LOOKING BACK, ONCE MORE: IRAQ POST 1945

The default always seems to be looking back to what Iraq was like before: although current events are fascinating, they are also confusing and frustrating. In part that is because I know this has all happened before. In looking up some older documents this turned up:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/iraq.htm

My aim was to check U.S. Iraqi relations in the 1950s to use it as a counterpoint to the current relationship. This .pdf

United States Embassy, Iraq Despatch from Philip W. Ireland to the Department of State. "Evaluation of 'Hoja' Films," July 18, 1953.

[if it doesn't load properly go back to the link in the www.mtholyoke.edu site]

is a classic. Note the comments sundry after the film!

Yes, it was oil, but it was also Reds under the Beds. The commuist party was not the only socialist grouping. The mad thing is that if the communists had been allowed to rule Iraq things might have been better (who knows) because they might have actually created a truly socialist state. The U.S. would not allow such a thing, and in any case could not see that there were communists and communists. Each society produces a different communism because of its culture. Russia and China for example. It is difficult to understand that socialism has formed the backdrop of Iraq for half a century. Though what you got with the Ba'thists, culminating in the totalitarian rule of Saddam, was a mixture of Stalinism and National Socialism!

United States Embassy, Iraq Despatch from Burton Berry to the Department of State. "Samples of Anti-communist Propaganda," March 16, 1954.

Really gets under the bonnet!

As does:

United States. National Security Council. Office of the Executive Secretary Memorandum from James S. Lay, Jr. to the United States. National Security Council. "United States Objectives and Policies with Respect to the Middle East" [Includes Draft Amendments], July 6, 1954.



  ¶ Thursday, September 22, 2005