Iraq E-Book

Gareth Stansfield

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Global Political Hot Spots
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 560

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Few countries can claim to have endured such a difficult and tortuous history as that of Iraq. Its varied peoples have had to contend with externally imposed state-building at the end of the First World War, through to the rise of authoritarian military regimes, to the all-encompassing power of Saddam Hussein�s dictatorship. They have endured destructive wars, internationally-imposed sanctions, and a further bout of destabilizing regime change and subsequent state-building from 2003. The recent rise of the Islamic State, the consolidation of the Kurdistan Region, and the response of the Shi�i populace have brought the country to a de facto partition that may bring about Iraq�s final demise.

The second edition of Iraq: People, History, Politics provides a comprehensive analysis of the political, societal, and economic dynamics that have governed Iraq�s modern development. Situating recent events within a longer historical timeframe, this book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the deep histories that underpin the contemporary politics of this war-torn and troubled state.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Series page

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Maps

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations and Glossary

Introduction: Artificiality, Identity, Dictatorship and State-Building

Four Key Debates

Book Outline

Notes

1: Legacies of Civilizations and Empires

Ancient Civilizations

The Islamic Conquest

The Arrival of the Ottoman Empire

Notes

2: State Formation, Monarchy and Mandate, 1918–1932

The Artificiality Debate

The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire

Planning the Carve-Up

Occupation and Uprising

The Cairo Conference

The New State and Enduring Pathologies

The End of the Mandate

Notes

3: Conceptualizing Political Mobilization in Iraq

The Identity Debate

Nationalism

The Sunni–Shiʿi Divide

The Kurds

The Assyrians and Turkmens

Identity and the State

Notes

4: From Authoritarian to Totalitarian State, 1933–1979

The Dictator Debate

The Military in Political Life

The Role of the Military and the Communalization of Political Life

The Intensification of Anti-Imperialist Sentiment

Towards Totalitarianism

The Totalitarian State

Notes

5: Iraq at War, 1979–1989

History of Iran–Iraq Relations

The Kurdish War

The Decline into War with Iran

Iraq Advances

Iran Counterattacks

The Kurdish Threat

The Tanker War

The Political and Economic Impact on Iraq

Towards Kuwait

Notes

6: The The Pariah State, 1989–2003

Towards War

The Invasion of Kuwait

Operation Desert Storm

The Uprisings

The Coalescing of Opposition Movements

Sanctions on Iraq

The Arrival of the Inspectors

Defection

The Failed Coups

The Opposition Defeated and Kurdistan Divided

Oil for Food

Sanctions Busting

Hide-and-Seek with UNSCOM

Towards Invasion

State and Society on the Eve of the Invasion of Iraq

Notes

7: Regime Change, 2003–2007

The State-Building and Democratization Debate

Operation Iraqi Freedom

The Chaotic Devolution of Political Authority

The Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council

The Transitional Administrative Law

The Iraqi Interim Government

Shiʿi Rebellion and Sunni Insurgencies

January 2005 Elections

Constitutional Negotiations

The Referendum

December 2005 Elections

Staring into the Abyss

Notes

8: From the Brink to the Brink, 2007–2014

The Sunni ‘Awakening’, the US ‘Surge’ and the Targeting of Insurgents

Maliki's Survival and the Targeting of Shiʿi Opponents

Losing the Election, Keeping Power: The Failure of Democracy in Iraq

The US Departure and Maliki's Consolidation

Kurdistan Rising

The Targeting of the Sunnis

Notes

9: The Islamic State, the Kurdistan Region and Shiʿi Iraq

The Origins of ISIS

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

The Reformation of Sunni

Jihadism

in Iraq

The Conquest of Mosul

From ISIS to the Islamic State

Government Formation Following the May 2014 Election

The Near Death Experience of the Kurds

Fortress Baghdad

Notes

Conclusion: The Passing of Thresholds and the Emergence of Three ‘States’

Making Sense of the

Debates

Making Sense of the Islamic State

The Passing of Thresholds and the Emergence of Three States

Chronology

Before 1920

First World War and After

After 2003

Sources

Internet Links

Media Outlets and Summaries

NGOs and Think Tanks

Weblogs

Government and International Organizations

Political Parties and Movements

References

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Table 7.1    Results of elections to the Iraqi National Assembly, 30 January 2005

Table 7.2    Results of elections to the Iraqi National Assembly, 15 December 2005

List of Illustrations

Map 1    Iraq: Governorates and the Kurdistan Region

Map 2    The Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the disputed territories, until 2014

Map 3    The extent of ISIS, 2015; adapted from The Institute for the Study of War, ISIS Sanctuary: March 2015

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Start Reading

CHAPTER 1

Index

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Series page

Hot Spots in Global Politics Series

Samer Abboud,

Syria

Christoph Bluth,

Korea

Alan Dowty,

Israel/Palestine

, third edition

Kidane Mengisteab,

The Horn of Africa

Amalendu Misra,

Afghanistan

Gareth Stansfield,

Iraq

, second edition

Jonathan Tonge,

Northern Ireland

Thomas Turner,

Congo

Copyright page

Copyright © Gareth Stansfield 2016

The right of Gareth Stansfield to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First edition published in 2007 by Polity Press

This edition published in 2016 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

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Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4929-0

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4930-6(pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stansfield, Gareth R. V., author.

Title: Iraq : people, history, politics / Gareth Stansfield.

Description: Second edition. | Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016002781| ISBN 9780745649290 (hardback) | ISBN 9780745649306 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Iraq–Politics and government–1991-2003. | Iraq–Politics and government–2003-

Classification: LCC DS79.7 .S73 2016 | DDC 956.7044/3–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016002781

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The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

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Dedication

For Amélie, Nathan and Robyn

Maps

Map 1    Iraq: Governorates and the Kurdistan Region

Map 2    The Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the disputed territories, until 2014

Map 3    The extent of ISIS, 2015

Acknowledgements

Writing the second edition of a book on a subject as complex and topical as the politics of modern Iraq has proved to be a difficult and at times frustrating task, but one made infinitely more enjoyable and straightforward by the advice and counsel of several colleagues and friends who I have engaged with since the first edition was published. While I have benefited from the input of those I mention below, any errors remain solely my responsibility, of course.

