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Today for the first time
I did visit the website of Iraqi Embassy in
Washington DC.
I did click on the country information, then I did
click on People I did get a brief History of Iraq.
What surprise me their is no single world a bout the
Kurds like they do not exists and these people come
from Mars?
Check out the official Iraq embassy :
www.iraqiembassy.org
In matter of fact you must visit the Iraqi Embassy
website at your countries and see what they are
saying about the History of Iraq it the same or
different?
It is time to write to them why their is no mention
to the Kurds as people in Iraq, and why their is no
single word in Kurdish in their web site, according
to so called Iraqi Constitution the Kurdish language
must be in every documents as same as Arabic? The
answering machine when you call the Embassy it’s
only in English and Arabic?
So we have to congratulate ourselves on the new
partnership in the new Iraq?
( From Iraqi Embassy website
in Washington DC )
Iraq, a Brief History
Iraq ( Mesopotamia ) the Cradle of the Civilizations
The ancient name of Iraq was Mesopotamia, which in
Greek means “between the rivers”. Mesopotamia has
come to be known for the area bounded on the
northeast by the Zagros Mountains and on the
southwest by the edge of the Arabian Plateau and
stretching from the Arabian Gulf in the southeast to
the spurs of the Anti-Taurus Mountains in the
northwest. This means the area between the Euphrates
and Tigris rivers. This area was named the cradle of
the ancient civilizations.
The Sumerians (2900-1800 B.C.) were the first. They
lived in the south of Mesopotamia , speaking a
language unrelated to any other human language we
know of. They lived in cities that were ruled by
monarchs, and began to write. Around 2900 B.C. they
began to form large city-states that controlled
areas of several hundred sequare miles. The names of
these cities speak from a distant and foggy past: Ur
, Legash, Erido. The Sumerians are believed to have
invented the early writings. