Mubarak and the Shadow of Iraq 1958

Cairo's million man march is not the only million-strong demonstration in recent Arab history but certainly the best publicised and will be the most influential in world history. The other has been all but forgotten by today's youth but its effect is a strong influence on the way that Mubarak and his gang of medieval thugs are thinking as well as an important lesson for the current revolution. I do not mean medieval as a baseless insult but if you think of any time in history when there was another regime that matches Mubarak, King Henry VIII comes to mind.

In 1958 a small group of mid-ranking officers (about the same rank as the ones that assassinated Sadat) siezed control of the military and overthrew the British-backed monarchy. What happened after created one of the major fears that guide Mubarak's actions now. Several of the monarchy were killed by the Iraqi people including the prime minister Nuri As-Said. The phrase killed is somewhat of an understatement. The Iraqi people tore Nuri As-Said apart limb from limb. My mother remembered seeing a procession through the streets carrying his foot.

I used to find it hard explaining the violent hatred that drives to people to this until Mubarak recently gave the world the perfect example. Mubarak would have been a young man at the time and would have remembered the events well. He can only wonder at the fate that awaits him if he ever loses control and the military abandons him to the anger of the Egyptian people.

The other event was the rise of the Communist party. From being a fairly small organisation before the revolution it grew to a point where, in 1959, it was able to call for a demonstration and a million iraqis turned up. People I know who witnessed the event describe a march that started in the morning and people were still filtering through to late evening. The Communists has everything in their hands - popular support, the intelligentsia, the unions, even large sections of the military. Everything to seize power - but they hesitated.

At the time the grip of Soviet Russia on the world's communist movements was strong and the order came from on high that the Communist party should not take control but support the generals that were currently in power and the Iraqi communist leadership slavishly obeyed.

The result was that Qassim took fright of the communists's power and purged them from controlling positions in the country. Qassim became isolated and bit by bit the Baathists took power and Iraq ended up with Saddam.

The moral

How a small party could rise from nowhere and threaten a military establish that had been ruling since the early days of the Ottoman Empire must have made all the military elites of the region take fright. All it took was one year of freedom and the whole people rallied behind an alternative. One can see that since '58 never again has the Arab military classes allowed such a period of free expression.

When Mubarak and the heads of the armed forces in Egypt weigh their options the spectre of July 1958 haunts them. Mubarak knows his fate if he left to the people and his generals worry about what will happen if the Egyptian people are given even three months of freedom.

Mubarak and the Egyptian military are dinosaurs left over from the Middle Ages but their time has long passed. It used to be the text-book destination of any revolution to take over the TV station - those days have passed. Now all one has to do is sit in the centre of town and tweet. And the government response is to send in peasants on camels.

But Mubarak and the military are more frightened of the people than each other. Mubarak will not go and the army will do nothing to make him. If the military are to force Mubarak out they have to be pushed first and, if the people hesitate, bit by bit, Egypt will get another Saddam.

The Ghost of Saddam Hussain

Brazillian cartoonist Latuff's take on the repercussions of the execution.

Over at Global Voices I have posted my opinion on blogger reactions to the execution of Saddam Hussain. Go there and read it and write what you think.

Saddam, A Retrospective

There are those that say Saddam died when he was captured by the Americans, others that say he died four years ago after losing the war. They are both wrong. In reality it was somewhere around the mid eighties.

You have to understand that the top Baathists were so hated they already saw themselves as dead in the sense that once they loosen their hold on the reigns of power just a little they will all be killed by the people. So, to see when Saddam really died one must understand when he lost full control of power in Iraq.

Saddam may have been an American agent, trained by the CIA and shoehorned into power in Iraq but it was not the Americans that kept him there. That credit must go to the military class that kept Iraq under control for centuries under the Ottoman empire. It was the same military class that backed up the British imposed Monarchy. And the same military class that stopped the Iraqi republic of 1958 creating a popular government. And the same military class that led Iraq into its devastsating war with Iran in 1980.

Part way through the war with Iran the Iraqi army failed. Iran had managed to take back all territory that Iraq had gained initially and culminated with Iran gaining a foothold inside the south of Iraq and threatening to march on to Baghdad. Drastic action was taken. The compositon of the Army wsa changed. First, new military commanders were promoted on the basis of ability and not the previous system of cronyism and, second, a whole generation of University students were drafted into the army. This changed the Iraqi army into an effective defensive force and one that manged to stop a vastly more numerous army overruning Iraq. But also this lay the seeds for a change in the Iraqi army that ended generations of control of the old military families.

This was a significant change. Saddam was forced to stop acting as a pure agent of foreign powers but to allow the Iraqi people more control of their country just to stay in power. This led to a golden era for the Iraqi economy. Saddam loosened his control of the state and Iraqi people built a truly independent economy for the first time since before the Ottoman empire.

Iraq was a major regional exporter arms and building material and other industrial goods to the whole region, challenging the Western monopolies. At the same time the new military were also a grave threat to Saddam. They were no longer under his full control. So once Kuwait threatened the Iraqi economy in 1990 by recalling its loans and undercutting oil prices, their fate was sealed. Saddam could not afford to allow the economy to falter. He had a million soliers reentering the workforce and no money to pay them. His options were stark. Allow the economy to fail and wait for his army to overthrow him or attack the country causing his problems. No-brainer really. The Kuwait war was all about survival for Saddam. After that, well, the rest is history.

The Mother of all Smoke Screens

I remember when Princess Diana died an enthusiastic Labour party worker sent round an email suggesting that it would be a good time to push through some unpopular policies. The worker was immediately sacked not just for extreme tactlessness but also exposing an ages old trick in politics. Use an extreme diversion to push through an unpopular policy. Or to quote Riverbend, "when all else fails execute the dictator".

Bush is in a fix and needs time badly. The Iraq Study Group report is hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles. And after the split of the Sadrists from the Iraqi government, its unity is hanging by thread. The execution of Saddam Hussain will buy time. It placates the American public on one side and the Sadrists on the other. Saddam's execution is a big smoke screen to hide an ugly policy. As proposed by the American Enterprise Institute, a huge military surge as a last gamble to secure Iraq. By its own admission, this policy will cost billions and kill hundreds. But its the last desperate throw of a dying empire and after this, the only way is down.

Saddam had his Mother of All Battles but nothing will be left of the Mother of All Smoke Screens after the wind blows it away. The emperor has no clothes and it's showing.

Saddam at the Iraqi Blogodrome

... for the last time.

Today I post without comment on blogger reactions to Saddam's execution. I'll be posting more updates as the blogs develops.

From my honorary Iraqi of the week. A cartoon by Latuff that sums up the mood of many:

Like a gathering storm, realization that the execution was imminent became apparent hours before the event. Neurotic Wife an Iraqi woman who works inside Baghdad's Green Zone gets a tip-off:Read more »