As ever, there are many colleagues who have remained crucial for my generating of knowledge of events unfolding in Iraq, and how to read unfolding developments. Sajjad Rizvi and Robert Gleave continue to correct my views on Shiʿi politics and society, and I have also valued the input of Ahab Bdaiwi (St Andrews) on these matters. Tim Niblock, Faleh Abd Al-Jaber, Brendan O'Leary and Toby Dodge have each informed or challenged my opinions many times over, and I have had the good fortune of being able to turn to the expertise of Ali Ansari and Michael Axworthy when trying to delve into the complexities of Iran's role in Iraq, and Greg Shapland provided me with the view of Iraq from the vantage point of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office on many occasions. Through my own research background, I have been able to call upon the assistance of a range of very knowledgeable people on the Kurdish question in Iraq, and I would like to thank in particular Hashem Ahmadzadeh, Mohammed Ihsan, Falah Mustafa, Latif Rashid and Salar Amin. In addition, the advice of two anonymous reviewers undoubtedly improved the quality of the book. The advice of all of these figures has proved to be invaluable.

In Exeter, Zoe Humble ensured that I had the stretches of time needed to complete this project, shouldering the burden of managing diaries, meetings and expectations, for which I am very grateful.

At Polity Press, thanks to Louise Knight and Nekane Tanaka Galdos, who have shown astonishing resilience as deadlines were extended and have been a pleasure to work with, always on hand with advice and encouragement, and to Helen Gray for all her copy-editing work.

Lastly, I would like to thank my family for their love and support. Putting up with the blinkered nature of book-writing academics is not an easy task, but is one that Melissa, along with my children Amélie, Nathan and Robyn, continues to endure with grace and humour.

Abbreviations and Glossary

ADM

Assyrian Democratic Movement. Political party representing Chaldo-Assyrian community, headed by Younadam Youssef Kanna.

Al-Qaeda (Iraq)

Sunni Islamist organization attacking foreign influences in Muslim countries. Headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri following the death of Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda Iraq (AQI – or

tanzim qa'idat al-Jihad fi bilad al-Rafidayn

) headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until his death in 2006, and formed basis of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) that led to the formation of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), then the Islamic State (IS).

Anfal

Codename of Government of Iraq campaign in 1987–88 for systematic depopulation of rural Kurdistan.

Anfal

refers to the eighth

sura

of the Quran.

Ansar al-Islam

Partisans of Islam. Kurdish Islamist group that formed part of the

Ansar al-Sunnah

group that emerged in the years following regime change.

Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq

League of the Righteous. Shiʿi militia group led by Qais Al-Khazali. Formed in 2006 as splinter of

Mahdi

Army and fought against US forces. Close relationship with Iranian IRGC, and, since 2014, part of the

Hashed al-Sha'abi

.

Ayatollah

Literally, ‘Sign of God’. Highest clerical rank in Shiʿi religious establishment.

Badr

Organization

Originally the military wing of SCIRI then ISCI. Operates independently as a Shiʿi militia headed by Hadi Al-Amiri. The

Badr

organization is part of the

Hashed al-Sha'bi

.

Baʿth Party

Arab Socialist Baʿth Party. Founded in 1947 as a secular Arab nationalist party by Michel Aflaq. Came to power in Iraq in 1963 coup, then again in 1968 when Saddam Hussein quickly became the leading figure.

Caliphate

An Islamic government led by a caliph (

Khalifa

in Arabic). The caliph has to be recognized as a successor to the Prophet Mohammed and would then lead the worldwide Muslim community. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph in Mosul in July 2014, but has not received global recognition among Muslims as being a legitimate caliph.

CIA

(US) Central Intelligence Agency.

CPA

Coalition Provisional Authority. Replaced ORHA. Headed by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III.

Daʿwa

Hizb al-Daʿwa Islamiyya

(Party of the Islamic Call). Shiʿi party formed in late 1950s under guidance of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr Al-Sadr. Fractured into several wings. Prominent figures include Haidar Al-Abadi, Nouri Al-Maliki and Ibrahim Al-Jaʿfari.

Hashed al-Sha'abi

People's Mobilization Forces (PMF). Umbrella Shiʿi militia organization formed in 2014 in response to rise of ISIS. Overall Chairman is Dr Falih Al-Fayyadh. Most prominent components include

Asaib Ahl al-Haq

,

Badr

Organization, Peace Companies and

Kata'ib al-Imam Ali

.

hawza

More fully,

hawza al-marja'iyya

. The religious establishment surrounding the leading clerical figures of Shiʿism.

GDP

Gross Domestic Product.

GNP

Gross National Product.

IAEA

International Atomic Energy Agency.

ICP

Iraqi Communist Party. Formed in 1934.

IGC

Iraqi Governing Council. Appointed by CPA to provide advice on governing Iraq between 13 July 2004 and 1 June 2005.

IIG

Interim Iraqi Government. Formed after the elections of 30 January 2005. Replaced on 3 May 2005 by the Iraqi Transitional Government. Dr Iyad Allawi served as prime minister with Ghazi Al-Yawer appointed president.

IIP

Iraqi Islamist Party. Sunni Arab Islamist party. Headed by Muhsin Abdel Hamid until July 2004, then by Tariq Al-Hashemi.

IKF

Iraqi Kurdistan Front. Political front of leading Kurdish parties in Iraq formed in the late 1980s.

IMK

Islamic Movement of Kurdistan. Kurdish Islamist party.

INA

Iraqi National Accord. Opposition political party from the 1990s, representing dissident figures from the Baʿth Party and the Iraqi military. Led by Dr Iyad Allawi.

INC

Iraqi National Congress. Opposition political party from the 1990s, forming an umbrella movement. Headed by Dr Ahmed Chalabi.

IRGC

Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Corp, otherwise known as

Sepah

or

Pasdaran

.

IS

Islamic State, or

al-Dawla al-Islamiyya

. Proclaimed in June 2014 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the Caliphate.

