,
Massoud Barzani Qasim assumed office after being elected as Prime Minister shortly after the coup in July 1958. He held this position until he was overthrown in February 1963. Despite the encouraging tones of the temporary constitution, the new government descended into autocracy with Qasim at its head. The genesis of his elevation to "Sole Leader" began with a schism between Qasim and his fellow conspirator Arif. Despite one of the major goals of the revolution being to join the
pan-Arabism movement and practise
qawmiyah (Arab nationalism) policies, once in power Qasim soon modified his views to what is known today as
Qasimism. Qasim, reluctant to tie himself too closely to Nasser's Egypt, sided with various groups within Iraq, notably the
social democrats, that told him such an action would be dangerous. Instead he found himself echoing the views of his predecessor, Said, by adopting a
wataniyah policy of "Iraq First". This caused a divide in the Iraqi government between the Iraqi nationalist Qasim, who wanted Iraq's identity to be secular and civic nationalist, revolving around Mesopotamian identity, and the Arab nationalists who sought an
Arab identity for Iraq and closer ties to the rest of the Arab world. , and carefully avoided
pan-Arab symbolism by incorporating elements of
Socialist heraldry. Unlike the bulk of military officers, Qasim did not come from the Arab Sunni north-western towns, nor did he share their enthusiasm for pan-Arabism: he was of mixed Sunni-Shia parentage from south-eastern Iraq. His ability to remain in power depended, therefore, on a skillful balancing of the communists and the pan-Arabists. For most of his tenure, Qasim sought to balance the growing pan-Arab trend in the military. He lifted a ban on the
Iraqi Communist Party, and demanded the annexation of Kuwait. He was also involved in the 1958 Agrarian Reform, modelled after the Egyptian experiment of 1952. Qasim was said by his admirers to have worked to improve the position of ordinary people in Iraq after a long period of self-interested rule by a small elite under the monarchy which had resulted in widespread social unrest. Qasim passed law No. 80, which seized 99% of Iraqi land from the British-owned Iraq Petroleum Company and distributed farms to more of the population. This increased the size of the middle class. He also oversaw the building of 35,000 residential units to house the poor and
lower middle classes. The most notable example of this was the new suburb of Baghdad named Madinat al-Thawra (Revolution City), renamed Saddam City under the Ba'ath regime and now widely referred to as
Sadr City. He also rewrote the constitution to encourage women's participation in society. Qasim tried to maintain the political balance by using the traditional opponents of pan-Arabs, the
right wing and
nationalists. Up until the war with the Kurdish factions in the north, he was able to maintain the loyalty of the army. He appointed as a minister
Naziha al-Dulaimi, the first woman minister in the history of Iraq and the Arab world. She also participated in the drafting of the 1959 Civil Affairs Law, which was far ahead of its time in liberalising marriage and inheritance laws for the benefit of Iraqi women.
Power struggles Despite a shared military background, the group of Free Officers that carried out 14 July Revolution was plagued by internal dissension. Its members lacked both a coherent ideology and an effective organisational structure. Many of the more senior officers resented having to take orders from Arif, their junior in rank. A power struggle developed between Qasim and Arif over joining the
Egyptian-Syrian union. Arif's pro-
Nasserite sympathies were supported by the
Ba'ath Party, while Qasim found support for his anti-unification position in the ranks of the
Iraqi Communist Party. Qasim's change of policy aggravated his relationship with Arif who, despite being subordinate to Qasim, had gained great prestige as the perpetrator of the coup. Arif capitalised upon his new-found position by engaging in a series of widely publicised public speeches, during which he strongly advocated union with the UAR and making numerous positive references to Nasser, while remaining noticeably less full of praise for Qasim. Arif's criticism of Qasim gradually became more pronounced. This led Qasim to take steps to counter his potential rival. He began to foster relations with the Iraqi Communist Party, which attempted to mobilise support in favour of his policies. He also moved to counter Arif's power base by removing him from his position as deputy commander of the armed forces. On 30 September 1958 Qasim removed Arif from his roles as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. Qasim attempted to remove Arif's disruptive influence by offering him a role as Iraqi ambassador to
West Germany in
