Ancient Iraq
In ancient times, Iraq was known as
Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers. It is widely credited as
being “the Cradle of Civilization,” or one of
the birthplaces of agriculture, writing and
the wheel. In the 7th century, the Arab
people of Iraq defeated the Persians (today’s
Iran) and converted to Islam. For many
centuries, Baghdad was the center of the
Muslim world. While Europe was in its Dark
Ages, Iraq, like much of the Islamic world at
that time, was culturally advanced and
perceived the European crusaders as
barbarians.
Colonialism and Independence
In the 16th century, the Turks conquered the Arab Middle East and brought Iraq into the Islamic Ottoman
Empire. In the early 1900s, Britain and France defeated the Ottomans and divided up the Middle East into
spheres of influence. The secret Sykes-Pikot Agreement of 1916 divided the Middle East between the
British and French with little input from the Arabs. The lines drawn on the map by the Europeans have
become the basis for today’s modern nations. In addition to creating Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and
Transjordan, the British created the tiny, but strategically important nation of Kuwait at the entrance of
the Persian Gulf where Iraq meets the Persian Gulf. Iraqi leaders questioned this decision right up until
the Gulf War in 1991.
In 1932 Iraq gained its independence under a proBritish monarchy. In 1958 the monarchy was
overthrown, and, in 1963 the Arab Socialist Ba’ath
Party took control, moving Iraq closer to the Soviet
Union during the height of the Cold War. While the
United States was concerned about Soviet influences
in the Middle East, it also looked to Iraq as a check on
the regional power of Iran, particularly after Iran’s
1979 Islamic revolution.
Ethnicity and Religion
Ethnic and religious divisions have played a major role in Iraqi
history. The north of Iraq is dominated by ethnic Kurds who
are not Arab and who have sought autonomy. The south is
dominated by Arab Shiite Muslims who make up the largest
ethnic group in Iraq. While the Sunni Muslim minority makes
up less than 20% of the population, they dominated Iraqi
politics until the 2003 US invasion. Adding to this mix is Iraq’s
complex relationship with neighboring Iran, where the 1979
Islamic Revolution put a Shiite theocracy in power. This
threatened Sunni control in Iraq and the region. While there
are historic ties between Shiites in Iraq and Iran, there are also
historic tensions between Arab Iraq and Persian Iran.
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein worked as an assassin for the Ba’ath Party prior to taking
complete control of the Iraqi government in 1979. Following the model of Soviet
dictator Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein had his political opponents murdered
and instituted a reign of terror that lasted until the US invasion in 2003.
Two events in 1979 – the Islamic revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan – led the US to reevaluate its position in the Middle East. In the
contexts of these two setbacks to its strategic interests, the US government was
willing to overlook Saddam Hussein’s shortcomings as it sought influence in a
rapidly evolving Muslim world.
The Iran-Iraq War
In 1980 Saddam Hussein sent the Iraqi army into Iran and claimed control over the disputed Shatt alArab waterway. Iraq experts suspect that Saddam Hussein felt threatened by Iran’s Shiite revolution
because a majority of Iraq’s Muslims were Shiite, while Saddam Hussein and his government was
predominately Sunni. Over the next eight years, Iraq and Iran fought a bloody war that killed perhaps a
million people. Saddam Hussein developed a huge battle-trained army and used chemical weapons
against both Iran and Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq. Despite Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical
weapons on his own people, the US and fellow Arab states (including Kuwait) supported Iraq militarily
and economically out of fear of Iran’s revolution. The Iran/Iraq war ended in a stalemate in 1988, but
Saddam Hussein declared victory and turned his attention to his vulnerable neighbor to the south,
Kuwait.
The Gulf War of 1991
On August 2nd, 1990, the Iraqi army invaded the small oil-rich
Persian Gulf kingdom of Kuwait. The US, the United Nations,
and the surrounding Arab states condemned the aggression
and called for the immediate withdrawal of Iraqi forces. United
States President George H.W. Bush built a US-led military
coalition of over half a million soldiers from many nations that
included the Arab states of Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. On
January 16th, 1991, the Coalition began an air war against Iraq
and, five weeks later, launched a ground offensive that quickly
pushed all Iraqi forces from Kuwait. After a 100-hour ground
war, Iraqi forces were pushed from Kuwait and retreated towards Baghdad when President Bush halted
the fighting. The United Nations mandate that authorized the war did not sanction the overthrow of the
Iraqi regime. Bush was also concerned that removing Saddam Hussein could lead to civil war in Iraq.
