Newsletter No. 1076
Research-Review
July 14, 2008

 

JAPAN AND THE IRAQI REVOLUTION OF 1958

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Iraqi Revolution. I wonder how many of those who support the military occupation of Iraq in our times really appreciate what the Iraqi Revolution was supposed to have meant? Indeed, I wonder how many of those who support the military occupation of Iraq have even heard of the Iraqi Revolution of 1958? I think that one of the things that outrages me the most about this Iraq War is the calm, self-righteous certitude that many people apparently feel about occupation policies even though they know next to nothing about the history and culture of the people that they are governing. Don’t they feel any sense of responsibility to at least to try and learn about the people that they are fighting and killing? I’ve read that most Americans still cannot identify the location of Iraq on a world map. I know for certain that most Japanese cannot do so. I confess that I simply cannot understand that kind of indifference.

The Iraqi Revolution of July 14, 1958, was one of the watershed events of that decade. The Hashimite Kingdom of Iraq, the strongest bastion of British power left in the Arab world, collapsed in a matter of hours with practically no defenders. Not only were the British shocked, but so were the Americans. Indeed, in February 1955 they had established the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), which was meant to be a sister organization to NATO and SEATO. This was part of the Eisenhower-Dulles strategy of surrounding the Soviet Union with pro-Western alliances. CENTO was more popularly known as the Baghdad Pact, where the treaty had been signed and where it was originally based. The UK, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan became parties to the Pact. Had domestic political circumstances allowed it, young King Husain of Jordan might have joined as well. However, when elements of the Iraqi Army led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim launched a sudden coup in July 1958, all of those carefully-laid plans went down the tubes in an instant. The Cold Warriors in London and Washington had forgotten to consult the opinions of the majority of ordinary Iraqis. Now they paid a price for that.

Photo: Abd al-Karim Qasim
Source: Unknown

As bitterly ironic as it sounds today, the Iraqi Revolution of 1958 was supposed to have settled certain historical questions. Would the West continue to dominate the Iraqi nation? Or would the people of Iraq finally take their own destiny in hand? The verdict of the Iraqi Revolution was supposed to have meant that the neo-colonial age had at last come to an end in Mesopotamia. Guided by the example of the heroic Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasr, the Arab peoples had now learned to stand on their own. No longer would they meekly accept Western tutelage and Western diktat. They now possessed their own countries that were independent, free, and proud. A better and fairer age had dawned in the post-World War II era. The Arab Nation would have its own seat at that table.

It hardly need be remarked that things didn’t work out quite the way that they were supposed to. The conflict with Israel dragged on for decades and gradually sucked the lifeblood out of the Arab Dream. Washington -- which perceived nefarious Soviet designs in virtually every global movement that lay beyond its direct control -- intervened repeatedly in both covert and overt ways until every state in the region was either a pro-Western or an anti-Western dictatorship. Arab leaders of a softer, less ruthless character soon found themselves on the wrong side the next coup d’etat. By the 1970s the entire Arab world was either under the thumb of some thuggish regime or, like Lebanon, thrown into a vicious civil war. And then -- to add insult to injury -- many Westerners began airily discussing the region in terms such as, “Why are those people over there always fighting and killing each other? Can’t they see that peace and democracy are best?” Little did it ever occur to them that their own nations’ interventions were a crucial factor that had served to snuff out democracy in West Asia: While Washington talked grandly about freedom and democracy, the essence of their policy was to grasp political and economic control.

We’ll save the rest of that discussion for another day. Here I would like to talk a little about the Japanese connection to the Iraqi Revolution of 1958. Tokyo had no decisive role to play, of course, but that’s not to say that it wasn’t touched by the event in certain ways. Like many aspects of Japanese-Islamic relations, hardly anyone in Japan or elsewhere has ever written about this story before. But despite the fact that it has been ignored and forgotten, it is still instructive to look back and see what was different -- and what has remained the same -- in Japanese policy towards Iraq in the past fifty years.

