The State of Iraq — Part 3: Arab Cold War
The Changing of the Guards
Continued on from The State of Iraq — Part 2: Black Gold
For the US and Western Europe, the term, ‘Cold War’ may conjure visions of economic reformations, duck-and-cover nuclear fear juxtaposed with increasing bounds towards prosperity and peace. The Cold War was an ideological conflict between Soviet socialism and Western capitalism that clashed in the middle of Europe; a fight between superpowers for global ideological supremacy.
Whilst the war was cold in Europe, in the sense that blood was only spilt in circles of spies and by agent provocateurs, there were plenty of proxy wars elsewhere — South America, East Asia and Southern Africa were important in a geopolitical sense, but the Arab world, which holds the world’s most abundant supply of oil, was vital for resource security and therefore national security.
The Cold War in the Arab World, or Arab Cold War if you like, is a period of time between 1952, and 1991. During this time the Arab world transformed wildly. In 1952 only, Syria, Lebanon and Tunisia, among the Arab states were republics; Jordan and Iraq were both Hashemite monarchies; Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and North Yemen all had independent dynasties; and Tunisia, Algeria, South Yemen, Oman, and the Trucial States (Arab Emirates) remained under either French or British colonial rule/occupation.
The Arab Cold War can be divided into two distinct phases:
The Pan-Arab Cold War — 1952 till 1979
This period is defined by the rise of Arab collectivism (Arab League, United Arab Republic/Arab-Israeli Wars). All Arab nations gained independence from colonial control, and many overthrew their monarchies (Libya/Syria/Iraq/Iran/Egypt). It is also the era where we saw the arrival and experimentation of Arab socialism (both Nasserism and Ba’athism).
The Islamic Revival — 1979–1991
This period is defined by the noticeable fracturing of Arab unity and increasing regional power struggles (Iraq/Iran/Saudi Arabia). It is also post-secular in the sense that there was a notable Islamification of the region (Salafist jihadism and Sunni/Shia division).
Pan-Arab Cold War — 1952 till 1979
In 1945 the Arab League was formed in Cairo. At the time, all Arab states subscribed on some level to the Arab nationalist ideology as there were a great many things that unified the Arab peoples, other than a shared language and history. The region was largely dominated by imperial powers, namely Britain and France and a great deal of Arab unity centred around the growing revolutionary mindsets, and anger towards the creation of Israel. No fewer than five wars were fought between Israel and a collection of Arab states.
The 1952 revolution in Egypt led to the installation of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was a central figure in the pan-Arabist cause. His unique secular Arab ideology is coined as Nasserism and the Unified Arab Republic was created in 1958 out of Syria, Egypt and N. Yemen. Syria soon succumbed to a more national blend of Ba’ath Socialism in a 1961 coup, and more so in another coup in 1963.
Although not an Arab state, Iran is key in the context of the Arab Cold War. Iranian Prime Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalised the Iranian oil industry in 1952 as the country was moving towards a Soviet-aligned crowned socialist republic. It was realigned to a pro-western secular anti-Communist absolute monarchy by the UK and USA who backed the removal of Mosaddegh and restored absolute power to the Shah (King) in 1953. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, however, never reclaimed its monopoly.
In 1958, the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was overthrown, the royal family was killed and the country transformed in an event known as the 14 July Revolution. Major General Abd al-Karim Qasim orchestrated the coup, and as Prime Minister, began to nationalise the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC).
In Iraq, another coup d’état from the Ba’ath Party killed Maj Gen Qasim in 1963 and installed the Ba’ath government where in 1968 Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became President and Saddam Hussein became Vice President. Saddam consolidated power in the 1970s and became rich through nationalised IPC oil revenue, in doing so he began to usurp government control and eventually took the presidency in 1979.
Islamic Revival — 1979–1991
Pan-Arab unity and Ba’athist socialism were secular in their origins, but they did not stay this way. As Saddam gained power, and especially after he usurped his cousin’s presidency, Islam became a formidable part of Iraqi society. Iraq moved away from Ba’ath secularism and became increasingly interlinked with Sunni Islam.
Islam was going through another renaissance at this time too. The 1977 coup d’état and Islamification of Pakistan, as well as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, led to the creation of Salafist jihadism, which migrated to Iraq in various ways. The Iranian Revolution in 1979 replaced the western-backed monarchy of the Shah with an orthodox Shia theocracy. This revolution, along with other internal and external power dynamics led to the Iran-Iraq war (1981–1988), and whilst the conflict was not entirely about religious ideological differences, this played a vital part in generating a war mentality.
Saudi Arabia became the ideological opponent of the new Iranian state and to this day the two countries provide varying degrees of support to opposing sides in all nearby conflicts and civil wars. Saudi Arabia, which has been a long-term opponent of Pan-Arab socialism, used its oil wealth to propagate Islamification across the Arab world to counter such movements. By the 1980s, this Petro-Islam effort was paying off and the division between socialism and Islam grew, as did the divide between Shia and Sunni Islam.
People found themselves no longer as Arab, but as Sunni or Shia and depending on what side of a border you were on determined if you were a minority or majority. The borders drawn in 1916 did not consider how ethnic or religious groups would be made minorities — Not that in 1916 this would be obvious.
In Egypt, Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, who directly and indirectly cultivated religious political movements, was assassinated in 1980 by a radical Egyptian Islamist. The following government of Egypt under Mubarak moved further away from Nasserism and Pan-Arabism and closer to Islam and political parties like the Muslim Brotherhood.
The idea of a united Arab world died gradually between 1979 and 1991. Factionalism and self-interest blocked any attempts at genuine Arab cohesion and whilst the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was created in 1981 by six Arab nations this was more about economic integration, rather than strategic and political machinations.
So What?
Pan-Arab socialism was not any more of a utopia than other 20th-century socialist endeavours, and Arab supremacy and increasing nationalism led to the mass persecution of various groups inside Arab states. The Kurds for example were divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and were persecuted as a minority, especially in Iraq. This division was a result of the Sykes-Picot agreement, and so too was the divide between Shia and Sunni Islam on the Iran/Iraq border.
Without taking agency away from the Arabs, the rise and fall of the various Arab republics, kingdoms and dictatorships would have been very different without Soviet, or Western interventions. As Arab socialist republics moved towards the USSR for support, the US-led West used whatever tools they could to prevent this — be it the restoration of a monarchy or Islamic nationalism. So too, those nations that moved towards a democratic process led the USSR to support communist and socialist revolutions. This is also not a story of how Islam ruined Arab unity, the balance of systemic power is more complex than that. Arab leaders themselves used pan-arab, and social and Islamic movements to galvanise their own power.
Imperial and colonial meddling by global powers constantly disrupted the security of Middle Eastern nations. The introduction of a Western-backed Jewish state as well as socialist and Islamic revolutions saw many nations thrown into a constant state of chaos. So too, were the authoritarian leaders of these states responsible for the violence, instability and conflict — Saddam was chiefly among them.
Continue the journey with The State of Iraq — Part 4: Saddam