ISF

Iraqi Security Forces.

ISI

Islamic State of Iraq, or

Dawlat al-Iraq al-Islamiyyah

. Formed in October 2006 from AQI and other Sunni insurgent groups. Led at first by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, then Abu Ayyub al-Masri, and then Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, from 2010.

ISIS

Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or

al-Dawla al-Islamiyya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham

, formed in 2013, following an announcement by ISI leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the merger of ISI with the ISI off-shoot in Syria,

Jabhat al-Nusra

.

ISCI

Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, previously SCIRI (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), and consistently known as ‘al-majlis’ (the Council). Formed in Tehran in 1982 to bring together Shiʿi opposition groups in Iraq. Headed by Sayyed Ammar al-Hakim.

JRTN

Jaish al-Rijal al-Tarika al-Naqshabandiyya. Translated as the Army of the Men of the Naqshabandiyya Order, the JRTN emerged as one of several Baʿthist insurgency groups established in the summer of 2003 following the invasion of Iraq. They came to public prominence in 2006, following the execution of Saddam Hussein. Linked to Saddam's former deputy, Izzet Ibrahim al-Douri, the group entered an uneasy alliance with ISIS.

KDP

Kurdistan Democratic Party. Established 1946 and remains one of the two main Kurdish political parties. Led by Massoud Barzani.

KIU

Kurdistan Islamic Union. The mainstream Kurdish Islamist party. Formed in 1994.

KNA

Kurdistan National Assembly. The 111-seat parliament of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

KRG

Kurdistan Regional Government. The executive authority of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, based in Erbil.

KRI

Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The federal autonomous region established in 1991 and enshrined in the Constitution of 2005, subsequently expanded in the summer of 2014.

Mahdi Army

The militia movement of Muqtada al-Sadr in 2003 and disbanded in 2008. Replaced by the Peace Companies (

Saraya al-Salam

) in 2014.

marja' al-taqlid

‘Source of Emulation’. Honorific name given to the most important religious figures in Shiʿism.

MNF-I

Multi-National Forces Iraq. The name of Coalition forces in Iraq following the 2003 invasion.

mujtahid

A scholar of Islam qualified to interpret Islamic law.

neo-cons

Neo-conservatives. Right-wing ideological grouping in US in early 2000s that advocated interventionist strategies in the Middle East.

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

OIP

(UN) Office of the Iraq Program.

OPEC

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

ORHA

Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

pasdaran

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, otherwise known as the IRGC.

peshmerga

Kurdish fighters in general, but most often used to refer to the military organizations of the KDP and PUK, and now the Kurdistan Army nominally under the command of the KRG. Literally means ‘those who face death’.

PKK

Parti Karkaren Kurdistan

or Kurdistan Workers' Party. Formed in 1970s by Abdullah Ocalan against the Turkish state.

PUK

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. One of the two main parties of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Formed in 1975 and led by Jalal Talabani, with factions led by Hero Ibrahim, Kosrat Rasoul, and Barham Salih.

PYD

Partiya Yekitiya Demokrat

or Democratic Union Party. Syrian Kurdish political party formed in 2003 and becoming prominent from 2011. Led by Salih Muslim and Asya Abdullah.

RCC

Revolution's Command Council (Baʿth Party). Highest legislative and executive authority in Iraq before 2003.

SCIRI

Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an Iraqi Shiʿi opposition movement established in Tehran in 1982, and led by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim.

SOFA

(US) Status of Forces Agreement.

TAL

Transitional Administrative Law. Interim constitution signed on 8 March 2004 by the IGC.

TNA

Transitional National Assembly. The TNA was elected in January 2005 to legislate during the ‘transitional period’ during which the permanent constitution of Iraq would be drafted. The TNA remained in place until the formation of the sovereign government of Iraq in May 2006.

UAE

United Arab Emirates.

UAR

United Arab Republic, formed by union of Syria and Egypt in 1958. Collapsed in 1961.

UIA

United Iraqi Alliance. Alliance of Shiʿi parties support by Ayatollah Sistani to contest the elections of January 2005.

UNMOVIC

UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.

UNSCOM

UN Special Commission.

vilayet

Ottoman territorial division.

WMD

Weapons of Mass Destruction.

YPG

People's Protection Units (

Yekineyen Parastina Gel

). Syrian Kurdish militia of the PYD, operating in the post-2014 period in the KRI. Led by Sipan Hemo.

Map 1

    Iraq: Governorates and the Kurdistan Region

Map 2

    The Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the disputed territories, until 2014

Introduction: Artificiality, Identity, Dictatorship and State-Building

The first edition of Iraq was published in 2007, at a time when the country was witnessing an unprecedented level of sectarian violence, between Sunnis and Shiʿis. The conclusion to the first edition was bleak, and understandably so, noting the impact on society of the high levels of violence then being inflicted, and the consolidation of patterns of ethno-sectarian political mobilization – dynamics that had been largely kept at bay by Saddam Hussein's invidious and oppressive methods of governing Iraq. In the ‘new’ Iraq, this new form of mobilization – enshrined in the political elites' approach to dividing power between communities (known as muhasasa) – had resulted in the marginalizing and ostracizing of the Sunni Arabs, the empowerment of certain Shiʿi groups, and the protection and relative advancement of the Kurds. The manifestation of this approach was a Sunni insurgency against the state, a backlash by Shiʿis against Sunnis, and the continued isolationism of the Kurds. Together, these dynamics gave credence to a conclusion that pointed to a future for Iraq that would continue to be unstable, dangerous for its inhabitants, and potentially transformative for the wider region.

