Abd al-Karim Qasim

Despite a shared military background, the group of Free Officers that carried out the 14 July Revolution was plagued by internal dissension. Its members lacked both a coherent ideology and an effective organizational structure. Many of the more senior officers resented having to take orders from Arif, their junior in rank. A power struggle developed between Qasim and Arif over joining the Egyptian-Syrian union. Arif's pro-Nasserite sympathies were supported by the Ba'ath Party, while Qasim found support for his anti-unification position in the ranks of the Iraqi Communist Party.

Qasim's change of policy aggravated his relationship with Arif who, despite being the subordinate of Qasim, had gained great prestige as the perpetrator of the coup itself. Arif capitalized upon his newfound position by partaking in a series of widely publicized public orations, during which he strongly advocated union with the UAR, making numerous positive references to Nasser, while remaining noticeably less full of praise for Qasim. Arif's criticism of Qasim became gradually more pronounced. This led Qasim to take steps to counter his potential rival. He began to foster relations with the Iraqi Communist Party, which attempted to mobilize support in favor of his policies. He also moved to counter Arif's power base by removing him from his position as deputy commander of the armed forces.

On 30 September Qasim removed Arif's status as deputy prime minister and as minister of the interior.[16] Qasim attempted to remove Arif's disruptive influence by offering him a role as Iraqi ambassador to West Germany in Bonn. Arif refused, and in a confrontation with Qasim on 11 October he is reported to have drawn his pistol in the Qasim's presence; although whether it was to assassinate Qasim or commit suicide is a source of debate.[16][17] No blood was shed, and Arif agreed to depart for Bonn. However, his time in Germany was brief, as he attempted to return to Baghdad on 4 November amid rumors of an attempted coup against Qasim. He was promptly arrested, and charged on 5 November with the attempted assassination of Qasim and attempts to overthrow the regime.[16] He was brought to trial for treason and condemned to death in January 1959. He was subsequently pardoned in December 1962 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Although the threat of Arif had been negated, another soon arose in the form of Rashid Ali, the exiled former prime minister who had fled Iraq in 1941. He attempted to foster support among officers who were unhappy with Qasim's policy reversals. A coup was planned for 9 December, but Qasim was prepared, and instead had the conspirators arrested on the same date. Ali was imprisoned and sentenced to death, although the execution was never carried out.

Relations with Iran and the West deteriorated significantly under Qasim's leadership, he actively opposed foreign troop presence in Iraq and spoke out against it. Relations with Iran were strained due to his call for Arab territory within Iran to be annexed to Iraq, and Iran continued to actively fund and facilitate Kurdish rebels in the North. Relations with the Pan-Arab Nasserist factions such as the Arab Struggle Party caused tensions with the United Arab Republic (UAR), and as a result the UAR began to aid rebellions in Iraqi Kurdistan against the government.[18]

Qasim with Mustafa Barzani.

The new Government declared Kurdistan "one of the two nations of Iraq".[19] During his rule, the Kurdish groups selected Mustafa Barzani to negotiate with the government, seeking an opportunity to declare independence.

After a period of relative calm, the issue of Kurdish autonomy (self-rule or independence) went unfulfilled, sparking discontent and eventual rebellion among the Kurds in 1961. Kurdish separatists under the leadership of Mustafa Barzani chose to wage war against the Iraqi establishment. Although relations between Qasim and the Kurds had proved successful initially, by 1961 relations had deteriorated and they had become openly critical of Qasim's regime. Barzani had delivered an ultimatum to Qasim in August 1961 demanding an end to authoritarian rule, recognition of Kurdish autonomy, and restoration of democratic liberties.[20]

During Qasim's term, there was much debate over whether Iraq should join the United Arab Republic, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Having dissolved the Hashemite Arab Federation with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Qasim refused to allow Iraq to enter the federation, although his government recognized the republic and considered joining it later.

