Iraq's Recent History

After Iraq gained its independence from Great Britain in 1932, the political road ahead for the country was to be rocky. Its first king, King Faisal, died within a year of independence. His successor, King Ghazi, managed to hang onto the throne until 1939, when he died as well. His three-year-old son then ascended to the throne, becoming Faisal II. Soon afterward in 1941, the regent government that ran the country in Faisal's name was overthrown by Rashid Aali al-Gaylani, a nationalist who wanted to purge the country entirely of British influence.

As Prime Minister, al-Gaylani attempted to align the country with the Axis powers. He attacked British air bases in Iraq, and the British sent in troops to defend them, sparking the Anglo-Iraqi War. This war, fought in May 1941 as part of World War II, lasted less than a month and resulted in the British capture of Baghdad. Afterward, the monarchy was restored, and governed until 1958, when it was overthrown by the Iraqi Army.

Meanwhile. a pan-Arab political movement called the Baath Party had been formed in Syria. The Baath Party's tenets included Arab independence from Western interests, secularism and socialism. The party took power in Syria in 1963, where it remains in power to this day, and in 1968 took over the government of Iraq. At that time, the party's leader in Iraq was General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, backed by his lieutenant, Saddam Hussein. It soon became clear that Saddam was the more effective leader, both at modernizing the country's economy, agriculture and industry, and at purging the party of his rivals.

Saddam became the formal leader of Iraq in 1979, after deposing al-Bakr and executing hundreds of Baath party members in a show of political strength. A personality cult soon emerged around the new leader, whose image became ubiquitous all around the country. His goal was to embrace the Baath Party's vision of Arab unity, while using Iraq's former role as the center of the Arab world to justify himself as the natural leader of the new Middle East.

He did attempt to make Iraq a nuclear power, but the reactor he built was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 1981 and the nuclear program was not rebuilt. This evidence of Saddam's grandiose ambitions was later used by the U.S. and Britain to foster suspicion about Saddam's weapons capability, prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Saddam had other military ambitions, however, and the wars he would start in the 1980s and 1990s left lasting damage to Iraq and the region.