For a period between 2008 and 2012, however, it seemed that my pessimism had been unwarranted. Recognizing the very real chance that Iraq could collapse further, the US had no choice but to refocus their intervention. They did this by building upon domestic developments that had been happening among certain Sunni tribes. By 2007, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) organization had appeared as the latest manifestation of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).1 Starting in Anbar province, several important Arab tribes and nationalist militias rose up against what was seen as the foreign-fighter dominated ISI. What became known as the Awakening Movement (harakat al-sahwat al-Iraq), or the Sons of Iraq (abna al-Iraq), presented the US with conveniently placed local allies that could be co-opted to provide local solutions for local problems. Combined with a ‘surge’ of US forces into Anbar province and Baghdad and the unrelenting targeting of ‘irreconcilable’ insurgents by the US military (see Woodward 2008), it seemed that the objective of the US government – to establish a ‘democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an ally in the War on Terror’ was being achieved.2

For a time, specifically between 2008 and mid-2011, it seemed that Iraq had perhaps turned a corner and at last was beginning to develop in the way envisaged by US planners. Insurgent attacks had lessened, and the institutions of the state seemed to be re-establishing their presence and projecting their authority across the country. But it was not to last. From 2012 onwards, and following the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq at the end of 2011, developments in political life indicated that my bleak analysis of 2007 was more durable than were the short-term realities generated by the much-vaunted US surge and the Sunni Arab awakening. Indeed, it could even be suggested that the long-term consequence of the short-term actions of the US and their Iraqi government counterparts only served to further undermine any remaining sense of cohesion that may have existed between Iraq's communities. Rather than honouring the promises made to the Sunni Arabs by the now departed US, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki instead began to pursue policies that could be viewed as being sectarian, with Sunni Arab elites across Iraq's northern governorates being targeted for arrest, and with demonstrations being suppressed, often with lethal force. More than any other individual, Maliki has been blamed for the deterioration of Iraqi security and political life in the period following the quelling of the ISI-led insurgency, and his actions created a political and social environment in which a new manifestation of Sunni militancy – this time in the form of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) – would flourish.3 Not only were Sunni Arabs – many of whom had accepted US patronage and fought against ISI – left marooned by the US withdrawal; they were now targeted by Maliki as potential threats. Meanwhile, those insurgents who had been arrested by the US and entered prison camps such as Camp Bucca – including the future Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – had become more focused in their aims and networked with each other. They had also become clever – they had learned the reasons for their defeat and what it would take to succeed in the future, not only by reflecting upon their own failings but by understanding the tactics that had been used against them. While the government of Iraq, and even the US and coalition members, had quickly forgotten the counter-insurgency lessons developed in the 2007–8 period, the remnants of ISI had not. Their bringing together of different components – from jihadists to Baʿthists to disaffected tribes – combined with a new strategic vision, and benefiting from brutal tactical efficiency, enabled them to return with incredible success in 2014 as ISIS seized control of a vast swathe of land across Sunni-dominated Iraq.

Updating Iraq in 2015, there is even less reason to be optimistic than there was in 2007. The integrity of the country has become largely a fictional presentation that is interestingly most tightly adhered to not by Iraqis, but by Western governments that remain wedded to the neat notion of Iraq as it was, rather than what it has become. Inside Iraq, there are at least three distinct regions that exercise de facto if not de jure sovereignty. In the north, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI)4 has continued with its trajectory of moving from autonomy through to virtual independence, even though the Kurds had still not resolved their difficult economic questions and were very nearly defeated by a ferocious Islamic State (IS) assault that threatened Erbil in August 2014. Then there is the reality of IS. Far from being an ephemeral development that could be quickly defeated, IS has proved to be much more durable, with their operations across Iraq and Syria giving them strategic depth, and with their message of regional and then world domination seemingly resonating loudly among Sunnis of a particular disposition who continued to volunteer to serve the self-proclaimed Caliph. And then there was the Shiʿi south. Largely removed from the troubles north of Baghdad, the Shiʿi-dominated areas increasingly viewed events to the north as taking place in a different country, experiencing considerable discontent that their sons in the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the many different militias were being deployed against IS forces, and being slaughtered in the process. While the ISF struggled against IS, Shiʿi militias re-established themselves not only as powerful military forces in the struggle against the Sunnis, but as political actors in what had now become a highly fragmented Shiʿi political landscape. With their strong links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), the militias swiftly filled the void left by the collapse of the ISF. In effect, the government of Iraq, now led by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, was the government of the country ranging from the northern and western environs of Baghdad, to Basra on the Gulf coast – and even in these places the government did not enjoy sole authority over what should have been competences of the state, and especially with regard to security provision. Across the rest of Iraq, the government was even more challenged, and it could no longer project its power into the domains of IS or the KRI. The question of whether Iraq would devolve into three entities had by now largely been answered – it had done so in a chaotic and violent fashion. Three regions – the Kurdistan Region, the Islamic State, and Baghdad-Basra – had become established around core communal areas and with the borders of them being sharpened by the terrible effects of ethnic cleansing. What was less easy to answer was ‘what would happen next’? Would these three regions survive, consolidate and became the de facto reality going forward, or would one or more of them collapse? Would external pressure see a new, federal Iraq emerge in an imagined post-IS landscape, or would IS, against all the odds, survive and become a reality that Baghdad-Basra and the Kurdistan Region would have to accept? If these possibilities seemed far-fetched, they were slightly less so than the prospect of Iraq returning to how it was before the rise of ISIS, with the Shiʿi-dominated government controlling the Arab parts of the country, and the Kurds left to their own devices in the north.

Four Key Debates

How did Iraq get into this position? Why were communities that once lived in relatively peaceful harmony, according to the historical literature on Iraq's society, now subjecting each other to ever increasing levels of brutality and indiscriminate violence?5 What possible bonds could those attempting to stabilize the situation appeal to in the face of such actions? Unfortunately, the answers to these questions have proved elusive.

Some observers, particularly those who were opposed to the invasion of Iraq in the first place, focused upon the period immediately following the downfall of Saddam's government. For them, the actions of post-Saddam Iraqi governments were responsible for the chaos, but the blame for creating the situation in the first place could be laid squarely on the US and UK for invading Iraq without adequately considering what the consequences of such an action would be. In so doing, the occupying powers were forced to act in an increasingly reactive and myopic manner as they struggled to cope with the post-invasion dynamics. Their reactivity was responsible for the creation – wittingly or unwittingly – of a political system whereby religious and ethnically based parties could thrive (see, for example, Rangwala 2005).