Qasim's growing ties with the communists served to provoke rebellion in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul led by Arab nationalists in charge of military units. In an attempt to mitigate against a potential coup, Qasim had encouraged a communist backed Peace Partisans rally to be held in Mosul on 6 March 1959. Some 250,000 Peace Partisans and communists thronged through Mosul's streets that day,[21] and although the rally passed peacefully, on 7 March, skirmishes broke out between communists and nationalists. This degenerated into a major civil disturbance over the following days. Although the rebellion was crushed by the military, it had a number of adverse effects that impacted Qasim's position. First, it increased the power of the communists. Second, it encouraged the ideas of the Ba’ath Party, which had been growing steadily since the 14 July coup. They believed that the only way of halting the engulfing tide of communism was to assassinate Qasim.

Of the 16 members of Qasim's cabinet, 12 were Ba'ath Party members. However, the party turned against Qasim because of his refusal to join Gamel Abdel Nasser's United Arab Republic.[22] To strengthen his own position within the government, Qasim created an alliance with the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), which was opposed to any notion of pan-Arabism.[23] Later that year, the Ba'ath Party leadership put in place plans to assassinate Qasim. Saddam Hussein was a leading member of the operation. At the time, the Ba'ath Party was more of an ideological experiment than a strong anti-government fighting machine. The majority of its members were either educated professionals or students, and Saddam fitted in well with this group.[24]

The choice of Saddam was, according to journalist Con Coughlin, "hardly surprising". The idea of assassinating Qasim may have been Nasser's, and there is speculation that some of those who participated in the operation received training in Damascus, which was then part of the United Arabic Republic. However, "no evidence has ever been produced to implicate Nasser directly in the plot".[25]

The assassins planned to ambush Qasim at Al-Rashid Street on 7 October 1959: one man was to kill those sitting at the back of the car, the rest killing those in front. During the ambush it was claimed that Saddam began shooting prematurely, which disrupted the whole operation. Qasim's chauffeur was killed, and Qasim was hit in the arm and shoulder. The would-be assassins believed they had killed him and quickly retreated to their headquarters, but Qasim survived.[26]

The growing influence of communism was felt throughout 1959. A communist-sponsored purge of the armed forces was carried out in the wake of the Mosul revolt. The Iraqi cabinet began to shift towards the radical-left as several communist sympathizers gained posts in the cabinet. Iraq's foreign policy began to reflect this communist influence, as Qasim removed Iraq from the Baghdad Pact on 24 March, and later fostered closer ties with the Soviet Union, including extensive economic agreements.[27] However, communist successes encouraged attempts to expand on their position. The communists attempted to replicate their success at Mosul in Kirkuk. A rally was called for 14 July which was intended to intimidate conservative elements. Instead it resulted in widespread bloodshed between ethnic Kurds (who were associated with the ICP at the time) and Iraqi Turkmen, leaving between 31 and 79 people dead.[28] Despite being largely the result of pre-existing ethnic tensions, the Kirkuk "massacre" was exploited by Iraqi anti-communists and Qasim subsequently purged communists and refused to license the ICP as a legitimate political party in early 1960, leading to a major reduction of communist influence in the Iraqi government. In retrospect, communist influence in Iraq peaked in 1959 and the ICP squandered its best chance of taking power by remaining loyal to Qasim, while his attempts to appease Iraqi nationalists backfired and contributed to his eventual overthrow. For example, Qasim released Salih Mahdi Ammash from custody and reinstated him in the Iraqi army, allowing Ammash to act as the military liaison to the Ba'athist coup plotters.[28][29] Furthermore, notwithstanding his outwardly friendly posture towards the Kurds, Qasim was unable to grant Kurdistan autonomous status within Iraq, leading to the 1961 outbreak of the First Iraqi–Kurdish War and secret contacts between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Qasim's Ba'athist opponents in 1962 and 1963. The KDP promised not to aid Qasim in the event of a Ba'athist coup, ignoring longstanding Kurdish antipathy towards pan-Arab ideology. Disagreements between Qasim, the ICP, and the Kurds thus created a power vacuum that was exploited by a "tiny" group of Iraqi Ba'athists in 1963.[30]

Qasim soon withdrew Iraq from the pro-Western Baghdad Pact and established friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Iraq also abolished its treaty of mutual security and bilateral relations with the UK. Iraq also withdrew from the agreement with the United States that was signed by the monarchy during 1954 and 1955 regarding military, arms, and equipment. On 30 May 1959, the last of the British soldiers and military officers departed the al-Habbāniyya base in Iraq.

