurdish cause, but because of his own hostility to the Iraqi regime - provided arms, training and refuge to Kurdish fighters. Israel also sent arms and trainers. The CIA helped the rebels with arms and military intelligence.

Then in 1975, all of these allies proved the wisdom of the pessimistic Kurdish proverb that “the Kurds have no friends but the mountains.” The shah settled his border dispute with Iraq, lost interest in making trouble for Baghdad and cut off the supply of arms to the Kurds. Israel and the CIA followed suit. Without allies, the Kurds were no match for the Iraqis, and the rebellion was smashed. Although Washington and the Kurds are now again part of the anti-Saddam coalition, this history of betrayal hangs over the relationship.

Ruthless leadership

Bakr remained president through the 1970s, but Saddam dominated the regime ever more obviously and continued to ruthlessly eliminate rivals. In 1979, the Carter administration placed Iraq on the first U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism.

Part of Saddam’s vision has always been that he would unite the Arab world. When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat broke ranks with the Arab world by signing the 1978 treaty with Israel, Saddam saw it as an opportunity for Iraq to play a leading role in Arab affairs. He was instrumental in convening an Arab summit in Baghdad that denounced Sadat’s reconciliation with Israel and imposed sanctions on Egypt.

In 1979, Saddam made his real status official. With the retirement of Bakr, Saddam ascended to the presidency, which he has held since.

Five days after becoming president, Saddam conducted a meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council. In a style reminiscent of former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, he called forth party members and offered them opportunities to confess they had participated in treasonous plots against the nation and its leadership.

The process went on for days, as Saddam compiled a list of traitors to be executed. Saddam himself, and the remaining members of the Council - including many who had been forced to confess but whose lives were spared - formed the firing squad.

But here’s perhaps the most amazing thing. Saddam arranged to have the whole proceeding videotaped, and he distributed copies to the surviving party members lest there be any doubt what would happen to those who displeased him.

Saddam’s rule continues. The ruthless, murderous leadership, so evident in those videotapes, has propelled Iraq from a disastrous 10-year clash with Iran to a calamity in Kuwait and now to the brink of war with a U.S.-led coalition bent on changing the regime in Baghdad.

Fertile Crescent: 4300 - 2300 B.C. The Fertile Crescent created by the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile rivers gave rise to early human civilizations including the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian. . Age of empires: 1000 - 300 B.C. Mesopotamia was the center of several empires, including the Babylonian. It also was ruled by empires based elsewhere, including Persia, now known as Iran. . Golden age of Baghdad: 300 B.C. - 1000 A.D. Alexander the Great’s empire spread through the region. Soon after the founding of Islam, the area was Arabized and came under Muslim rule. A line of caliphs made Baghdad their capital. . Mongolian, Ottoman empires: 1250 - 1900 The Ottoman Empire, based in Turkey, became the greatest power in the Muslim world. The Ottomans controlled Iraq for most of four centuries. . Modern Iraq: Post-World War I The modern boundaries of Iraq were drawn by British officials after World War I. Britain dominated Iraq until the 1958 overthrow of the British-backed Iraqi monarchy. . . 3100 B.C. Sumerian civilization develops in area later known as Mesopotamia - a land of lush vegetation and abundant wildlife along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Sumerians create city-state government, irrigation and writing. . 2300 B.C. Sargon of Akkad unites city-states of southern Mesopotamia to create the Akkadian Empire, the first world empire. . 1790-1750 B.C. Babylonian King Hammurabi rules region from the Persian Gulf in the south to Assyria in the north. . 1600 B.C. Hittites destroy Babylon and withdraw. Kassites take power in southern Mesopotamia. . 1350 B.C. Assyria becomes a regional power. Neo-Assyrian empire thrives 911-612 B.C. . 612 B.C. Two new kingdoms - the Chaldeans and the Medes - join to effectively extinguish Assyrian power. . 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar, king of the New Babylonian Empire, destroys Jerusalem. Much of the Jewish population is deported to Babylon. . 539 B.C. Cyrus the Great invades from Persia (now called Iran), conquers Babylon and frees the Jews. Persian rule lasts 200 years. . 331 B.C. Alexander the Great conquers Babylon, makes it his capital, and dies there in 323. . 226 A.D. Persians are back in control. . 637 Muslim Arabs defeat the Persians and conquer the region, spreading the new Islamic religion. . 762 Baghdad is founded as a new capital for the caliphate, making Baghdad the political, cultural and scientific center of the Islamic world. . 1258 Mongols, led by Genghis Khan’s grandson, sweep through the region, sacking Baghdad. . 1534 The Ottoman Turks, under their greatest leader, Suleiman the Magnificent, seize Iraq. Baghdad is a relative backwater during the centuries of Ottoman rule. . 1914-18 During World War I, Ottoman Empire is on the losing side, the empire collapses and the British occupy Baghdad. . 1919-20 League of Nations gives Britain a mandate over Iraq. The British install King Faisal. . 1932 Iraq gains independence. . 1958 Iraq’s monarchy is overthrown in a coup led, in part, by General Abd al Karim Qassim, who becomes prime minister of the new republic. . 1963 Qassim is ousted in a coup led by the Arab Socialist Baath Party with likely CIA assistance. Baathists are ousted months later and go underground. . 1968 Baath Party regains power in another coup. Saddam is second in command. Baathists have held power ever since. . 1979 Saddam Hussein becomes president and purges the Baath Party, executing about 400 members. . Sources: Library of Congress, Encyclopaedia of the Orient; Atlas of World History, Dorling Kindersley Publishing