Others, while considering the US government to be responsible for the problems of post-2003 Iraq, viewed the real problem as being an innocent but disastrous failure to implement a pre-designed plan for the ‘interim’ period during the occupation (see Klingner and Jones 2005: 146).

A further approach was to contextualize what was happening within a wider historical analysis. With regard to recent historical events, the impact of UN-imposed sanctions in the 1990s rightly received attention, with prescient observers warning before 2003 that the profound damage inflicted upon Iraqi society made it difficult to imagine a democratic transition being feasible in the foreseeable future (see Niblock 2001: 219). Casting the historical net further back in time, other commentators delved into Iraq's history to see whether the reasons behind Iraq's turbulent post-Saddam existence could be traced to the policies of the occupiers, or to something deeper, perhaps found within the pathology of the Iraqi state construct itself (see Anderson and Stansfield 2005).

Rather than pursue any one of these foci at the expense of all others, the analytical theme of this book is assembled around four (very) interrelated debates that have been and remain prominent in the expansive discussion about Iraq's formation, history, society, politics and, indeed, future. I refer to these as: (1) the artificiality debate; (2) the identity debate; (3) the dictator debate; and (4) the state-building and democratization debate. To expand a little on these titles:

The

artificiality debate

focuses upon whether Iraq, at its founding, was an ‘artificial’ state or not, and, if it was, how the implications of any suggested ‘artificiality’ at the time of state-building nearly a century ago have affected state-building nearly a century later.

The

identity debate

revolves around the nature of identity in Iraq – in essence, what it meant in the past and now means in the present to ‘be’ an Iraqi. How powerful, as a mobilizing force, is the concept of ‘Iraqi nationalism’, compared to the power of religious association and ethnic solidarity? What were the causative factors of the reappearance of communal identities? Indeed, had they ever been hidden, or had they been merely glossed-over by the combined effect of the transformative nature of modernity with the confining strictures of Saddam's government?

The

dictator debate

addresses the nature of political authority in Iraq, and questions how and why the modern history of Iraq has been characterized by the involvement of the military in political life, and the reasons behind Iraq's succumbing to an authoritarian method of governance that culminates with the totalitarian Ba'thist regime dominated by the person of Saddam Hussein. Is the authoritarian/totalitarian state merely an unfortunate, anomalous, development in the history of Iraq and need not have happened? Is there something that predisposes the Iraqi state to being dictatorial in nature, or was this development a reaction to external pressures and influences? Perhaps the most important question to ask is what was the impact upon Iraqi society of decades of non-democratic politics and, at times, brutal and omnipotent state control?

The

state-building and democratization debate

in effect attempts to synthesize the arguments presented in the preceding three debates, and focuses upon the mechanics of state-building in plural societies and/or countries emerging from under the shadow of authoritarianism.

Together, the four debates inform our understanding of why, since the removal of Saddam's regime, Iraqi political life has been dominated by actors and organizations that are mobilized in terms of religious affiliation, ethnic origin or tribal association (and, at times, combinations of two or more of these), rather than secular nationalism or class-based identities that encompass all of Iraq's peoples inclusively. They also allow us to understand how and why the building blocks of civil war began to coalesce in the post-2003 environment, and why they re-established themselves so powerfully in the post-2011 period. It is now clear that the prevailing political forces in Iraq would seem to be those associated with (a) Shiʿi religious trends, (b) the Kurdish nationalist agenda and (c) a ‘Sunni Arab’ position that has formed mainly in reaction to the first two forces, and which has now been overshadowed by IS. Other communal poles are also apparent within the Turkmen and Christian (Chaldo-Assyrian communities). None of these groups may be considered cohesive in terms of internal dynamics and even aims (with the Shiʿi religious establishment divided between different poles of authority; the Kurds notoriously politically divided; and the Sunni Arab insurgency split between ex-Baʿthists, neo-Baʿthists and an array of Islamist groups), but, even so, their very existence is evidence of different conceptions existing within Iraq's society that promote contending, and at times exclusive, visions of the future of the country. The four debates give a sense of the arguments that have been forwarded to explain how these visions have been formed, and why Iraqi political life developed as it has.

Book Outline

The purpose of this book is to provide a ‘thematic’ political history of Iraq. As such, the chapters proceed in chronological order, but with one of the four ‘key’ debates appearing at the appropriate moment.

The ‘modern’ history of Iraq commences in Chapter 2 with an outline of the artificiality debate – i.e., what is meant by the phrase that ‘Iraq is artificial’? The chapter investigates the first episode in state-building in Iraq, and considers the reasons why Iraq was created in the aftermath of the First World War, how its territorial parameters were identified, and how the British set about constructing the state. It is argued that many of the attributes of the Iraqi state can be understood by considering how the British structured it to begin with, and then how British advisors attempted to influence Iraqi affairs in subsequent years. I contend that the British designed a political system that had the potential to nurture increasingly authoritarian approaches to government. But it was also the British that acted to make this potential into a reality, by continually meddling in Iraq's affairs and provoking a reaction in the form of a nationalist movement.

Chapter 3 investigates what is one of the most contentious of issues when discussing modern Iraq, and that is how Iraqis identify themselves, and how they are identified by others. The identity debate considers how political mobilization in Iraq has been discussed primarily in Western academic literature, and presents the two most prominent models – the first focusing upon vertical cleavages in society (i.e., forwarding the saliency of communal association, whether sectarian or ethnic), and the second contending that horizontal cleavages of class and socio-economic status are more powerful forces that manage to transcend the ties of religion and ethnicity. Again, I contend that a middle ground, which is in effect a combination of these two approaches to conceptualizing political mobilization in Iraq, has greater explanatory value than either model applied in isolation. The chapter considers the interplay between Iraqi and Arab nationalism, before analysing the nature of the Sunni–Shiʿi divide, the emergence of Kurdish nationalism, and the situation of the Assyrian and Turkmen communities.

