Weekend Historical Videos: 1958

The year 1958 was a crucial one in what the late Malcolm Kerr called "The Arab Cold War," when Nasserism was sparring with more traditional Western-backed regimes, with the broader Cold War rivalry providing the lens for much Western interpretation of what was going on. The overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq (and the deaths of the Royal Family), an incipient civil war in Lebanon, threats of a coup in Jordan, and the dispatch of US Marines to Lebanon and British troops to Jordan, all created a sense of explosive crisis which seemed more coordinated to many at the time than the historical evidence necessarily justifies. A few clips for this week's Weekend Historical Videos.

Two newsreels of the overall situation, clearly focused through a Cold War lens:





US Marines in Lebanon;



Video of the Lebanese crisis with only a musical background, but the presence of Pierre Gemayel in many of the clips makes me assume its a Phalangist video:



Have a good weekend.

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Muqtada's Return to Najaf

Muqtada al-Sadr's return to Iraq after years of exile in Iran has strengthened the hand of Prime Minister Maliki and of the Shi‘ite parties, and with Muqtada's visit to his old power base in Najaf today he seems to be sending a message of "I'm back, and I'm back in the game." The clips I've seen of his return suggest he is totally surrounded by bodyguards, buy when your father, two brothers, and father-in-law were all either assassinated or executed, I guess that's to be expected.

Since just a few years ago Muqtada and his Mahdi Army were seen by the US occupation as hostile elements, I think it's a clear sign of the US disengagement in Iraq that he's back, and is a major pillar of Maliki's coalition.

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Grotesque Story of the Week: Saddam's Blood Qur'an

If you haven't already encountered this story from The Guardian a few days ago, I'll call it to your attention. It is bizarre in the way that few other than the late Saddam Hussein have been bizarre: for a two year period in the 1990s Saddam gave blood regularly, providing a total of 27 liters which a calligrapher used to write an entire Qur'an in Saddam's blood.

The present government doesn't want it to become a rallying point for old Baathists, who see Saddam as a martyr, but then destroying it might be seen as desecrating the Qur'an. (I would suggest that creating it in the first place amounted to desecrating the Qur'an, but I'm not a faqih or even a Muslim.)

This is one of those problems I'm glad isn't going to be up to me to resolve.

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It Took Nine Months, But Here They Are . . .

It took all of nine months for Iraq to come up with a Cabinet consisting entirely of middle-aged men in dark suits. Why aren't these men smiling?

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Iraq Has a Government

Nine months after the elections, Iraq finally has a government.

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Talabani Won't Sign Tariq ‘Aziz Death Warrant

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has said he will never sign the death warrant for former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq ‘Aziz. He reportedly said he would not do so because of ‘Aziz' age (74) and because he is an Iraqi Christian. But the BBC report notes that one of the two Vice Presidents signed the warrant for the execution of Saddam Hussein. But the Vice President's have not yet been formally chosen for Talabani's new term. France, Russia, and the EU and Vatican have all protested the death sentence against ‘Aziz.

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Iraq Deadlock Broken: Maliki is PM Again

Eight months after the March 7 elections, a deal has been struck allowing Parliament to vote, leading to the re-election of Jalal Talabani as President and his subsequent appointment of Nuri al-Maliki as Prime Minister. Due to a falling-out over part of the deal, ‘Iyad ‘Allawi's Iraqiyya bloc has walked out of Parliament (though their candidate was awarded the Speakership), but at least the deadlock has been broken.

For more details see the always essential Reidar Visser here; also see Juan Cole here.

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New Wave of Attacks on Christians in Baghdad

Ten days after the killing of hostages at the Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad and only three days after an Iraqi archbishop in Britain urged Iraqi Christians to leave the country, and the day after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki urged them to stay, there has been a new wave of attacks on Christians and Christian targets in Baghdad. As Juan Cole notes, the radical Islamists accuse Christians of collaborating wit the occupier, but in fact many Christians supported Saddam Hussein; they are really collateral damage within the sectarian conflict generally. As Cole alsonotes, the failure to form a new government is in part to blame for the declining security situation.

