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Due to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers the region was very fertile but suffered from flooding. This had a consequence: people had to cooperate to manage the waters, and from this the very first civilization on Earth was created: Sumer in 4000BC. Sophisticated irrigation, cereal argiculture, writing, accounting. By 1750BC it was Babylon, prosperous and peaceful with a codified legal system.

It was conquered by Alexander the Great in 331BC, then it was part of the Persian Empire until 634AD when 18,000 Arab Muslims invaded. They did so for religious and economic reasons, and did not rape or pillage. Islam and the Arabic language gradually took over and the Iraqis intermarried with Arabs.

Baghdad, a city of 1 million, became the great center of learning. Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khawarizmi (680-750 AD) invented algebra (al-jabr), the number zero, and introduced the Hindu numbering system to the Arabic world, the same number system we use today. Al-Razi compiled a complete medical encyclopedia. Al-Ghazzali brought Muslim scientific and philosophical achievements to Europe.

In 1219 Genghis Khan brought 700,000 men and conquered Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Iran (where he slaughtered every living thing). In 1258 200,000 Tartars swept into Baghdad and killed for 40 days. The streets ran with blood. Hundreds of thousands were killed, the countryside was ruined, the canals were destroyed. The Mongols ruled from Tabriz in Iran.

Baghdad was no longer a center of trade or learning. Agriculture fell apart. The pastoral nomadic tribes became more dominant than the urbanized city dwellers.

The Ottoman Turks conquered Baghdad (1650), along with much of eastern Europe and most of the Arab world. Tribal warfare died down, the canals were cleared, industries established. In 1869 the Ottoman sultan Midhat reformed Iraq with codes of criminal law, secular education and provincial representation. The feudal system was replaced by property rights, which turned the shaikhs from tribal and spiritual leaders into profit-seeking landlords.

Turkey was a German ally in WWI. "Lawrence of Arabia" promised that Britain would help to set up an independent Arab state if the Iraqis revolted against the Turks. They lied, and occupied Iraq themselves in 1917. According to international agreements, the north of Iraq was to be occupied by France, but the British occupied that as well. A puppet monarchy was set up, with a constitution and a parliament.

The principal interest in Iraq was and still is the rich oil fields. The US demanded open negotiations on oil rights, hotly contested by the British. Iraq's oil was split five ways between Britain, France, Holland and the US. 0% went to the Iraqi people until the revolution of 1958. Illiteracy was over 80%, 1 doctor for every 6,000 people.

The British were also resented for their role in the Palestinian uprising and for their brutal suppression of rebellions. In 1925 they dropped poison gas on the Kurds, the first time that gas was dropped from warplanes. Arab nationalism grew.

The prime minister sought close ties with Nazi Germany, and in 1941 ousted the monarchy in a military coup. The German embassy supplied money, books and anti-jewish films. Demonstrations against British and Jews. The British were denied requests for troop landings. The British invaded and a month later had taken Iraq again and reinstated the monarchy. The prime minister fled the country to Germany, returning after the 1958 revolution.

On the same day, Nazi groups in Iraq went ahead with their plan to slaughter Jews. 187 were shot in the streets. Many Iraqi Moslems opened their homes and fed and protected the Jews. In 1948 Iraq went to war with Israel. The prosperous Jewish community left. Many Iraqis today are unaware that there used to be a large Jewish population. The economy suffered severely because of the war.

In 1958 the monarchy was overthrown in a military coup by Qassem, the royal family executed and hung by their feet outside of the palace. One escaped dressed as a veiled woman, but was then caught and dragged through the streets from a car until there was nothing left but half a leg. Iraq was proclaimed a Republic.

President Eisenhower called it "the gravest crisis since the Korean war." The Eisenhower Doctrine stated that the US would intervene directly to prevent the spread of revolution in the Middle East. The stated goal of the US (Roosevelt and Truman) were to achieve nuclear and conventional military superiority, corporate globalization with the dollar as the world currency, and control of global resources particularly oil.

20,000 Marines were sent to Lebanon, and 6,600 British paratroopers to Jordan to save those neo-colonial governments from almost certain impulse revolutions. The US fully intended to invade Iraq but was deterred by the United Arab Republic, the Soviet Union and China which threatened to get involved.

