Open AccessIRAQ
Author(s) -
Mumtaz Ahmad
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
american journal of islam and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2690-3741
pISSN - 2690-3733
DOI - 10.35632/ajis.v2i2.2774
Subject(s) - middle east , position (finance) , revenue , economy , empire , state (computer science) , political science , geography , development economics , business , economics , law , accounting , finance , algorithm , computer science
At the end of 1979 when the fall of the Shah of Iran was imminent, all eyeswere set on Iraq. Iraq was then seen as the new giant of the Gulf. It had remainedcompletely aloof from all the major inter-Arab disputes and contnwersiesfor almost a decade and had exclusively focused its attention on its ownsocio-economic development. Its development performance during the 1970shad been phenomenal. Iraqi economic planning was rated by internationaldevelopment experts as the most prudent, rational and well-implemented inthe entire Middle East. Notwithstanding-or perhaps because of- its oppressivepolitical apparatus, the Ba'thist state had imposed a code of strict, puritanicalfinancial ethics on its international economic transactions. Iraqi developmentexperience was thus regarded as unique in the Third World in that it was theleast hog-tied by malpractices, pay-offs and personal empire-building by theleadership.Iraq in 1979 was thus a nation with great promise. The size of its oil reservesand potential oil revenues, its capacity for sustained economic developmentbased on a non-oil economy, and its vast water resources that offered thepossibility of an expanded economic base in both agriculture and industry,were some of the major advantages Iraq enjoyed over other Arab oil-producingstates. Its geographical position bordering Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan,Turkey, and Iran placed it in an area of great geostrategic concern forboth regional and global ewers. Its pivotal position between Israel to thewest and the Gulf to the east, where it forms what Christine Moss Helmshas called "the eastern flank of the Arab World" was regarded as unique inthe Middle East.But then, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein took the greatest gamble of hislife-and lost. He misjudged the vulnerability of the newly installed IslamicRepublic of Iran under the leadership of Ayatullah Khomeini and, believingin his own rhetoric about the invincibility of the Iraqi armed forces, decidedto invade Iran on some filmsy pretexts. Five and a half years after the war ...