The growth of the authoritarian state is taken up in Chapter 4. Beginning with the dictator debate, definitions from the political science literature on non-democratic regimes are discussed in order to provide a framework by which Iraq's transition from authoritarianism, to totalitarianism in the 1980s, and back to authoritarianism in the 1990s, can be understood. The essence of the debate itself focuses upon statements made by US government officials, including President George W. Bush, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. An implicit (and, at times, explicit) assumption made at this time was that Saddam Hussein and his immediate circle of supporters were all that stood in the way of Iraq being democratic. Saddam was, therefore, an anomaly that needed to be removed. The counter to this argument is that, far from being anomalous in the history of Iraq, Saddam's regime was, in fact, a product and, logically, the conditions remain for Iraq to continue being governed by authoritarian/totalitarian regimes in the future. The chapter considers the role of the military in political life following the creation of Iraq, and how the military, with a distinctly Arab nationalist world-view, served to further ‘communalize’ Iraqi society. The reaction of the military to the seemingly omnipresent British imperialist presence is considered, and viewed as a primary causative factor in the rise and consolidation of anti-imperialist and increasingly nationalist sentiment. The chapter concludes by considering the impact of increased oil revenue and the rise of the Baʿth Party – both of which would be important factors in the Iraqi state moving from being authoritarian to totalitarian in nature.

The continued rule of Saddam Hussein is addressed in Chapter 5, which focuses upon the events that would lead to Iraq coming into conflict with Western powers in the 1990s. Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980 sees the beginning of a period which is still arguably ongoing, as a state of war has hung over the country since 23 September 1980 – the date that Iraqi forces entered Iran. The complexity of the causative factors of Iraq's invasion of Iran are investigated, including the history of the ‘trigger’ cause of the war – the status of the Shatt al-Arab waterway – and the role played by Kurdish rebel movements that had continued with their sporadic insurgency against the central government since the formation of the state itself. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the political and economic impact of the conflict, and how the invasion of Kuwait can be seen as being a consequence of the problems generated by the inconclusive but hugely destructive war with Iran.

The 1990s are considered in Chapter 6. The reasons why Saddam ordered the invasion of Kuwait are assessed, building upon the findings presented at the end of the previous chapter. The uprisings that then occurred following the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait by the US-led ‘Coalition of the Willing’ are then considered, followed by an assessment of the opposition groups that formed in the 1990s. The impact of the brutally comprehensive UN-imposed sanctions upon Iraq are then described, followed by how Saddam managed to survive several US-sponsored coup attempts. The emergence and institutionalization of the Kurdistan Region is also addressed, and the chapter concludes with the events that would lead to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Chapter 7 addresses the political development of Iraq since the removal of Saddam's regime and up until the commencement of the sectarian conflict of 2007. The state-building and democratization debate is used to provide a framework for understanding how political scientists and observers viewed the chances of Iraq successfully democratizing after Saddam's demise, and whether the empirical evidence points to a future Iraq being democratic, authoritarian or even in existence. The chapter covers the major issues that have characterized post-2003 Iraq, including the political process started by the US that culminated with elections in December 2005, the communalization of political life, the emergence of insurgent groups from within the Sunni community, the strengthening of the Kurdistan Region and the appearance of a radical movement in the Shiʿi community.

Chapter 8 covers the period in which Iraq could well have been ‘saved’ following the final roll of the military dice of the US – in the form of ‘the surge strategy’ that partly led to the defeat of ISI and Sunni Arab insurgencies, and quelled the worse excesses of the Sadr militia, the Jaish al-Mahdi. From this point, Iraqi elites could have embraced a new political compact, and perhaps even have recognized the weight of Sunni opinion following the parliamentary elections of 2010 in which Iraqiyya – a Sunni-associated block – secured a marginal victory over the dawlat al-qanun (State of Law) coalition of incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. The failure to acknowledge the results of this election – which saw Maliki remain as premier – led to the further and rapid deterioration of inter-communal relations, giving ISIS an atmosphere of grievance that it would then spectacularly exploit. The final substantive chapter addresses the rise of ISIS, presenting it not only as a logical progression of Sunni Arab militancy, but as a learned, informed and considered outcome. The rise of ISIS and then the formation of the Islamic State is considered, before a detailed evaluation of IS actions in the remainder of 2014.

Before all of this, however, it is necessary to delve into history and reflect on Iraq ‘before Iraq’. The modern state was not created out of thin air – indeed, the region that was brought together to form Iraq has perhaps the longest and richest civilizational history of anywhere in the world, with events of global importance taking place within its boundaries. To understand Iraq's modern history, we need to appreciate the legacies of ages past.

Notes

1

    The lineage of Sunni

jihadist

organizations in Iraq will be looked at in detail in

Chapter 9

, where the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the subsequent declaration of the Islamic State (IS) of 2014 are considered.

2

    The White House, ‘Highlights of the Iraq Strategy Review’, January 2007. Available at: <

http://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/78589.htm

>.

3

    There has been an inordinate amount of attention paid to naming the Islamic State, and its predecessor ISIS. Not wanting to legitimize the organization as a ‘state’, or acknowledge any Islamic association, the term ‘daesh’ has often been used, which is itself an acronym derived from the Arabic name for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, al-Dawla al-Islamiyya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. In this book, in order to facilitate a clear understanding of the chronology of events, I use the following names/acronyms: ISI (2006–13), ISIS (2013–14), and IS (2014–).

4

    The formal name of Iraqi Kurdistan, as recognized in the Constitution of Iraq of 2005 is the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). Its legislature is the Kurdistan National Assembly (KNA) and its executive is the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and both sit in the region's capital of Erbil. While it is common to refer to the Kurdistan Region as ‘KRG’, it is more accurate to refer to it as ‘the KRI’, using the name ‘KRG’ to refer to the Kurds' government.

5

    While literature discussing Iraqi society in the mid-twentieth century would tend to extol the non-sectarian nature of Iraqi political culture and society, describing in the main an educated people (and especially in the major cities) that were increasingly of a secular outlook, these references would rarely focus upon the Kurdish situation, and also tended to build a picture of Iraqi society by extrapolating from the urbane middle classes of the major cities – a middle class that was very much tied to the patronage of the state.