The Japanese Reaction to the 1958 Revolution

News of the “coup d’etat” in Iraq hit Japanese newspapers on the morning of July 15, 1958. The Iraqi Army had immediately declared the end of the monarchy and the establishment of the new “Republic of Iraq.” It was known that the two most powerful political figures of the regime, Prime Minister Nuri al-Said and Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah, had been killed. The fate of the young King Faisal II was not immediately known, but after a few days it became clear that he had been killed as well. General Abd al-Karim Qasim was proclaimed as the first prime minister of the new republic.

The Japanese press reaction was pretty even-handed. Their instant analysis suggested that the collapse of the Iraqi monarchy was a major setback for the Western powers and an event which had blown a major hole in the anti-Soviet regional defense network that they had been trying to build. They saw the events in Baghdad as being very similar to what had happened in Egypt six years earlier. It was agreed that the Iraqi Revolution was a major political victory for Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasr.

The Japanese business community was both anxious and hopeful. Iraq was a significant Japanese trading partner in the region, second only to Pahlavi Iran. In 1957, Japanese had imported about US$30 million in oil from Iraq, and about 10% of all Japanese oil supplies passed through the Iraqi port of Fao. Meanwhile, Japanese companies were exporting about US$25 million in goods back to Iraq, of which about 90% were textiles. In the Japanese textile industry, the Iraqis were regarded as being “good customers” and the Iraqi purchases had actually grown by 23% between 1956 and 1957. While there were serious short-term concerns that this trade would be disrupted, at least some Japanese businessmen sensed an opportunity. The old regime had been wholeheartedly devoted to its patrons in Britain and the United States, and Japanese companies had been left with little chance to compete. There were some hopes that the new regime, which would clearly be far more distant from the West, might look to Japan more than had previously been the case. Specifically, there was desire in some circles that Japan might gain technical cooperation contracts in the Iraqi oil industry or perhaps contracts related to irrigation and water resources.

Japan had reopened its embassy in Iraq in March 1956, and thus Ambassador Shiro Ishiguro was on hand to witness the revolution in person. Aside from the ambassador, there were a total of 44 Japanese nationals in Iraq on that eventful July 14th. Forty of those Japanese were actually in Baghdad on the day. On July 15th, the day after the revolution, Ambassador Ishiguro sought and received an interview with General Qasim. The new Iraqi leader assured him that all Japanese citizens in the country could expect to remain safe. Two days later, representatives of the Army and the Iraqi Foreign Ministry visited the Japanese Embassy and announced that they had checked into the whereabouts of all 44 Japanese and could confirm that none of them had suffered any harm.

On July 18th, Iraqi representatives in Cairo met with the Japanese ambassador to the Arab League and requested that the Japanese government recognize the new regime. This request was forwarded to Tokyo where it was discussed for some days. On July 31st, the last day of the month, Foreign Minister Aiichiro Fujiyama announced to the press that, in light of the Iraqi popular support that it obviously commanded and its promises to abide by international standards of conduct, the Japanese government had decided to go ahead and grant recognition to the Republic of Iraq.

Photo: Iraqi Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah
Source: Unknown

Postscript: A diplomatic source related a story to me some time ago that I found to be rather amusing. According to the tale, Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah, one of the two leading figures of the old regime, had met the current Emperor Akihito when the Japanese monarch was a young man and had made a very positive impression on him. On July 14, 1958, of course, Abd al-Ilah was one of the most prominent victims of the revolution. He was killed and his body cut to pieces by the Iraqi crowds that had long hated him and his polished Western manner. Apparently, Emperor Akihito does not take a strong interest in international politics and thus didn’t fully realize what had happened at the time. As a result, in recent years when a delegation from the New Iraq had a short interview with the Emperor, he asked a question that reduced them to an embarrassed silence: “A long time ago I recall meeting a fine gentleman from your country named Abd al-Ilah. What is he doing now?”