The foreign relations of Iraq are the international relations maintained by the Republic of Iraq since its independence from the Ottoman Empire proclaimed in 1921. Iraq was a British protectorate under a mandate from the League of Nations between 1921 and 1932, then effectively gained its independence with the 1958 revolution which overthrew the pro-Western royal family and established the Republic.
Iraq is a member of the United Nations, the Arab League (of which it is a founding member) since 1945, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (of which it is also a founding member) since 1960, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation since 1976. The international trade embargo on Iraq between 1990 and 2003 in retaliation for the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein allowed it to relatively spare its oil reserves compared to other countries in the region. Like Saudi Arabia, one of its other major resources is the presence of Islamic holy sites on its territory which attracts millions of pilgrims each year (mainly Iranians): the shrine of Ali in Najaf and the city of Karbala.
The Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs is Fuad Hussein, since June 2020. This position is strategic for Iraq, which largely depends on its foreign relations for its economy and security, after being the scene of a particularly violent civil war between 2013 and 2017.
But Iraq is also a battleground between foreign powers vying to extend their influence in the Middle East, mainly Iran, the United States, Turkey, and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia. Unlike Syria, its bordering neighbor, these foreign powers avoid military confrontations on Iraqi soil (with the notable exception of the elimination of the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani by an American strike in Baghdad in 2020) and prefer political and commercial struggles.
Thus, the formation of various Iraqi governments is often the result of a compromise integrating Iranian, American, and Turkish concerns, ensuring that Iraq's foreign policy will not be unfavorable to them. It must also be representative of its multi-ethnic and multi-denominational population, while the Shiite sectarianism of Nouri al-Maliki, Prime Minister from 2006 to 2014, is considered one of the main causes of the second Iraqi civil war. This war saw, like the 1991 Gulf War, the intervention in Iraq of a vast international military coalition led by the United States, this time in support of the Iraqi government, which allowed it to regain control of the entire territory in 2017.
Since then, Iraq has gradually pursued its global reintegration, being the subject of several international conferences in August 2021 and December 2022 aimed at supporting Baghdad on economic, diplomatic, and security levels. Several Arab and Western countries participate, while this summit also aims to promote dialogue between regional stakeholders.
Chronology of relations 1932 to 1958
In 1921, the British, victors of the Mesopotamian campaign (Iraqi theater of World War I), established a protectorate over Iraq which they transformed into a constitutional monarchy and installed the Hashemite dynasty in power.. Despite its independence officially obtained in 1932, Iraq remained a satellite state of the United Kingdom which continued to exert its influence via the royal family favorable to i.t
At the beginning of World War II, the former Prime Minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani overthrew the pro-British Prime Minister in place Nuri al-Said by a coup d'état, and acceded to power. He oriented the kingdom's policy towards neutrality, then towards rapprochement with the Axis powers, provoking the Anglo-Iraqi War, then the reoccupation of Iraq by the victorious British. After World War II, violent strikes shook Kirkuk, where protesters denounced working conditions, as well as British domination over oil exploitation. Tensions degenerated further when Prime Minister Salih Jabr signed a new treaty with London (supposedly more favorable to Iraq) in 1948, leading to increasing repression by the government. The same year, the Iraqi army joined the Arab coalition led by Egypt against Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and conquered the regions of Jenin and Nablus, before being repelled by a counter-offensive that led to Israel's victory..
In 1955, Nuri al-Said, recalled by the monarchy to the post of Prime Minister, reaffirmed Iraq's pro-Western foreign policy by signing the Baghdad Pact, a military alliance established by Great Britain and integrating former British colonies in the Middle East, as well as Turkey. The year 1956 was marked by the Suez Crisis in Egypt, a Franco-British military intervention aimed at regaining control of the Suez Canal nationalized by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. This crisis provoked strong hostility from local populations towards the former colonial powers in the region, while the success achieved by Nasser against this Western interference inspired Arab nationalists.
On 1 February 1958, Syria and Egypt united to create the United Arab Republic. In reaction, two weeks later, on 14 February 1958, Iraq and Jordan whose kings Faisal II and Hussein are cousins, united in turn and founded the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan.
1958 to 1968
In July 1958, a political crisis erupted in Lebanon resulting from tensions between the pro-Western government and its political opponents inspired by Nasser, eager to join the United Arab Republic.. Neighboring Jordan feeling threatened, requested military support from the Iraqi government, which sent the 2nd armored division from Diwaniyah towards Amman. But the Nasserist officer Abd al-Salam Arif who commanded this division decided to turn back on the night of 13 July 1958 to 14 July 1958, and upon returning to Baghdad, attacked the royal palace with the help of Abd al-Karim Qasim, co-organizer of the coup d'état. Prime Minister Nuri al-Said and the royal family were massacred (despite the latter's quick surrender), after which the putschists proclaimed the Republic of Iraq, and the dissolution of the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan.