1Legacies of Civilizations and Empires

The modern state of Iraq, crafted by imperial powers following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, is merely the latest in a long line of political structures to have existed in and around the watersheds of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates (see Map 1 on page xix for the boundaries of the modern state, and the internal boundaries of the provinces and the Kurdistan Region). Along with China, Egypt and India, Iraq has the oldest heritage of any state in the world. It is home to some of the earliest examples of agricultural activity, and its cities and rural areas alike display the remains of a palimpsest of ancient civilizations. Later, Iraq was the imperial centre of the Abbasid Caliphate, recognized as being the apogee of Islamic civilization and, before becoming part of the territories of the expansive Ottoman Empire, famed for its cosmopolitan sophistication.

Three ‘elements of the past’ have been most important in forming collective memories in modern Iraq, those being the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, the Arab-Islamic conquests and heritage, and the Ottoman Empire (Marr 2004: 3–8). The mechanisms by which these elements have impacted modern Iraq varies, with the most ‘direct’ influences that have coloured, even structured, modern Iraq being those of Islam and the Ottoman Empire. The Arab-Islamic heritage continues to shape social contours more so than any other dynamic, particularly as its customs and traditions remain the most powerful of the forces governing social activity and interaction. The Ottoman Empire is now consigned to history, but over a period of five centuries was responsible for ordering modern Iraq's political structure, leaving an indelible imprint on Iraq's social and political structures. The influence of ancient civilizations is not so prominent as that of Islam or the Ottoman Empire, but these were and remain a potent force in the building of myths of nationhood. For the classically educated British civil servants and military officers tasked with working in Iraq in the aftermath of the First World War, the ancient civilizations of the region were often better known to them than the living communities they had to deal with. Later, ancient Mesopotamians were also referred to by the architects of the modern Iraqi state as proof of Iraqis' unique heritage, and used as myths in the construction of a nationalist discourse, supporting the contention that it was primus inter pares among the Arab states (Davis 2005: 9). Even the US occupiers/liberators of 2003 were not averse to reminding Iraqis of their own heritage. Speaking to cadets of the Police Academy in Baghdad on 1 April 2004, the US ‘Administrator’ of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, opened with an immediate ‘civilizational’ flourish with ‘[t]he men and women before me are the line between civilization and barbarism’ before going on to inform them that ‘[c]ivilization started here, in what is now Iraq’.1

Ancient Civilizations

This region's emergence as a cradle of civilizations was determined by the geographical conditions of what is now southern and central Iraq. As in the valleys of the Nile and Indus, conditions on the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates made cultivation of crops possible (Morozova 2005: 401). But the presence of essential materials – water from the rivers and fertile land deposited by them – was only one part of the equation which would see civilizations emerge and grow. The other part consisted of the challenges presented by the environment, which included extremes of temperature, localized rainfall and the proximity of an arid landscape surrounding the relatively narrow areas adjacent to the rivers. The existence of materials in a region characterized by localized extremes necessitated the development of innovative techniques of environmental management, leading to the growth of civilizations.

The principal collective activity of ancient Mesopotamian societies was the creation and management of an irrigation infrastructure, bringing water from the rivers to cultivable land. How such activities then impacted upon societal development is a subject of debate. The orthodox view envisaged societies dependent upon irrigation (‘hydraulic’ societies), giving rise to despotic regimes, as a centralized administration was needed to ensure the survival and maintenance of the infrastructure and to enforce the procedures necessary for managing the environment (Wittfogel 1981). However, more recent archaeological investigations contend that irrigation schemes in Mesopotamia were smaller than originally supposed. Instead, it is speculated that Mesopotamian cities came about because of the economic impact of wealth creation from more localized irrigation schemes, rather than the need to manage larger systems (Fernea 1970; Pollack 1999). Cities then drew in residents from the rural areas in waves of rural to urban migration to work in the agricultural sector, producing a surplus that allowed the development and expansion of other non-agricultural activities. Specialists in other fields emerged, including those with high levels of technical skills, those with administrative expertise and those of a more spiritual orientation (Crawford 2004: 18). These city-states became religious centres and locations of important shrines, and provided military protection from predatory neighbours living in the desert areas to the west, or the mountains to the north and east (Yoffee 1995: 284).

Four groups are commonly referred to in the context of Iraq's ancient civilizations. These are the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians. They are mentioned with good reason, as they invented and refined many of the building blocks of modern civilization, including writing, mathematics, accountancy, astronomy, legal codes, organized religion and models of government. A brief outline of the most notable periods and peoples of ancient Mesopotamia will be provided in the following sections. The first section of this overview commences with the Uruk, Sumerian and Akkadian periods. The second section addresses the Babylonian, Assyrian and neo-Babylonian periods. The final section considers the Medes, particularly because Kurds in Iraq view them, however contentiously, as ‘their’ ancient civilization.

Uruk, Sumeria and Akkad

The antecedents of the ancient Mesopotamians can be found in the agrarian-based societies that appeared in the lower Tigris-Euphrates valley in the sixth millennium BC. Within this region, first referred to by the name Mesopotamia (land between the rivers) by the Greek scholars Polybius and Strabo, physical conditions combined with the ingenuity of the ancient inhabitants to produce an agrarian-based society across Mesopotamia, south-western Iran, the piedmont of the Zagros Mountains and the western shores of the Persian Gulf. This period, known as the Ubaid, was approximately 7,000 years ago and the settlement pattern was characterized by small village communities and, later in the millennium, towns. From the Ubaid developed the wide-ranging Uruk culture between 4,000 and 3,000 BC. This period witnessed advances in agriculture, the invention of writing and the establishment of the first legal systems (Simons 1994: 113; Marr 2004: 4). Other equally important developments that occurred during this period include the emergence of armies and of organized warfare (Crawford 2004: 17). The period culminated in the rise and then expansion of Uruk culture into areas of modern northern Iraq and Syria, the foothills of north-eastern Iraq, and neighbouring parts of modern Turkey and Iran in the fourth millennium BC (Rothman 2001 5–9).