Bonn. Arif refused, and in a confrontation with Qasim on 11 October he is reported to have drawn his pistol in Qasim's presence, although whether it was to assassinate Qasim or commit suicide is a source of debate. No blood was shed, and Arif agreed to depart for Bonn. However, his time in Germany was brief, as he attempted to return to Baghdad on 4 November amid rumours of an attempted coup against Qasim. He was promptly arrested, and charged on 5 November with the attempted assassination of Qasim and attempts to overthrow the regime. Although the threat of Arif had been negated, another soon arose in the form of
Rashid Ali, the exiled former prime minister who had fled Iraq in 1941. He attempted to foster support among officers who were unhappy with Qasim's policy reversals. A coup was planned for 9 December 1958, but Qasim was prepared, and instead had the conspirators arrested on the same date. Ali was imprisoned and sentenced to death, although the execution was never carried out. During his rule, the Kurdish groups selected
Mustafa Barzani to negotiate with the government, seeking an opportunity to declare independence. After a period of relative calm, the issue of Kurdish autonomy (self-rule or independence) went unfulfilled, sparking discontent and eventual rebellion among the Kurds in 1961. Kurdish separatists under the leadership of Mustafa Barzani chose to wage war against the Iraqi establishment. Although relations between Qasim and the Kurds had been positive initially, by 1961 relations had deteriorated and the Kurds had become openly critical of Qasim's regime. Barzani had delivered an ultimatum to Qasim in August 1961 demanding an end to authoritarian rule, recognition of Kurdish autonomy, and restoration of democratic liberties.
The Mosul uprising and subsequent unrest During Qasim's term, there was much debate over whether Iraq should join the
United Arab Republic, led by
Gamal Abdel Nasser. Having dissolved the Hashemite
Arab Federation with the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Qasim refused to allow Iraq to enter the federation, although his government recognized the republic and considered joining it later. Qasim's growing ties with the communists served to provoke rebellion in the northern city of Mosul led by Arab nationalists in charge of military units. In an attempt to reduce the likelihood of a potential coup, Qasim had encouraged a communist-backed Peace Partisans rally to be held in Mosul on 6 March 1959. Some 250,000 Peace Partisans and communists thronged through Mosul's streets that day. Although the rally passed peacefully, on 7 March, skirmishes broke out between communists and nationalists. This degenerated into a major civil disturbance over the following days. Although the rebellion was crushed by the military, it had a number of adverse effects that impacted Qasim's position. First, it increased the power of the communists. Second, it increased the strength of the
Ba’ath Party, which had been growing steadily since the 14 July coup. The Ba'ath Party believed that the only way of halting the engulfing tide of communism was to assassinate Qasim. The Ba'ath Party turned against Qasim because of his refusal to join
Gamal Abdel Nasser's United Arab Republic. To strengthen his own position within the government, Qasim created an alliance with the
Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), which was opposed to any notion of pan-Arabism. Later that year, the Ba'ath Party leadership put in place plans to assassinate Qasim. A young
Saddam Hussein was a leading member of the operation. At the time, the Ba'ath Party was more of an ideological experiment than a strong anti-government fighting machine. The majority of its members were either educated professionals or students, and Saddam fit in well within this group. The choice of Saddam was, according to journalist
Con Coughlin, "hardly surprising". The idea of assassinating Qasim may have been Nasser's, and there is speculation that some of those who participated in the operation received training in
Damascus, which was then part of the United Arabic Republic. However, "no evidence has ever been produced to implicate Nasser directly in the plot". The assassins planned to
ambush Qasim on Al-Rashid Street on 7 October 1959. One man was to kill those sitting at the back of the car, the others killing those in front. During the ambush it was claimed that Saddam began shooting prematurely, which disrupted the whole operation. Qasim's chauffeur was killed, and Qasim was hit in the arm and shoulder. The would-be assassins believed they had killed him and quickly retreated to their headquarters, but Qasim survived. The growing influence of communism was felt throughout 1959. A communist-sponsored purge of the armed forces was carried out in the wake of the Mosul revolt. The Iraqi cabinet began to shift towards the radical-left as several communist sympathisers gained posts in the cabinet. Iraq's foreign policy began to reflect this communist influence, as Qasim removed Iraq from the
Baghdad Pact on 24 March, and then fostered closer ties with the
