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"There isn't an Iraqi people in Iraq."
- King Faisal I
Sweet Jesus on an open-faced bun, how did we get into this mess in Iraq? Short answer: Retarded President with an agenda of Imperialism. Long answer: Iraq (even before there was an Iraq has, despite it arid climate, always been a swamp of sorts. Where did all the trouble begin for Xenophon? Just outside of Baghdad. But, then again, that happened 2500 years ago in Mesopotamia. We're talking about Iraq. There is a difference.
Stop someone on the street and ask them to give you the history of Iraq and the changes are that they'll stare at you like you asked them to build an inter-stellar spacecraft. Ask them for their opinion on Iraq and they won't be able to close their goddamn pie-holes. So, in the interest of enlightening the American public, RATYHTL presents The Truly Fucked Up History Of Iraq.
The Iraq that we all know and love, the Iraq of children's bedtime stories and 1950's Rock 'n' Roll songs, was crated at the end of WWI by the Western Powers who lovingly carved it from a section of Ottoman Turkey. The bold new Utopia was comprised mainly of Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, and Assyrians. Four group with one thing in common - they hate each other's fuckin' guts.
In 1921 the British placed King Faisal on the Iraqi throne. Faisal was a member of the Hashemeite family and therefore a direct descendent of the Prophet Mohamed. With that kind of background, what could go wrong? The again, King Faisal's father, Hussein I of Hijaz was also a descendent of the Prophet Mohamed and got royally dicked-over by the British when he refused to get with their program. But that's another story. A story that, oddly, involves the House of Saud.
In 1932, Faisal left Iraq for a trip to Europe, leaving his son, Prince Ghazi in charge. While Faisal was away, the British, never ones to miss an opportunity for some jolly sporting fun, orchestrated an uprising of Assyrian Christians. There are three schools of thought on why they did this. The first is the British are complete assholes and this is exactly the sort of thing they do. The second school of thought is that they did it to weaken the Monarchy because King Faisal had been demanding more and more concessions from them. And the third school of thought is that they did it because they just didn't like Prince Ghazi. After all, Prince Ghazi hated the British.
Price Ghazi had been sent to Britain, shortly after his ol' man was crowned to attend school. Unfortunately, the semi-literate Ghazi didn't last long in the British private school system. He left after less than a year, taking with him a distain for all things British. OK, back to the Assyrian rebellion.
Ghazi decided to take a non-violent approach to dealing with the rebels. If by "non-violent approach" you mean "use Iraq's army and air force to grind them into dust". This had the affect of turning Ghazi a national hero. This was not really what the British had in planned.
In 1933, while visiting Switzerland, Faisal died unexpectedly and the throne passed to Ghazi. The poor British. They had spent a great deal of time and effort establishing a pro-British monarchy in Iraq and now the crown gets passed to Ghazi - an anti-British Homosexual who had been force to marry his first cousin. Cleary, for a British perspective, this guy had to go. After all, no monarchy seemed a better option than the uncertainty that came with Ghazi.
So the Brits turned to their man in Iraq, Nuri Said, and had him spread word that King Ghazi was unfit to rule. You see, it one thing for the King of England to be a flaming fruit, but you just can't have that sort of thing in a puppet government.
Nuri Said was what today we would call "extremely proactive". Or "extremely psychotic" depending on one's point of view. Taking the bull by the horns, he sent his son, Saban, to solicit help in assassinating King Ghazi from Colonel Salluheddine (who is only mentioned here because his name does funny things to my Spellchecker.). Nuri Said even went as far as plotting to blow up the Kings plane. This loving relationship between Nuri and Ghazi may help to explain why both me would carry loaded pistols whenever they had to meet together.
Meanwhile, in what cannot really be described as a move to truly win the hearts of the British, Ghazi began buddying up to the Iraqi military, advocating the annexation of Kuwait, and supporting the Arab rebels in Palestine.
In 1936 an Iraqi general named Bakr Sidqi had what he thought was a great idea. With the help of King Ghazi, he would instigate the overthrow of Iraq's pro-British government headed by Yassin Al Hashemi.
Did I say great idea? OK, there may've been a few flaws in the plan. The coup didn't exactly start off so well. One of the first things that its leaders did was kill Defense General Ja'afar Al Askari, who just happened to be only sensible man left among Iraq's pro-British leaders and the one man who could've negotiated a happy compromise for all the parties involved. Hey, remember Nuri Said? Well, when the coup broke out, the Brits put him on an RFA plane to Cairo where he could sit the whole mess out.
General Sidqi now made King Ghazi a virtual prisoner and took over Iraq. Sidqi, who for years held the title of "not the world's brightest guy", turned out to be a disastrous ruler. He instituted an Iraq First policy that was in direct conflict with King Ghazi's pan-Arab attitude and set about making political overtures to the fascist governments of Germany and Italy.