Sunni Muslims, which had dominated Iraqi politics since independence, made up a minority of the
population. Sixty percent of Iraqis were Shiite Muslims with religious ties to Iran. The Kurdish population
in the north had fought for autonomy, if not outright independence. Many in the Bush administration
feared that the disintegration of Iraq would give the Iranians dominance of the oil rich Persian Gulf. It
would be the president’s son, George W. Bush, who would ultimately overthrow Saddam and face those
concerns in 2003.
Rebellions, Sanctions, and WMDs
After the war in 1991, Saddam Hussein quickly moved to re-establish control over the country, and the
US did not intervene when his forces put down a Shiite uprising in the south. A refugee crisis in the
Kurdish areas forced the US to establish a no-fly zone in the north. For the next twelve years, the Kurds of
northern Iraq ruled themselves while US and British forces kept Saddam Hussein’s military out of their
autonomous areas. The United Nations placed economic sanctions (punishments) on the government of
Iraq after the war. By the UN’s own estimates, these sanctions led to the death of more than half a million
Iraqi children. By the end of the 1990s, international pressure was mounting to remove the sanctions that
had not succeeded in undermining Saddam’s regime. In 1992 the UN had also demanded that Iraq
relinquish all weapons of mass destruction. To ensure Iraqi cooperation, United Nations weapons
inspectors searched Iraq for banned weapons.
Throughout the 1990s, Saddam Hussein played a cat and mouse game with the UN inspectors, the United
Nations Security Council, and US President Clinton and George W. Bush (the son of George H.W. Bush).
After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Bush administration began planning military
action to remove Saddam Hussein.
Preparation for a War in Iraq
In 2002 the Bush administration began making its case for war at the United Nations, in the US Congress,
and with the American public. It claimed that invading Iraq was necessary to bring freedom to Iraq and
stop Saddam‘s nuclear weapons program. After the war, it was revealed that Iraq did not have an active
WMD program and the intelligence used to justify the war was inaccurate. But in the aftermath of the
September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States, there was significant support for war despite the
fact that there was no direct link between the attacks and Iraq. On February 15, 2003, millions of people
marched in hundreds of cities across the world in opposition to the impending war. Despite UN
resolutions opposing the war and a divided US public, on March 22nd President George W. Bush launched
a full-scale invasion of Iraq.
War, Chaos and Occupation
The US military quickly defeated the Iraqi forces, as
they had done in 1991. In less than three weeks,
Saddam Hussein was overthrown and the US began a
military occupation of Iraq. On May 1st, President Bush
flew onto the deck of a US aircraft carrier in the Persian
Gulf and declared, “Mission Accomplished.” In
December Saddam Hussein was captured; the war
seemed like a success to many people. But, the chaos
that George Bush’s father had feared in 1991 was
beginning to grip the divided nation.
With the fall of Saddam Hussein, violence erupted and Iraq slipped into ethnic conflict. A growing Sunni
insurgency attacked both US forces and the new Shiite-led government. Both Sunni and Shiite militias
participated in sectarian violence as Iraq moved towards civil war. While approximately 140 US soldiers
were killed in March and April of 2003 during the initial military operations, by March of 2008 the death
toll for US forces reached four thousand. The death toll for Iraqis was much harder to determine;
however, a controversial Lancet study in June of 2006 put the figure at over 650,000. Leaked photos
showing the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison and reports of massacres
of Iraqi civilians by US troops and contractors contributed to a growing anti-war sentiment in the US.
In 2011 President Barack Obama withdrew the last US combat troops from Iraq. While the country
continued to suffer from ethnic conflict and political violence, the withdrawal brought some closure in
the United States to an unpopular eight-year war that cost billions of dollars and thousands of American
lives.