Soviet Union, including extensive economic agreements. However, communist successes encouraged them to attempt to expand their power. The communists attempted to replicate their success at Mosul in
Kirkuk. A rally was called for 14 July which was intended to intimidate conservative elements. Instead it resulted in widespread bloodshed between ethnic Kurds (who were associated with the ICP at the time) and
Iraqi Turkmen, leaving between 30 and 80 people dead. Despite being largely the result of pre-existing ethnic tensions, the Kirkuk "massacre" was exploited by Iraqi anti-communists and Qasim subsequently purged the communists and in early 1960 he refused to license the ICP as a legitimate political party. Qasim's actions led to a major reduction of communist influence in the Iraqi government. Communist influence in Iraq peaked in 1959 and the ICP squandered its best chance of taking power by remaining loyal to Qasim, while his attempts to appease Iraqi nationalists backfired and contributed to his eventual overthrow. For example, Qasim released
Salih Mahdi Ammash from custody and reinstated him in the Iraqi army, allowing Ammash to act as the military liaison to the Ba'athist coup plotters. Furthermore, notwithstanding his outwardly friendly posture towards the Kurds, Qasim was unable to grant Kurdistan autonomous status within Iraq, leading to the 1961 outbreak of the
First Iraqi–Kurdish War and secret contacts between the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Qasim's Ba'athist opponents in 1962 and 1963. The KDP promised not to aid Qasim in the event of a Ba'athist coup, ignoring long-standing Kurdish antipathy towards pan-Arab ideology. Disagreements between Qasim, the ICP and the Kurds thus created a power vacuum that was exploited by a "tiny" group of Iraqi Ba'athists in 1963.
Foreign policy Qasim had withdrawn Iraq from the pro-Western Baghdad Pact in March 1959 and established friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Iraq also abolished its treaty of mutual security and bilateral relations with the UK. Iraq also withdrew from the agreement with the
United States that was signed by the Iraqi monarchy in 1954 and 1955 regarding military, arms, and equipment. On 30 May 1959, the last of the British soldiers and military officers departed the al-Habbāniyya base in Iraq. Qasim supported the
Algerian and
Palestinian struggles against
France and
Israel. Qasim further undermined his rapidly deteriorating domestic position with a series of foreign policy blunders. In 1959 Qasim antagonised
Iran with a series of territory disputes, most notably over the
Khuzestan region of Iran, which was home to an Arabic-speaking minority, On 18 December 1959, Abd al-Karim Qasim declared: "We do not wish to refer to the history of Arab tribes residing in Al-Ahwaz and Muhammareh (
Khurramshahr). The Ottomans handed over Muhammareh, which was part of Iraqi territory, to Iran." After this, Iraq started supporting secessionist movements in Khuzestan, and even raised the issue of its territorial claims at a subsequent meeting of the Arab League, without success. In June 1961, Qasim re-ignited the Iraqi claim over the state of
Kuwait. On 25 June, he announced in a press conference that Kuwait was a part of Iraq, and claimed its territory. Kuwait, however, had signed a recent defence treaty with the British, who came to Kuwait's assistance with troops to stave off any attack on 1 July. These were subsequently replaced by an Arab force (assembled by the
Arab League) in September, where they remained until 1962. The result of Qasim's foreign policy blunders was to further weaken his position. Iraq was isolated from the Arab world for its part in the Kuwait incident, whilst Iraq had antagonised its powerful neighbour, Iran. Western attitudes toward Qasim had also cooled, due to these incidents and his perceived communist sympathies. Iraq was isolated internationally, and Qasim became increasingly isolated domestically, to his considerable detriment. After assuming power, Qasim demanded that the Anglo American-owned
Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) sell a 20% ownership stake to the Iraqi government, increase Iraqi oil production, hire Iraqi managers, and cede control of most of its
concessionary holding. When the IPC failed to meet these conditions, Qasim issued Public Law 80 on 11 December 1961, which unilaterally limited the IPC's concession to those areas where oil was actually being produced—namely, the fields at
Az Zubair and
Kirkuk—while all other territories (including
North Rumaila) were returned to Iraqi state control. This effectively expropriated 99.5% of the concession. British and US officials and multinationals demanded that the Kennedy administration place pressure on the Qasim regime. The Government of Iraq, under Qasim, along with five petroleum-exporting nations met at a conference held 10–14 September 1960 in Baghdad, which led to the creation of the International Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (
OPEC). ==Overthrow and execution==