In 1937, while on his way to conclude an arms deal with Nazi Germany, Sidqi died suddenly of natural causes - being shot by his own officers. With Sidqi gone, Nuri Said and his pro-British friends were free to return to Iraq and make life Hell for King Ghazi.
And what had Ghazi been up to all this time? Radio. Ghazi had founded a radio station with an unusual format - All Anti-British Propaganda All The Time. Still better than Classic Rock if you ask me.
Jamil Al Madfai', the new leader of Iraq's pro-British government tried to talk Ghazi into shutting down his station which was by now broadcasting pleas to the people of Kuwait to unite with Iraq and was offering moral support to the rebels fighting the British in Palestine. Ghazi told Madfai' to get bent, or words to that effect.
Get bent, or words to that effect was also what army officers said to our ol' buddy Nuri Said when he asked them to help control the King. Failing on that front, Nuri set off on a propaganda campaign of his own, accusing the King of being party to his sister Azza's elopement with a Greek waiter. Don't judge Azza too harshly. Some people will do anything to get a waiter's attention. Anyway, the rumors helped Nuri succeed in his bid to reassume the premiership of Iraq. Once back in power, Nuri took the high road - bribing workers at Ghazi's radio station to get him drunk right before his broadcasts. Ghazi fought back with plans to set up two more stations.
Then, on April 3rd, 1939, King Ghazi had an "accident". The official story is that King Ghazi, speeding along in his car, hit a telephone pole. However, the official story fails to explain how hitting a telephone pole produced a fist-sized hole in the back of Ghazi's head.
Since Ghazi son, Faisal II, was only four-years-old at the time of Ghazi's assas…er, accident, Ghazi's cousin (Prince Abduhl Illah), who just happened to be pro-British, was named regent. And things would remain this way, Faisal on the throne and the British secretly calling the shots until 1958, the year that the shit hit the fan.
On the 14th of July, 1958, the entire Iraqi royal family, despite their Hashemeite lineage, was murdered and the army installed a revolutionary regime. Oh, and Nuri Said - who had been named Prime Minster of Iraq fourteen times - was dismembered by an angry mob. The year before, Nuri had appeared on the cover of Time. What led to all of this? Well, after twenty years, the army finally made the choice between a pro-British monarchy and no monarchy at all. As for Nuri, He had - among other things - fought against land reform, followed an anti-Communist line at a time when most Iraqis didn't see Communism as a threat and championed Feudalism, rigged parliamentary elections. The 1958 coup was last of six attempted coups against him.
Fun fact: When the 1959 coup broke out, Nuri tried to hide in a friend's house. His friend's son called the army to tell them where they could find Nuri. Nuri then attempted to escape the house dressed as a woman. But he was captured by a mob that, after they killed and dismembered him, ran what was left over with their cars.
The 1958 coup was headed by anti-Westerner, Brigadier Abdel Karim Kassem. Kassem was the man who would later seal his own fate by helping to helped create OPEC. He also made the mistake of relying on the local Communist Part for support, leaning, politically, towards Russia, and (that ol' standby) threatening to annex Kuwait. All of these, naturally, pissed off the CIA who, in 1963, would help bring the oil-company-friendly Ba'ath Party 9to which Saddam Hussein belonged) to power.
By "helped" I of course do not mean that the CIA prepared and provided the Ba'athists with lists of people who should be killed. What I mean is that the CIA prepared and provided the Ba'athists with lists of people who should be tortured and then killed. These lists were progressive enough as to include pregnant women and the elderly. The best estimate is that approximately 5,000 people on the CIA-provided lists were killed during the Ba'athists rise to power. Many were tortured to death in front of children. Let's all take a moment to thank American agent, William McHale, who created one of the longest lists, for his role in helping to keep the world safe. Suck dicks in Hell, fuckface.
This all brings us nicely to Saddam Hussein who, from 1968 until 1990 was American's friend and ally. In fact, the USA gave Saddam the thumbs up to buy Western arms with no limits or restrictions. These arms included fighters, bombers, helicopters and the design for a chemical warfare plant.
During the Iran-Iraq war the West supplied arms to Iraq. In fact, during this period, over four hundred Western companies helped supply Saddam with lethal weapons. Now you know where Saddam got all that hardware that you always hear people talking about.
So what went wrong? Well, the end of the Iran-Iraq war left Saddam with a million men standing army that was now one of the best equipped in the world. All dressed up and nowhere to go. Nowhere that is, except Kuwait. And if there's one thing I've learned from studying up on Iraq it's that if an Iraqi leader wants to avoid pissing off the West, he should steer clear of Kuwait.
You know the rest of the story, although I doubt anyone will ever know the entire story. I suggest that you read A Brutal Friendship because there's still a whole lotta dirt I didn't have space or time to tell you about.