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Iraq
NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS
Like most developing states, but perhaps to a greater extent
because of internal schisms, Iraq was plagued with insecurity
and with political instability after independence in 1932. When
Britain and France redrew boundaries throughout the Middle East
following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after World
War I, the region that eventually became Iraq (under the Sykes-Picot
Agreement) included a wide variety of ethnic and religious groups
with little sense of national unity (see World War I and the British
Mandate , ch. 1). The absence of nation-building elements encouraged
various sectors of Iraqi society to oppose the establishment of
central authority, often for personal and ideological reasons.
Consequently, clandestine activities against the state's budding
political and military institutions threatened Iraq's political
leaders. Insecurity arising from domestic opposition to the state
was compounded by Iraq's longstanding isolation from neighboring
countries because of ideological rivalries, ethnic and religious
differences, and competition for influence in the Persian Gulf.
The Iraqi political agenda was further burdened in the late 1970s
by the newly inherited Arab leadership role that came with Egypt's
isolation in the wake of the Camp David Accords and the ensuing
separate Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty.
The Baath Party that ruled Iraq in early 1988 came to power in
July 1968 determined to restore order to a country where political
turmoil was the norm (see The Emergence of Saddam Husayn, 1968-79
, ch. 1). Despite several coup attempts during the intervening
twenty years, notably in 1970 and in 1973, the Baath successfully
ended the political turbulence of the 1950s and the 1960s. Yet,
this level of stability was achieved only through harsh methods
imposed by an increasingly disciplined, if intolerant, party.
Antistate conspirators, including fellow Baathists, were rushed
into exile, were kept under house arrest, or were executed. Actual
or alleged coup attempts were forcefully put down and were followed
by systematic purges of the bureaucracy and the armed forces;
moreover, the party's vigilance on internal security was supported
by a thorough indoctrination program to gain and to maintain formerly
uncertain loyalties, both within the armed forces and in the civilian
population.
Baathist success in maintaining internal security resulted partly
from its 1975 limited victory against the Kurds (see The People
, ch. 2; Internal Security , this ch.). The Iraqi-Iranian border
agreement of March 1975, subsequently formalized in the Baghdad
Treaty in June 1975, resolved a number of disputes between the
two states. Its provisions ended Iranian support for Iraqi Kurds,
whose struggles for autonomy had troubled Iraqi governments since
1932. Bolstered by this limited success, Baghdad adopted a variety
of measures in the succeeding decade in order to emerge from its
political isolation and assert its strategic value. The 1970s
closed under a cloud of insecurity, however, as the Baathists
took stock of the revolutionary Islamic regime in Tehran. Threatened
by Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini's repeated calls
to Iraqi Shias to follow in the Iranian people's footsteps by
overthrowing usurpers of power, the Baathist leadership embarked
on an adventurous war. Seven years later, Baghdad was nowhere
near its objective, and it was struggling to avoid a military
defeat. Nevertheless, the Baath Party continued to maintain its
influence in Iraq throughout the early and mid-1980s. For the
most part, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and its chairman,
President Saddam Husayn (also seen as Hussein), maintained their
political positions through repressive means and by what was justified
as a defensive Iraqi war against a perceived threat. Foreign observers
believed that the government remained vulnerable to challenges
to its authority the lack of any legitimate means of political
dissent because of and because of the reverberations of a war
of attrition with mounting casualties.
Iraq had enjoyed a relatively favorable national security situation
in the late 1970s, but practically all its perceived politico-military
gains were lost after it attacked Iran in 1980, and in 1988 Iraq
faced serious economic and military difficulties.
Data as of May 1988
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