Middle East - Anthony Ham [177]
By the 7th century BC, the rival Assyrian civilisation had reached its high point under Ashurbanipal, whose capital at Nineveh was one of the great cities of the world with cuneiform libraries, luxurious royal courts and magnificent bas-reliefs that survive to this day. But his expensive military campaigns against Babylonia and other neighbours drained the kingdom of its wealth and manpower. In 612 BC, Ninevah and the Assyrian Empire fell to Babylonian King Nabopolassar,
The Neo Babylonian Empire returned Babylon to its former glory. Nabopolassar’s son, Nebuchadnezzar II, built the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon and conquered Jerusalem. In 539 BC, Babylon finally fell to the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great. The Persians were in turn defeated by Alexander the Great, who died in Babylon in 323 BC. For the next 1000 years, Mesopotamia was ruled by a string of empires, among them the Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanid.
Islamic Iraq
In AD 637 the Arab armies of Islam swept north from the Arabian Peninsula and occupied Iraq. Their most important centres became Al-Kufa, Baghdad and Mosul.
In 749 the first Abbasid caliph was proclaimed at Al-Kufa and the Abbasids would go on to make Iraq their own. The founding of Baghdad by Al-Mansur saw the city become, by some accounts, the greatest city in the world (Click here). In 1258 Hulagu – grandson of the feared Mongol ruler Chingiz (Genghis) Khan – laid waste to Baghdad and killed the last Abbasid caliph. Political power in the Muslim world shifted elsewhere.
By 1638, Iraq had come under Ottoman rule. After a period of relative autonomy, the Ottomans centralised their rule in the 19th century, where after Iraqi resentment against foreign occupation crystallised even as the Ottomans undertook a massive program of modernisation. The Ottomans held on until 1920, when the arrival of the British saw Iraq submit to yet another occupying force, which was first welcomed then resented by the Iraqis.
Independent Iraq
Iraq gained its independence from the British in 1932. The period that followed was distinguished by a succession of coups, counter-coups and by the discovery of massive reserves of oil. During WWII, the British again occupied Iraq over fears that the pro-German government would cut oil supplies to Allied forces. On 14 July 1958, the pro-British monarchy was overthrown in a military coup and Iraq became a republic. In 1968 a bloodless coup brought the Ba’ath Party to power.
The 1970s marked a glory decade for Iraq. The oil boom of the 1970s brought wealth and prosperity. Oil profits were heavily invested in education, health care and infrastructure. Baghdad became a gleaming cosmopolitan city with new hotels, shopping centres, bridges and roads. Women achieved social and economic equality with men.
Iraq’s heyday ended on 16 July 1979, when an ambitious Ba’ath official named Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti wangled his way into power. Saddam’s first duty as president was to secure his power by executing political and religious opponents.
The Iran-Iraq War
Meanwhile, next door, the Islamic Revolution was busy toppling Iran’s pro-Western government. Saddam – a secular Sunni Muslim – became increasingly concerned about the threat of a Shiite revolution in his own country. After several months of sabre rattling, Iraq invaded Iran on 22 September 1980 with the full support of the USA, the Soviet Union and several Arab and European states.
At first, Iraq had the upper hand but soon found itself at an impasse. The eight years of war were characterised by Iranian human-wave infantry attacks and Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and civilians. The Iran-Iraq war ended as a stalemate on 20 August 1988. Each side suffered at least 200,000 deaths and US$100 billion in war debts.
In the closing months of the war, Saddam launched a genocidal campaign against the ethnic Kurds of northern Iraq who had long opposed his regime. Saddam tapped his ruthless cousin Ali Hassan Al-Majid to spearhead Operation