A reincarnation of the Baghdad Pact
Is history repeating itself, asks Ayman El-Amir*
The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has completed the first phase of negotiations with the US over the long-term strategic agreement that will govern relations between the occupying power and occupied Iraq for decades to come. It will be supplemented by a “status of forces” agreement outlining the privileges and immunities of the 50,000-strong US military force that will be stationed in Iraq well beyond the formal withdrawal of the occupation army. Iraq will thus be incorporated into the “Axis of the Good” that includes the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council where the US has developed and maintains sprawling military bases and other facilities, encircling Iran and controlling the southern entrance to the Straits of Hormuz. Fifty years after the demise of the Baghdad Pact (1955-1958) the military alliance has not only been reborn, but is more expansive, with US Central Command at the helm and Iran replacing the former Soviet Union as the adversary.
In 1955, when the Cold War and the nuclear arms race between the former Soviet Union and the US had reached fever pitch, the Arab world was also undergoing deep transformation triggered by the Nasser-led 1952 Egyptian revolution. Egypt’s emerging role as a beacon of national liberation in the Arab region and in Africa was coveted by both superpowers though for different reasons. The Soviet Union, reversing the old-era Stalinist approach, wanted to embrace Third World revolutionary movements as a bulwark against the old imperial and colonial powers. The US secretary of state at the time, John Foster Dulles, was obsessed with the idea of blocking Communist expansion towards the Middle East which occupied strategic routes, waterways, and possessed burgeoning oil wealth.
