TWO JULY 1968 COUPS IN IRAQ: THE BACTH IS RETURNING TO POWER

• Authors: Sorby Karol R.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In Iraq on 8th February 1963 the Socialist Party of Arab Resurrection (the Bacth Party) carried out an armed coup. It overthrew the regime of cAbdalkarīm Qāsim and came to power. Its short reign turned out as an unsuccessful experiment and ended on 18th November of the same year in a countercoup staged by the army. A difficult period followed in which the Bacth leadership worked to overthrow the existing military regime and restore its former position. The Bacthists returned to power by accomplishing two coups, one on 17th July and the other on 30th July 1968. In both instances, they prevailed by stratagem rather than through force. In the first they deposed the president by allying themselves with his closest aides. In the second they got rid of their inconvenient temporary allies. The two distinct groups which in an odd alliance finally carried out the first coup were the Bacth Party and a small group of dissatisfied supporters of the regime whose leaders were cAbdarrazzāq an-Nāyif and Ibrāhīm ad-Dā’ūd. The two men who held the fate of the regime in their hands belonged to a group of younger moderate Arab nationalist officers within the army.

Keywords

EN

IRAQ; JUNE WAR; COUP OF 17 JULY; BACTH

• Publisher: Institute of Oriental Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Asian and African Studies
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 297 – 318

Contributors

author

Sorby Karol R.

• Institute of Oriental Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovak Republic