In the following years, the newly proclaimed Republic based its regime on Arab socialism and reoriented its foreign policy towards the Eastern Bloc allowing several communist countries, including the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, to open embassies in Baghdad.. While withdrawing from the Baghdad Pact (whose headquarters was moved to Ankara) in March 1959, Abd al-Karim Qasim in power in Iraq maintained close ties with London and the United States, which accommodated his rapprochement with the Soviet Union. An Iraqi delegation went to Moscow as early as 16 March 1959..
Domestically, Abd al-Karim Qasim and Abd al-Salam Arif shared power and the main ministries, but tension soon erupted between nationalists favorable to Iraq's independence, and Nasserists favorable to its attachment to the United Arab Republic. In December 1958, Abd al-Salam Arif (Nasserist) was arrested and imprisoned on the order of the Prime Minister, his former brother-in-arms Abd al-Karim Qasim (independentist), provoking tensions with Egypt of Gamal Abdel Nasser. These were accentuated in June 1961 by an Iraqi project to annex Kuwait, a small oil-rich emirate southeast of Iraq, condemned by Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, the United States, Iran, and Japan. In retaliation for these international condemnations, Abd al-Karim Qasim broke Iraq's diplomatic relations with these states. Great Britain kept 5,000 soldiers in Kuwait (supposed to withdraw upon its independence in 1961), replaced the following months by a multinational Arab force initiated by Nasser, pushing Abd al-Karim Qasim to abandon his invasion project. In February 1963, the latter was overthrown and executed following a coup d'état by the Ba'ath Party, which placed his rival Abd al-Salam Arif in the presidency, a position he held until his accidental death three years later. His brother Abd al-Rahman Arif succeeded him, but remained in power for only two years.
1968 to 2003
The year 1968 was marked by a new Ba'ath Party coup d'état, led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, former Prime Minister of Abd al-Salam Arif (from February to November 1963) and Saddam Hussein, who in turn shared power, the first as president, the second as vice-president. From then on, Saddam Hussein remained at the head of Iraq (of which he became President in 1979) for 35 years until his overthrow by the American invasion in 2003. Under his governance, Iraq became a regional power, partly thanks to oil revenues and support from Western countries, Arabs, and the Eastern Bloc.. For in 1973, Iraq participated in the consultation of oil-producing countries which caused a quadrupling of the barrel price, while this agreement facilitated the integration of the new Iraqi regime into the Arab world.
In 1979, as Saddam Hussein acceded to the presidency, Iran found itself diplomatically isolated after the Islamic Revolution, while Iraq, perceived as a stabilizing force for the region, was supported by France, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Benefiting from significant financial and material support, Saddam Hussein attacked Iran to annex part of its territory and oil resources in September 1980. Although supplied in large quantities with weapons and technologies, the Iraqi army bogged down and the Iran–Iraq War ended after eight years in August 1988, without a winner, but with a human toll of several hundred thousand victims.. After the war, Saddam Hussein pursued his foreign policy towards Arab states, by creating an Arab Cooperation Council composed of Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and North Yemen.
Two years later, ruined by its military expenditures and accusing Kuwait, one of its main creditors, of having stolen oil from it by horizontal drilling, Saddam Hussein decided, like his predecessor Abd al-Karim Qasim 30 years earlier, to invade the small Emirate.. This invasion changed Iraq's relations with the Arab world and the West, which formed a military coalition led by the United States and repelled the Iraqi army during the Gulf War. Again militarily defeated and diplomatically isolated, Iraq saw UN-imposed economic sanctions which severely deteriorated the living conditions of its population, but these were alleviated by the "Oil for Food" program aimed at meeting its humanitarian needs.. From March 1997, Iraq resumed its diplomatic and commercial relations with the West and the Arab states of the region, except for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
2003 to present day In 2003, a joint offensive by the United States and Great Britain in Iraq caused the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (executed in 2006), replaced by a Shiite government favorable to Iran and a strategic ally of the United States.
This regime change provoked a series of insurrections, notably two civil wars (from 2006 to 2009. then from 2013 to 2017), the second, particularly deadly, marked by the takeover of a large part of Iraqi territory by the jihadist group "Islamic State" in 2014. Following this lightning advance by the jihadists, a vast Arab-Western coalition formed again, this time in support of the Iraqi government, and allowed the reconquest of most of the territories lost by the Iraqi army by the end of 2017. Since then, Iraq, again faced with the challenge of pacification and reconstruction of the territory, is torn by its contradictory alliance with Iran on one hand, and the United States on the other, these two countries being enemies since the 1979 Iranian revolution.