Urbanization increased throughout the period, and city-states were founded in the land of Sumer, in Babylonia, and even west of the Euphrates towards the Mediterranean Sea. The Sumerian city-states that emerged from 3,000 BC onwards included Ur, Eridu, Uruk, Larsa, Lagash, Nippur and Nisin. These cities were composed of large urban centres with a surrounding hinterland, and were ruled by hereditary dynasties which also had associated religious authority. Sumerian scholars developed the science of mathematics and astronomy, and invented the wheel, but perhaps their greatest contribution was the further development and codification of writing. Their ‘cuneiform’ system, whereby clay tablets carried wedge-shaped imprints made by a stylus, facilitated the accumulation of a wide body of knowledge and literature.2

Despite these advances, the political scene on the Mesopotamian plain was characterized not by a unified political structure, but by ‘individual city-states forming alliances and breaking them in an ever-changing kaleidoscope’ (Crawford 2004: 28). Each of these cities was wholly dependent upon securing a reliable water supply, thus competition and conflict ensued over access to resources. Fractured and politically disparate, the Sumerian city-states fell to the Akkadian king Sargon in 2370 BC, who then unified Mesopotamia under his rule. But the Sargonic period of centralized authority ended as abruptly as it began. Following internal decline and chronic rebellions, centralized control over Mesopotamia collapsed following the infiltration of the land by foreign tribes, and particularly ‘the hordes of the Gutium’ (possibly the ‘Quti’ – the speculated antecedents of the Kurds) from the Zagros Mountains (Postgate 1994: 41; Crawford 2004: 34).3 The final episode in the history of the Sumerian period is the dominance of the city of Ur from 2100 BC. Under the Ur dynasty (known as ‘Ur III’), a vast trading network again evolved with links into Anatolia, Persia, Armenia, India, Egypt and Lebanon (Bossuyt et. al. 2001: 375). In addition to being the imperial centre of the age, Ur was also the starting point for the monotheistic religions of the modern era when, in approximately 1850 BC, Abram (later to be known as Abraham) left with his followers for the land of Canaan, in today's Israel, believing that God had promised it to him and his descendants.

Babylonia and Assyria

The Ur dynasty fell primarily due to the resistance of the peoples of the city-states to the ‘enormous bureaucratic pyramid’ which had been established to control communal and private action, and opposition was further fuelled by declines in agricultural production (Yoffee 1995: 295). Individual city-states reclaimed their local authority, but no supreme political power emerged. Instead, the region was characterized by shifting alliances and the emergence of two power centres in what is known as the ‘Old Babylonian’ period (c.2000–1600 BC). In the north, the Akkadians exercised control from Babylon, while in the south Larsa was the predominant city among the city-states. The Babylonian king Hammurabi unified the two regions, but, again, a centralized bureaucratic structure struggled to maintain its mastery over the entire realm. The Babylonians continued with the Sumerian and Akkadian practice of monarchical rule and also introduced taxation and military conscription as part of a wider process of administrative centralization. Unlike the previous Sumerian system, which was characterized in its latter years by a patchwork of authority held by individual city-states, power and authority were taken from individual city-states and invested in the monarch, and Hammurabi subjected his provincial governors to rigid royal control (Roux 1980: 189).

Following the sacking of Babylon by the Hittites in 1595 BC, a period of instability again plagued Mesopotamia until the ascendancy of the Assyrians. A Semitic people from the northern areas of Mesopotamia, the Assyrians had previously attempted to form an independent entity, only to be ruthlessly crushed by Hammurabi (Yoffee 1995: 299). From approximately 1300 BC to 600 BC, the Assyrian state controlled the trading networks of Mesopotamia from four cities – Assur, Arbela (modern-day Erbil), Kalakh (Nimrod) and the capital Nineveh (near Mosul) – and ultimately dominated the Middle East from Iran to Egypt (Bagg 2000: 302). The Assyrians have the reputation of being the ‘bad boys’ of ancient Mesopotamian history, which stems from the value placed by Assyrian leaders on the pursuit of warfare, and the manner in which the Assyrians have been depicted in the Bible (Machinist 1983: 722). Assyria's small armies certainly enjoyed unprecedented success on the battlefield. However, this martial proclivity was also matched by developments in the civil arena. New settlements were founded, with canals and water-supply features requiring more advanced technological approaches than had been needed in Sumer and Babylon (Bagg 2000: 309–10).

However, the management of the empire proved to be problematic, with the Assyrian state ultimately collapsing under the pressure of attacks from an alliance of the Medes (to the north) and the Babylonians (to the south) in 609 BC. The previously subordinated kingdom of Babylonia became the dominant power of Mesopotamia, with the Medes establishing their hegemony in the Zagros Mountains and the Iranian plateau (Zawadzki 1988; Brown 1986: 108). While this neo-Babylonian era was short-lived, lasting little more than a century, it produced the most famous of the kings of Mesopotamia, Nebuchadnezzar (605–562 BC), noted primarily for the construction of the hanging gardens of Babylon and the conquest of Judah in 586 BC.

Media and Persia

When considering the legacies of ancient civilizations, it is necessary to make an addition to the regular canon of Sumer, Babylon and Assyria. For the Kurds of Iraq, the civilizations of the Zagros and Taurus mountain ranges are of more relevance in terms of legacies and myths of nation than those of Mesopotamia. But the origins of the peoples of the Zagros are again vague and we are dependent upon much of what we know from evidence found in the archaeological records, and in the writings of Mesopotamian empires that had contact with these peoples. The ‘Quti’, which may be the earliest version of the word ‘Kurd’ (Elphinston 1946: 92), existed as one of several kingdoms in the Zagros, and by the end of the third millennium BC had succeeded in uniting many of the city-states of the mountains, launching attacks against Akkad and Sumer. By around 1500 BC, a new homogenizing force was arriving from the east with the westward movement of Indo-European tribes, bringing with them a new language from Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. These tribes were the forerunners of the Medes and the Persians (Diakonoff 1985: 48–9).

As the Assyrian empire expanded north into the Zagros, it came into contact with these Median tribes from c