Christianity reached Mesopotamia early, spreading from the early Christian center of Edessa (now Sanliurfa in eastern Turkey). The liturgy of the Iraqi Church of the East is believed to be the oldest Christian liturgical prayer still in use anywhere, dating from the third century AD. During the centuries when the two river valleys were under Persian rule and not part of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Church of the East (labeled "Nestorian" by Christians to the West; also called the Assyrian Church) became a major source of missions to India and as far afield as China. These ancient churches survived the coming of Islam, the Mongol invasions, and much else. The Assyrians had a difficult 20th century: facing Turkish hostility in World War I. Many did serve with the British Mandate in Iraq and were seen as collaborators; in1932 Iraq became independent, and in 1933 there was a wave of massacres of Assyrians.

Under the secularist Baath the Christians faced no more oppression than their fellow Iraqis; Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam's senior aides (and recently condemned to death) was raised a Chaldean Catholic. Christian Iraqis have been dwindling in numbers since the 1991 Gulf War, with the pace accelerating since the 2003 occupation. Other minority faiths, Yazidis and Mandaeans for example, have also been targeted.

Some reports indicate that those injured today include Muslims who were rushing to the aid of their Christian neighbors. That may be the only good news out of these recent events.

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Calling on Iraqi Christians to Leave Iraq?

A senior Syriac Orthodox Archbishop in Great Britain has called ln his fellow Iraqi Christians to leave the country, in the wake of the recent church massacre there. Al-Jazeera English has a report here:



It's obviously a regrettable development since so many Iraqi Christians have already departed; these ancient churches held on through the millennia, though the rise of Islam, changes of dynasties, wars and revolutions, but are slowly giving up and emigrating today. One wants to encourage them to stay, but human beings will choose the safety of their families (and the promise of the West) when facing danger. Robert Fisk in The Independent recently surveyed the exodus of Christians not just from Iraq but from Israel and the West Bank, Lebanon and Egypt.

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Egypt's Muslims Rally to Back Copts after Al-Qa‘ida Threat

It's been a rough year for Coptic-Muslim relations in Egypt, as noted previously. Not so long ago, some Islamists were even questioning whether Copts should be citizens. So what does it take to persuade members of the Muslim Brotherhood to pledge to defend the Copts?

If you know Egypt, you may well guess: some non-Egyptians are making threats. In this case it's the Al-Qa‘ida-linked "Islamic State of Iraq." The group claimed responsibility for the hostage taking during Sunday services at an Armenian Catholic church in Baghdad last Sunday; some 60 people died either at the hands of the hostage-takers or during the rescue. The Islamic State of Iraq announced that Iraqi Christians were legitimate targets who would be "exterminated" if al-Qa‘ida militants in Iraq were not released, and also demanded that Egyptian Copts would become a target if they did not release "the Muslim women held hostage in its churches" referring to the Camillia Shehata affair and a similar case, Wafaa Constantine. The church denies that the two women are being held for trying to convert to Islam.

In the wake of the Iraqi threat, Egyptian security forces reportedly stepped up security around churches, and warned that the controversial bishop Anba Bishoi, whose previous comments about Islam stirred protests., might become a target. The head of al-Azhar, members of the Brotherhood, and other senior Muslim officials quickly denounced the threat and pledged to defend Egyptian Christians.

While the threat did remind many of the claimed conversion cases, the fact that much of Egypt's Muslim leadership sprang to the defense of the Church was, as Pope Shenouda III noted in his weekly Wednesday sermon, a positive result of the threat.

And Egyptian Muslim institutions showed that they would support their own fellow citizens against foreign threats.

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Iraq Supreme Court Tells Parliament to Meet

The Iraqi Supreme Court yesterday ordered Parliament to convene within 14 days and get on with the business of electing a Speaker.

You will recall (at least if you have a long memory) that elections were held last March, and Iraq still has no Prime Minister. Other than one meeting in June, Parliament has failed to reconvene. Electing a Speaker has become just as big an obstacle as electing a Prime Minister,and for the same reason, the even split between the two main Arab blocs, which has made the Kurds rhe kingmakers. Reidar Vissar looks a some of the considerations here, and many of the comments on his post are also worth your time.

Further complicating the math is the recent Wikileaks document dump, which implicated Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in alleged Shi‘ite death squads, which, as Juan Cole has noted, jeopardizes his bargaining position.

As Vissar notes, there are no guarantees, but there is a possibility that, with the impetus of the court, a decision might finally be within reach.

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Maliki in Tehran

Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki has been in Tehran, following his recent visit to Syria. There's talk that Iran is pushing for Muqtada al-Sadr to back Maliki against ‘Iyad &lssqu;Allawi, but even so the math still makes a resolution of the Iraqi standoff difficult. Maliki is also planning to go to other regional countries soon.

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