Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
MM Video: Kings of Iraq
The Kings of Iraq, Hashemite dynasty. The Kingdom of Iraq existed from 1932 to 1958. Previously Iraq had been a British Mandate after the division of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. When independence was granted Faisal I became king. He was succeeded by King Ghazi who later died in a car accident in 1939. A regent ruled on behalf of King Faisal II until he came of age. However, his reign was cut short by a coup in 1958 in which the King and almost the entire royal family were brutally massacred. The chaos this caused eventually allowed the Bathist party to dominate the country in 1963, later coming under the rule of Saddam Hussein.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Reflecting on Iraq
Last night U.S. President B. H. “the One” Obama addressed the nation on the end of active combat operations in Iraq; which of course does not mean that all combat has actually ended but that’s politics for you. Looking back on the years of warfare in that ancient country it is hard (and obviously was for the president) to look at exactly what the significance of the end of combat operations was. No one was declaring victory, the enemies of the new Iraqi regime are still operating and dangerous, the government is still…well, there is no government as of now, insurgent attacks have been down and the Iraqi forces have been built up though U.S. Special Forces are remaining in the country to continue support. The horrific regime of Saddam Hussein is gone but we still do not know what will replace it. So far the trend has been toward the long repressed Shiite majority who are supported by their co-religionists in Iran. Oddly enough, it was to prevent this exact situation that the U.S. once supported Saddam Hussein and his tyrannical regime.
Iraq has been in a less than ideal state ever since the tragic end of the monarchy and the unspeakably brutal regicide of the young King Faisal II. This was done by some future members of the Saddam Hussein regime and just to show what side of the political spectrum they were on, once the royals were massacred and the monarchy destroyed they quickly got cozy with the Soviet Union. The era of the Kingdom of Iraq was certainly not trouble-free but it was the only period of the history of the Iraq we know today that was stable, moderate and even modern. But, the British had been the driving force behind the Kingdom of Iraq, established with the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, and the end of the British Empire also spelled the end of the Kingdom of Iraq which could no longer count on British support. To make matters worse, not all monarchies in the Middle East showed sufficient solidarity when revolutionary elements began to raise their ugly heads.
One thing which I have always maintained (and been frequently criticized for) is that the end of the Saddam Hussein was a good thing for Iraqi monarchists and of course this would not have happened without the war. Iraqi monarchists, after the destruction of the former regime and the establishment of democracy, were at least able to compete in national elections. They stood very little chance of course but that a little chance, no matter how little, was still more than the absolutely ‘zero’ chance they had under Saddam Hussein. There were some hopeful messages from time to time but the legitimate leadership of the royal house was disputed, there was the religious difference between the Royal Family and the majority of Iraqis as well as the lingering legacy of the Kingdom of Iraq as a “puppet” state of Great Britain. That is not entirely true of course but has some truth to it at least and requires a more broad mind than many seemed willing to try for.
The problem, of course, is that the absence of the monarchy led to the very feelings that created the current radicalism and makes a restoration of the monarchy so difficult, even more difficult than in Afghanistan for example. Also, the fact that monarchists were able to compete politically for the first time since the fall of the kingdom does not, by itself, totally justify the war either. However, if you want to go back to the original root of the problems in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole you must go back, as usual, to World War I and the Ottoman Empire. The great powers of the world once realized that the Ottoman Empire had to be maintained, despite its own decay and the continuous chipping away at it, because they realized, at least back then, that there would be chaos in the wake of an Ottoman collapse. They recognized that very dangerous forces were under the surface in much of the Middle East and that it was only the Ottoman Sultan who kept them under control.
When the Allies, primarily Britain and France, saw the Ottoman Empire collapse and divided it up between them, they effectively removed the cork from the bottle and allowed the genie to escape. Ever since that time there has scarcely been a single period of lasting peace in the area. That being said, there should also be no doubt as to what type of government has been more successful -the monarchies established with or protected by the British or the republican governments set up under the influence of the French. Compare the monarchies of Jordan or Kuwait with the situation in Lebanon and especially Syria. The Kingdom of Jordan was founded under similar circumstances to Iraq and their success, despite lacking the mineral resources of Iraq, should serve as an example. Ultimately, however, as is almost always the case but rarely admitted, it is the Iraqis who hold their destiny in their own hands and certainly moreso from this point onward.
