Encyclopedia
The
Republic of Iraq , is a
Middle Eastern country in
southwestern Asia encompassing most of
Mesopotamia as well as the northwestern end of the
Zagros mountain range and the eastern part of the Syrian Desert. It shares borders with
Kuwait and
Saudi Arabia to the south,
Jordan to the west,
Syria to the northwest,
Turkey to the north, and
Iran to the east. It has a very narrow section of coastline at
Umm Qasr on the
Persian Gulf.
Name
There are several suggestions for the origin of the name of
Iraq; - one dates back to the
Sumerian city of Uruk . Another suggestion is that
Iraq comes from the
Aramaic language, meaning "the land along the banks of the rivers."
Under the Persian
Sassanid dynasty, there was a region called "Erak Arabi" referring to part of the south western region of the
Persian Empire, which now is part of southern Iraq. Al-Iraq was the name used by the Arabs themselves for the land since the 6th century.
History
Ancient history
Iraq was historically known as
Mesopotamia, which literally means "between the rivers" in Greek. This land was home to the world's first civilization, the
Sumerian culture, followed by the
Akkadian,
Babylonian, and
Assyrian cultures, whose influence extended into neighboring regions as early as 5000 BC. These civilizations produced the earliest
writing and some of the first
sciences,
mathematics,
laws and
philosophies in the world, making the region the center of what is commonly called the "Cradle of Civilization". Ancient Mesopotamian
civilization dominated other civilizations of its time.
In the sixth century BC, the region became a part of the
Persian Empire under the
Cyrus the Great, before it was conquered by
Alexander the Great and remained under
Greek rule for nearly two centuries. A Central Asian tribe of
Iranian peoples called
Parthians then annexed the region, followed by the
Sassanid Persians until the
7th century.
Beginning in the seventh century AD,
Islam spread to what is now Iraq. The prophet
Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law moved his capital to Kufa "fi al-Iraq" when he became the fourth
caliph. The Umayyads ruling from
Damascus in the 7th century ruled the province of Iraq.
Baghdad, the capital of the
Abbasid Caliphate, was the leading city of the Arab and Muslim world for five centuries. In 1258, Baghdad was devastated by the
Mongols and was later occupied by the
Ottoman Turks. Ottoman rule over Iraq lasted until the
Great War when the Ottomans sided with
Germany and the
Central Powers. During
World War I, the Ottomans were driven from much of the area by the
United Kingdom during the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
Modern history
British occupation
At the end of World War I, the
League of Nations granted the area to the United Kingdom as a
mandate. It was formed out of three former
Ottoman vilayets :
Mosul,
Baghdad and
Basra. However, for three out of four centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule, the vilayets of Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra were administered from Baghdad. During the British mandate, the country was ruled by British colonial administrators who used the British armed forces to put down rebellions against the government. They selected the
Hashemite king, Faisal, who had been forced out of
Syria by the French to be their client ruler.
Iraq was granted independence in 1932 by the urging of King Faisal, though the British retained military bases and transit rights for their forces in the country. King Ghazi of Iraq ruled as a figurehead after King Faisal died in 1932, while Iraq suffered from military coups until he died in 1939. Iraq was invaded by the United Kingdom in 1941, for fears that the government of Rashid Ali might cut oil supplies to Western nations and because of his strong leanings to
Nazi Germany. A military occupation followed after the restoration of the Hashemite monarchy, and the occupation ended on October 26, 1947.The people who would rule the country during the occupation and the remainder of the Hashemite monarchy period were the autocratic prime minister
Nuri al-Said who also ruled from 1930-1932 and the advisor 'Abd al-Ilah to the king
Faisal II.
Hashemite monarchy
The reinstalled
Hashemite monarchy lasted until 1958, when it was overthrown through a
coup d'etat by the Iraqi army, known as the 14 July Revolution. The coup brought
Brigadier General Abdul Karim Qassim to power. He withdrew from the
Baghdad Pact and established friendly relations with the
Soviet Union but his government lasted only until 1963, when it was overthrown by Colonel Abdul Salam Arif. Salam Arif died in 1966 and his brother, Abdul Rahman Arif, assumed the presidency. In 1968, Rahman Arif was overthrown by the Arab Socialist
Ba'ath Party. This movement gradually came under the control of
Saddam Hussein al-Majid al Tikriti who acceded to the presidency and control of the Revolutionary Command Council , then Iraq's supreme executive body, in July 1979, killing off many of his opponents in the process.
