ABSTRACT
The Kingdom of Iraq was created as a British mandate in 1920. In 1932 it became the first mandate to achieve independence. The kingdom was converted to a republic by a military coup in 1958, and a series of succeeding coups culminated in 1968 with the Baath party in power. Baathist strongman Saddam Hussein became president in 1979 and ruled Iraq till he was displaced in the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraq had not existed as a unified political entity before 1920. As a result, its borders remain contentious both from within and from without. Though about 75 to 80 percent of Iraq’s population is Arab, Kurds make up almost all the remainder. The Kurds occupy the mountainous regions of Iraq’s north and east and identify with their fellow Kurds in neighboring Turkey, Iran, and Syria. The Kurds in Iraq have often pressed for greater autonomy within the country, if not for outright independence. Phebe Marr’s description of Iraq predates the US-led intervention in that country in early 2003. Until that time, under strongman Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab minority ruled over a country that included the Kurds and a Shiite Arab majority. Since that time, however, the Sunnis have been largely displaced in national political processes by Shiite factions, which contend with friction from Sunnis that ranges from frustration to mass violence, especially in the form of bombings. The Sunnis generally occupy the northern and western parts of the country and the urban centers. Their religion tends to ally them with most other (largely Sunni) Arab countries. The Shiites are strong in the south and maintain connections to Shiite religious leaders in Iran. Anxiety about Iranian influence over a majority of Iraq’s population was an enduring issue for Saddam Hussein and remains a concern for the United States and the newly emerging Iraqi democracy even now.