Iraq has been in a less than ideal state ever since the tragic end of the monarchy and the unspeakably brutal regicide of the young King Faisal II. This was done by some future members of the Saddam Hussein regime and just to show what side of the political spectrum they were on, once the royals were massacred and the monarchy destroyed they quickly got cozy with the Soviet Union. The era of the Kingdom of Iraq was certainly not trouble-free but it was the only period of the history of the Iraq we know today that was stable, moderate and even modern. But, the British had been the driving force behind the Kingdom of Iraq, established with the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, and the end of the British Empire also spelled the end of the Kingdom of Iraq which could no longer count on British support. To make matters worse, not all monarchies in the Middle East showed sufficient solidarity when revolutionary elements began to raise their ugly heads.
One thing which I have always maintained (and been frequently criticized for) is that the end of the Saddam Hussein was a good thing for Iraqi monarchists and of course this would not have happened without the war. Iraqi monarchists, after the destruction of the former regime and the establishment of democracy, were at least able to compete in national elections. They stood very little chance of course but that a little chance, no matter how little, was still more than the absolutely ‘zero’ chance they had under Saddam Hussein. There were some hopeful messages from time to time but the legitimate leadership of the royal house was disputed, there was the religious difference between the Royal Family and the majority of Iraqis as well as the lingering legacy of the Kingdom of Iraq as a “puppet” state of Great Britain. That is not entirely true of course but has some truth to it at least and requires a more broad mind than many seemed willing to try for.
The problem, of course, is that the absence of the monarchy led to the very feelings that created the current radicalism and makes a restoration of the monarchy so difficult, even more difficult than in Afghanistan for example. Also, the fact that monarchists were able to compete politically for the first time since the fall of the kingdom does not, by itself, totally justify the war either. However, if you want to go back to the original root of the problems in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole you must go back, as usual, to World War I and the Ottoman Empire. The great powers of the world once realized that the Ottoman Empire had to be maintained, despite its own decay and the continuous chipping away at it, because they realized, at least back then, that there would be chaos in the wake of an Ottoman collapse. They recognized that very dangerous forces were under the surface in much of the Middle East and that it was only the Ottoman Sultan who kept them under control.
When the Allies, primarily Britain and France, saw the Ottoman Empire collapse and divided it up between them, they effectively removed the cork from the bottle and allowed the genie to escape. Ever since that time there has scarcely been a single period of lasting peace in the area. That being said, there should also be no doubt as to what type of government has been more successful -the monarchies established with or protected by the British or the republican governments set up under the influence of the French. Compare the monarchies of Jordan or Kuwait with the situation in Lebanon and especially Syria. The Kingdom of Jordan was founded under similar circumstances to Iraq and their success, despite lacking the mineral resources of Iraq, should serve as an example. Ultimately, however, as is almost always the case but rarely admitted, it is the Iraqis who hold their destiny in their own hands and certainly moreso from this point onward.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Royal Profile: Prince Regent Abd al-Ilah
One of the key figures in the late history of the Kingdom of Iraq was the Prince-Regent Abd al-Ilah. Born in 1913 he was the son of King Ali ibn Hussein of the Hejaz, a nephew of King Faisal I of Iraq and a cousin and the brother-in-law of King Ghazi of Iraq. On April 4, 1939 he began his service as regent of Iraq for King Faisal II following the death of King Ghazi in an auto accident. From early on, as had the monarchs before him, Prince Regent Abd al-Ilah was criticized for his government policy of friendship and cooperation with the British Empire. During World War II he was overthrown for a time by anti-British forces who were allied with Nazi Germany. British troops were deployed and the Prince-Regent called on the Iraqis to rise up against the pro-Axis government. Eventually the regime fell and the ringleader, Rashid Ali al-Kaylani, fled to Persia.Prince Abd al-Ilah was restored to power and afterwards strengthened the alliance with Great Britain as well as establishing friendly relations with the United States of America. He even visited America where he was given the Legion of Merit by President Harry Truman. In 1953 King Faisal II came of age and the regency was ended, however, Prince Abd al-Ilah continued to be a primary advisor to the young monarch and as such kept up his support for keeping good relations with the west. He supported the adoption of the Baghdad Pact with Great Britain and other powers in the Middle East as well as the formation of a monarchist coalition of powers (the Hashemite kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan) rather than joining in the United Arab Republic dominated by Egypt and pan-Arab nationalists.
All of these positions and policies made the Prince a particular enemy of the radical forces that stood opposed to the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq and included Islamic fundamentalists, xenophobic nationalists and pan-Arab progressives. As such, on July 14, 1958 when the violent coup was launched that saw the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy and the massacre of the Iraqi royal family Prince Abd al-Ilah was singled out for particular cruelty, being murdered, his body desecrated and finally mutilated before being burned by a mob whipped into a frenzy of bloodlust by the revolutionary gang of traitors. Perhaps, in the future, the government of Iraq will admit the immense crime that was done to the Hashemites and rehabilitate the memory if not fully coming to their senses and restoring the monarchy.
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