Shi’a that they were associated with Iran, Iraq’s neighbour but traditional enemy. Iran is the only Middle Eastern country in which Shi’a predominate; Saddam suspected Iraq’s Shi’a of complicity with the Shah of Iran in his effort to expand his territory by encroachment. He also suspected the Kurds of disloyalty, with some justification. The Kurds, a stateless people whose homeland is divided by the national frontiers of Iran, Syria and Turkey as well as Iraq, have a long history of seeking liberation and unification by playing their host countries off against one another. They had sustained a state of rebellion in the north ever since the creation of Iraq by the British in 1920. This blew sometimes hot, sometimes cool. In the early seventies the Kurds grew troublesome again and were supported both by the Shah and the Soviet Union, which saw in lending them support an opportunity to punish the Ba’ath for its persecution of Iraq’s Communists. The Ba’ath regime could not afford to ignore the problem. The Shah’s support for the Kurds was not wholly opportunistic, since Iranians and Kurds are ethnically linked; more important, some of Iraq’s largest oil resources are centred around Mosul, effectively the capital of Kurdistan.
In an uncharacteristic display of moderation, Saddam decided to deal with the Kurdish rebellion by diplomacy rather than force;he may also have been brought to that decision by the notable failure of the Iraqi army to make headway against the rebels on their own ground. What followed demonstrated that Saddam could be a realist as well as a violent revolutionary. He first approached the Soviet Union, from which Iraq was beginning to buy arms to re-equip its forces. As a valuable commercial client, he got a hearing; Kosygin, then Soviet premier, promised in 1970 to withdraw support from the Kurds, as long as Saddam agreed not to take revenge; on his return from Moscow Saddam actually consented to grant the Kurds a measure of the autonomy they had long been demanding. The catch was that the implementation of the concessions was to be postponed for four years. The Kurds saw the catch and continued to make trouble. Saddam trumped them in 1975 when he submitted to the Shah’s demand that Iraq should renegotiate the 1937 treaty which aligned the Iraqi–Iranian border along the Shatt el-Arab in midstream (the
Thalweg)
. This Algiers Agreement was greatly to Iraq’s disadvantage but, as a short-term means of pacifying Kurdistan, Saddam judged it desirable. So it proved; within two weeks of the new treaty being signed, Iran had withdrawn its support from the Kurds, whose rebellion collapsed. That would not, however, be the end of the
Thalweg
issue; it was to underlie Saddam’s ill-judged decision to attack Iran in 1980, the inception of a war of eight years that would exhaust both countries.
While Saddam was seeking to settle his military difficulties – and though only Deputy President during the seventies he increasingly exercised full executive power – he was also extending and consolidating his control over the party, armed forces and government. President Bakr proved increasingly easy to control. It was his subordinates at Saddam’s nominal level whom he decided it was necessary to eliminate if he were to achieve complete supremacy, which was now his object. The three men he identified as principal obstacles between himself and the Presidency were: General Hasdam al-Tikriti, the air force officer who was armed forces Chief of Staff; Salih Mehdi Ammesh, Deputy Prime Minister; and Abdul Karim al-Shaikly, Saddam’s old friend andpolitical confederate, whom he had once called his ‘twin’, now Foreign Minister. Tikriti was a dedicated Ba’athist, with high standing in the party, and a tough nut; he could read Saddam’s intentions, rightly feared him but exercised sufficient power to keep him in check. In 1969 he persuaded President Bakr to exile Saddam to Beirut; unwisely he allowed
In an uncharacteristic display of moderation, Saddam decided to deal with the Kurdish rebellion by diplomacy rather than force;he may also have been brought to that decision by the notable failure of the Iraqi army to make headway against the rebels on their own ground. What followed demonstrated that Saddam could be a realist as well as a violent revolutionary. He first approached the Soviet Union, from which Iraq was beginning to buy arms to re-equip its forces. As a valuable commercial client, he got a hearing; Kosygin, then Soviet premier, promised in 1970 to withdraw support from the Kurds, as long as Saddam agreed not to take revenge; on his return from Moscow Saddam actually consented to grant the Kurds a measure of the autonomy they had long been demanding. The catch was that the implementation of the concessions was to be postponed for four years. The Kurds saw the catch and continued to make trouble. Saddam trumped them in 1975 when he submitted to the Shah’s demand that Iraq should renegotiate the 1937 treaty which aligned the Iraqi–Iranian border along the Shatt el-Arab in midstream (the
Thalweg)
. This Algiers Agreement was greatly to Iraq’s disadvantage but, as a short-term means of pacifying Kurdistan, Saddam judged it desirable. So it proved; within two weeks of the new treaty being signed, Iran had withdrawn its support from the Kurds, whose rebellion collapsed. That would not, however, be the end of the
Thalweg
issue; it was to underlie Saddam’s ill-judged decision to attack Iran in 1980, the inception of a war of eight years that would exhaust both countries.
While Saddam was seeking to settle his military difficulties – and though only Deputy President during the seventies he increasingly exercised full executive power – he was also extending and consolidating his control over the party, armed forces and government. President Bakr proved increasingly easy to control. It was his subordinates at Saddam’s nominal level whom he decided it was necessary to eliminate if he were to achieve complete supremacy, which was now his object. The three men he identified as principal obstacles between himself and the Presidency were: General Hasdam al-Tikriti, the air force officer who was armed forces Chief of Staff; Salih Mehdi Ammesh, Deputy Prime Minister; and Abdul Karim al-Shaikly, Saddam’s old friend andpolitical confederate, whom he had once called his ‘twin’, now Foreign Minister. Tikriti was a dedicated Ba’athist, with high standing in the party, and a tough nut; he could read Saddam’s intentions, rightly feared him but exercised sufficient power to keep him in check. In 1969 he persuaded President Bakr to exile Saddam to Beirut; unwisely he allowed
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