Saddam Hussein
Saddam's rule lasted throughout the
Iran-Iraq War , a war that ended in stalemate. During this long conventional war, Iraq and Iran attacked each other with chemical weapons and killed many Iranian and Iraqi military personnel and civilians with such weapons. In the late 1980s, Saddam Hussein's regime launched the
al-Anfal campaign , which led to the alleged gassing of tens of thousands of
Kurds in northern Iraq when the military razed thousands of villages, launched poison gas attacks and rounded up men, women and children before shooting them in mass graves in northern Iraq. Saddam's cousin
Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, and five other former commanders are currently on trial in
Baghdad for the attacks although US intelligence report claims that the Iranian military was the first chemical weapon attacker. Saddam and his six co-accused face charges of war crimes and crimes against
humanity.
In 1990 Iraq
invaded Kuwait resulting in the
Gulf War and
United Nations economic sanctions imposed at the urging of the U.S. The economic sanctions were designed to compel Saddam to dispose of weapons of mass destruction . Critics estimate that between 400,000 and 800,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the sanctions. The U.S. and the U.K. declared no-fly zones over Kurdish northern and Shiite southern Iraq to protect the Kurds and southern Shiites.
U.S. occupation
Iraq was
invaded in March 2003 by the
United States and allies with the stated reasons that Iraq had not abandoned its nuclear and chemical weapons development program according to
United Nations resolutions, that it had links to
Al Qaeda, that it had effective
Weapons of Mass Destruction, to remove an oppressive dictator from power, and to bring democracy to Iraq, a country in the middle east. Recent conservative commentators have indicated that the actual reason for invasion was to create a democracy in Iraq for the sole purpose of deterring
Iran. Subsequent post-invasion investigation did not uncover any evidence that the WMD programs were active, though the potential for resumption existed; some chemical shells were found that might have been left since the first Gulf War. Likewise al Qaeda had no significant presence in Iraq, being suppressed by the secular Iraqi government, until after the invasion when they exploited the insurgency to establish their organization in the country.
The US established a
Coalition Provisional Authority to govern Iraq. Government authority was transferred to an
Iraqi Interim Government in 2004, but over 140,000 U.S. and allied troops remain in Iraq, and they continue to exert significant influence over the country. Insurgencies, frequent
terrorist attacks and sectarian violence have plagued the country since then.
Government
Politics
Iraq was under
Ba'ath Party rule from 1968 to 2003; in 1979
Saddam Hussein took control and remained president until 2003, when he was unseated by a controversial US-led
invasion.
On October 15, 2005, more than 63% of eligible Iraqis came out across the country to vote on whether to accept or reject the new constitution. On October 25, the vote was certified and the constitution passed with a 78% overall majority, with the percentage of support varying widely between the country's territories. The new constitution had overwhelming backing among the Shia and Kurdish communities, but was overwhelmingly rejected by Sunnis. Three majority-Sunni provinces rejected it .
Under the terms of the constitution, the country conducted fresh nationwide parliamentary elections on December 15 to elect a new government. The overwhelming majority of all three major ethnic groups in Iraq voted along ethnic lines, turning this vote into more of an ethnic
census than a competitive election, and setting the stage for the division of the country along ethnic lines.
Iraqi politicians have been under significant threat by the various factions that have promoted violence as a political weapon. The ongoing violence in Iraq has been incited by an amalgam of religious extremists that believe an Islamic
Caliphate should rule, old regime Sunnis that had ruled under Saddam that want back the power they had, and Iraqi nationalists that are fighting against what they view as a foreign occupation.
Minority politics
There are a number of ethnic minority groups in Iraq:
Kurds,
Assyrians, Mandeans,
Iraqi Turkmen and
Roma. These groups have not enjoyed equal status with the majority Arab populations throughout Iraq's eighty-five year history. Since the establishment of the "no-fly zones" following the
First Gulf War, the situation of the Kurds has changed as they have established their own autonomous region. The remainder of these ethnic groups continue to suffer discrimination on religious or ethnic grounds.
Administrative divisions
Iraq is divided into eighteen governorates . The governorates are subdivided into
qadhas .
Geography
At 168,743 sq.mi , Iraq is the 58th-largest country in the world, after
Morocco. It is comparable in size to the US state of
California, and somewhat larger than
Paraguay.
Large parts of Iraq consist of
desert, but the area between the two major rivers is fertile, with the rivers carrying about 60 million cubic metres of
silt annually to the
delta. The north of the country is largely mountainous, with the highest point being a 3,611 metres point, unnamed on the map opposite, but known locally as Cheekah Dar . Iraq has a small coastline with the
Persian Gulf. Close to the coast and along the
Shatt al-Arab there used to be marshlands, but many of these were drained in the 1990s.
