Twentieth century "Iraq's fate"

Saddam ibn Talal Hussein a trick up gradu altogethery to power during the 1970s and assumed the presidency in 1979. His Baathist party is essentially a small, army-oriented and exclusive group (with no more than 50,000 full members) that heads a government with a unicameral elected National Assembly. Hussein is, however, the virtual dictator and all political activity in Iraq needs the sanction of the Baathist Party, of which he is central party leader. Most of the current problems in the body politic can be traced directly to Hussein's regime. Yet, as Bahgat notes, since the British allow the nation its independence in 1932 "successive regimes in capital of Iraq engender tried to overcome" the country's geopolitical disadvantages and this has produced seven decades of "an virtually uninterrupted state of hostility with its neighbors, particularly Iran and Kuwait" (45).

The threats that judge most all-important(a)ly in this situation were related to the nation's closely landlocked status. Iraq shares 3,631 km of border with six nations but has unaccompanied 58 km of coastline on the Gulf and the only noteworthy waterway, the Shatt al Arab, had been illegally seized by Iran in 1963. The Iran-Iraq War began when Hussein took back this vital means of transport. The invasion of Kuwait was withal motivated by the desire to gain greater unobstructed access to the Gulf. This had become increasingly

Fuller, whole wheat flour E., and Ian O. Lesser. "Persian Gulf Myths." Foreign Affairs 76.3 (1997): 42-52.

The principal ghostly sects in the pre overridingly Muslim nation are the dominant Sunni Muslims (32-37 part) and Shi'ite Muslims (60-65 per centum), who "have never enjoyed economic benefits and political rights equal to their Arab Sunni counterparts who have dominated the political system in Iraq" since independence (Bahgat 41). The Shi'a absolute majority shares its religion with Iran and enmity between Iran and Iraq has a great push-down list to do with Iraq's fear that the Shi'ite government founded by the late Ayatollah Khomeini would surpass its power to southern Iraq and cause this large majority to rise up against Baghdad.

These problems seem insoluble and even though it should be apparent that "forced assimilation cannot guarantee long-term interior(prenominal) stability," below Hussein's leadership "violence against the Shi'is and the Kurds reached an unprecedented level" (Bahgat 42).

UNICEF. UNICEF tell: Situation Analysis of Women and Children in Iraq. 30 Apr. 1998. Available hypertext transfer protocol://leb.net/ iac/UNICEF1998.html

Malnutrition is also rampant as unemployment is over 50 percent and, even though families spend 80 percent of their income on food, their monthly rations are nearly always used up within 20 days. Extensive malnutrition was first noticed in 1991 when it was at 18 percent among children and increased to 31 percent in 1996. By 1997 estimates held that "about one million children under vanadium were [chronically] malnourished" (UNICEF). Altogether child mortality arise by 90,000 per annum between 1989 and 1998. The principal causes of death for children under five were diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition, and for older children "the increase is associated with heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, liver or kidney diseases" (UNICEF).

important throughout the century because disputes with its neighbors had led to Iraq's loss of vital pipelines for its oil.
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