Qasim supported the Algerian and Palestinian struggles against France and Israel.

However, he further undermined his rapidly deteriorating position with a series of foreign policy blunders. In 1959 Qasim antagonized Iran with a series of territory disputes, most notably over the Khuzestan region of Iran, which was home to an Arabic-speaking minority,[27] and the division of the Shatt al-Arab waterway between south eastern Iraq and western Iran.[31] On 18 December 1959, Abd al-Karim Qasim declared:

"We do not wish to refer to the history of Arab tribes residing in Al-Ahwaz and Mohammareh (Khurramshahr). The Ottomans handed over Muhammareh, which was part of Iraqi territory, to Iran."[32]

After this, Iraq started supporting secessionist movements in Khuzestan, and even raised the issue of its territorial claims at a subsequent meeting of the Arab League, without success.[33]

In June 1961, Qasim re-ignited the Iraqi claim over the state of Kuwait. On 19 June, he announced in a press conference that Kuwait was a part of Iraq, and claimed its territory. Kuwait, however, had signed a recent defence treaty with the British, who came to her assistance with troops to stave off any attack on 1 July. These were subsequently replaced by an Arab force (assembled by the Arab League) in September, where they remained until 1962.[34][35]

The result of Qasim's foreign policy blunders was to further weaken his position. Iraq was isolated from the Arab world for its part in the Kuwait incident, whilst Iraq had antagonised its powerful neighbour, Iran. Western attitudes towards Qasim had also cooled, due to these incidents and his implied communist sympathies. Iraq was isolated internationally, and Qasim became increasingly isolated domestically, to his considerable detriment.

The revolution brought about sweeping changes in the Iraqi agrarian sector. Reformers dismantled the old feudal structure of rural Iraq. For example, the 1933 Law of Rights and Duties of Cultivators and the Tribal Disputes Code were replaced, benefiting Iraq's peasant population and ensuring a fairer process of law. The Agrarian Reform Law (30 September 1958[44]) attempted a large-scale redistribution of landholdings and placed ceilings on ground rents; the land was more evenly distributed among peasants who, due to the new rent laws, received around 55% to 70% of their crop.[44] While "inadequate" and allowing for "fairly generous" large holdings, the land reform was successful at reducing the political influence of powerful landowners, who under the Hashemite monarchy had wielded much power.[45]

Qasim attempted to bring about greater equality for women in Iraq. In December 1959 he promulgated a significant revision of the personal status code, particularly that regulating family relations.[44] Polygamy was outlawed, and minimum ages for marriage were also set out, with 18 being the minimum age (except for special dispensation when it could be lowered by the court to 16).[44] Women were also protected from arbitrary divorce. The most revolutionary reform was a provision in Article 74 giving women equal rights in matters of inheritance.[44] The laws applied to Sunni and Shi’a alike. The laws encountered much opposition and did not survive Qasim's government.

Education was greatly expanded under the Qasim regime. The education budget was raised from approximately 13 million Dinars in 1958 to 24 million Dinars in 1960 and school enrollments increased. Attempts were also made in 1959 and 1961 to introduce economic planning to benefit social welfare; investing in housing, healthcare and education, whilst reforming the agrarian Iraqi economy along an industrial model. However, these changes were not truly implemented before Qasim's removal.

Public Law 80 intended to take over 99.5% of the IPC's concession territory in Iraq and place it in the hands of the newly formed Iraq National Oil Company taking many of Iraq's oilfields out of foreign hands.[44]