The local
climate is mostly
desert with mild to cool winters and dry, hot, cloudless summers. The northern mountainous regions experience cold winters with occasional heavy snows, sometimes causing extensive flooding. The capital of
Baghdad is situated in the centre of the country, on the banks of the Tigris. Other major cities include
Basra in the south and
Mosul in the north.
Economy
Iraq's economy is dominated by the
oil sector, which has traditionally provided about 95 percent of foreign exchange earnings. In the 1980s financial problems caused by massive expenditures in the
eight-year war with
Iran and damage to oil export facilities by Iran led the government to implement austerity measures, borrow heavily, and later reschedule foreign debt payments. Iraq suffered economic losses from the war of at least
US$100 billion. After hostilities ended in 1988, oil exports gradually increased with the construction of new pipelines and restoration of damaged facilities. A combination of low oil prices, repayment of war debts and the costs of reconstruction resulted in a serious financial crisis which was the main short term motivation for the
invasion of Kuwait.
On November 20 2004, the Paris Club of creditor nations agreed to write off 80% of Iraq's $42 billion debt to Club members. Iraq's total external debt was around $120 billion at the time of the 2003 invasion, and had grown by $5 billion by 2004. The debt relief will be implemented in three stages: two of 30% each and one of 20%.
At the end of 2005, and in the first half of 2006, Iraq implemented a restructuring of about $20 billion of commercial debt claims on terms comparable to that of its November 2004 Paris Club agreement . Iraq offered to its larger claimants a U.S. dollar denominated bond maturing in 2028. Smaller commercial claimants received a cash settlement of comparable value.
Reconstruction
Reconstruction in Iraq has been difficult, due to the amount of damage done to the basic infrastructure of the region; the influx of US invasion and the strife among factions within the native populace. Large-scale reconstruction efforts have had, at best, limited success.
Demographics
Seventy-five to eighty percent of Iraq's population are Arabs; the other major ethnic groups are the
Kurds at 15-20%,
Assyrians,
Iraqi Turkmen and others , who mostly live in the north and northeast of the country. The Kurds, Assyrians, and Turkmen differ from Arabs in many ways, including culture, history, clothing, and language. Other distinct groups are
Persians and
Armenians . About 20,000–50,000 Marsh Arabs live in southern Iraq.
Arabic and
Kurdish are official languages. Assyrian and
Turkmen are official languages in areas where the Assyrians and Iraqi Turkmen are located respectively.
Armenian and
Persian are also spoken but to a lesser extent.
English is the most commonly spoken Western language.
There are more Arab Iraqi Muslim members of the
Shiite sect than there are Arab Iraqi Muslims of the Sunni sect; but there is a large Sunni population as well, made up of mostly Arabs and
Kurds. . Ethnic Assyrians account for most of Iraq's sizable Christian population along with the Armenians.
Bahá'ís, Mandaeans, Shabaks, and
Yezidis also exist. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims.
Ethnic Composition:
- Ethnic groups: Arab, 75–80%; Kurdish
|image=
|poptime= 27 - 37.5 million
...
, 15-20%; Turkoman, Assyrian or other 5%.
- Religions: Muslim, 97% ; Christian or other, 3%.
Culture
In the most recent millennium, what is now Iraq has been made up of five cultural areas: Kurdish in the north centered on
Arbil, Sunni Islamic Arabs in the center around Baghdad, Shi'a Islamic Arabs in the south centered on Basra, the Assyrians, a Christian people, living in various cities in the north, and the Marsh Arabs, a nomadic people, who live on the marshlands of the central river. Markets and bartering are the common form of trade.
Music
Iraq is known primarily for an instrument called the
oud and a
rebab ; its stars include Ahmed Mukhtar and the Assyrian
Munir Bashir. Until the fall of Saddam Hussein, the most popular radio station was the Voice of Youth. It played a mix of western rock,
hip hop and
pop music, all of which had to be imported via
Jordan due to international economic sanctions. Iraq has also produced a major pan-Arab pop star-in-exile in Kazem al Saher, whose songs include
Ladghat E-Hayya, which was banned for its racy lyrics.
Gallery
See also
Iraq [i]'s economy is dominated by the petroleum [i] sector, which has traditionally provided about 9 ...
...
,
2003 Invasion of Iraq,
Post-invasion Iraq, 2003-2006,
Iraqi insurgency,
Iraq War|image=
|poptime= 27 - 37.5 million
...
,
Shiites, Sunni,
Assyrians, Arab Tribes in Iraq, Maslawi