In 1959 a young Saddam Hussein was part of an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Qassem. In 1963 Qassem was successfully assassinated by the Ba'ath party.

Iraq received military assistance from the USSR. The US gave military support to the Kurds fighting Baghdad and also supported the more right-wing Saddam Hussein in the 1970s for his opposition to the more left wing and communist Ba'ath party members.

Iran supplied arms to the Kurds. In 1979 Saddam Hussein became president, the US-installed Shah was deposed by Islamic revolution. The Iran-Iraq war broke out, lasting from 1980 to 1988 killing 1 million people and devastating both countries. The US secretly assisted both sides in an effort to destabilize both countries. "I hope they kill each other" - Henry Kissinger.

Donald Rumsfeld reopened communication and allowed US companies to sell chemical agents to Iraq so that they would use them on Iran. Saddam gassed the Kurds. Reagan and Bush I blocked attempts by the US Congress to punish Iraq with sanctions.

The Soviet Union had collapsed and cut its economic support. 3 years after the end of the war, Iraq accused Kuwait of taking Iraqi oil resources and demanded that Iraqi debt should be waived. The US, in a meeting between the Ambassador and Sadaam Hussein, explicitly promised not to get "involved in your Arab affairs", and so Iraq invaded. The US had assumed that he would only take some disputed lands, and that he wouldn't actually invade all of Kuwait.

The US did then get involved, and 5 months later the first Gulf War started, and lasted 6 weeks. The equivalent of 7 Hiroshima bombs showered down on the country, 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed. 760 US soldiers died. The infrastructure was destroyed. The US achieved the stated objective of reclaiming Kuwait, but did not seek to remove Hussein from power.

The US operated out of Saudi Arabia, and remains there to this day. This angered Osama bin Laden, an opponent of the secular Iraq republic, and in part caused him to declare the US as his foremost enemy.

Saddam's power slipped in the 90s and then grew stronger by 1996. It is the opinion of many Iraqis that the economic sanctions devastated the people but strengthened the regime. Only people in power were able to survive economically, so it became an incentive to cling to the regime's power structure.

(this section written before the war started)

In 2002 George W.Bush denounced Iraq, Iran and N.Korea as an "axis of evil". Iraq was accused of violating disarmament resolutions, but neither Iraq nor the US had been able to prove compliance or non-compliance. Iraq had undoubtedly violated resolutions in the past and thwarted inspectors. The US presented poorly forged documents about Iraq nuclear capabilities to the UN. Bush stated that he had solid intelligence about WMD, and then failed to present any. He denounced Iraq for failure to comply to UN resolutions, and then violated the UN security council himself.

Many retired US army generals have stated that an attack on Iraq is inadvisable at this time. The CIA and the British intelligence agencies have stated that an attack on Iraq is inadvisable at this time. All world intelligence organizations agree that there is no traceable connection with Al-Qaeda. Many people in the region do not think that Saddam is a threat, and the CIA has stated that he is not a likely threat unless he is attacked, in which case he will martyr himself, and world wide terrorism against the US will mushroom.

The US casualty rate in WWII, Korean and Vietnam was around 1 in 15. The first Iraq War was mostly an air campaign with a limited ground engagement in Kuwait. The US casualty rate was 1 in 1500. Iraq is a large territory with a determined and suicidal resistance. If a 1 in 15 US casualty rate is sustained that is 17,000 people.

Given the frequency of armed takeovers of power in Iraq, a representive democracy is unlikely to be sustainable without long term occupational support. A US Army report suggests 5-10 years. The Iraqi army is the one country-wide institution, in place for 50 years, with solid roots throughout Iraqi society. Its not simply a case of separating the oppressors from the oppressed.

France and Russia, who could see this one coming a mile away, have raised strong objections to a US-UK controlled Iraq. Haliburton, who are now building their long desired pipeline in Afghanistan, has already submitted a bid for reconstruction work. To protect US and UK oil companies, additional protection will be required.

Well at least they aren't as bad as the Mongols.

• felix@crucial-systems.com

sources:

• http://home.achilles.net/~sal/iraq_history.html
  * http://www.iacenter.org