From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Apr 08 2002 - 09:43:26 MDT
Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>
> On Sat, 2002-04-06 at 18:55, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > Iraq was influenced far more by Russia for far longer than the British
> > Mandate, and the Baathist Party was itself far more influenced by Soviet
> > aid than anything else.. as the Baathists were in Syria, a French
>
> What specifically do you dispute from the following paragraph taken from
> the 'A History Of Folly' article I cited above?
>
> In opposition to the British-client Iraqi regime, and in opposition
> also to Nasser's growing influence in Iraq, the bloodthirsty Colonel
> Kassem spearheads the American-supported military coup to overthrow
> the Iraqi royal family. The king and crown prince and most of the
> royal family are executed, and the prime minister is murdered by a
> mob.
While the British installed one of the Hashemite princes in Iraq in the
early part of the 20th century when the Hashemites were deposed from
control of Mecca and Medina by the Sauds and their Wahabbi followers, by
the 1950's the Hussein of Iraq was entirely within the orbit of the
Soviet Union, partly due to being turned by British traitors of the
Cambridge-nik group, partly because the Soviets made better and cheaper
weapons than Britain. However, Hussein did oppose socialist reforms
within his own country outside of nationalizing the oil industry.
> Years later, after Kassem has alienated all his allies except
> the Soviet Union and is overthrown and executed in 1963, United
> States support swings to a small group called the Ba'th Socialist
> Party. After many twists and turns, coups and elections, coups and
> revolutions, Saddam Hussein emerges as president of Iraq in 1976
> after leading the coup that, with American insistence, installed
> that regime in 1968.
>
> > mandate. If your theory held, the US would have ousted the Saudis for
> > being British puppets.
>
> I believe the US managed to oust British oil interests from Saudi Arabia
> without resorting to revolution.
I think you are assuming that there was some sort of rivalry between the
US and Britain in the postwar period. This isn't so, the US assumed
control of a lot of British assets as a matter of Britain paying off its
Lend/Lease, wartime, and reconstruction debts, all of which was agreed
to years before by Roosevelt and Churchill.
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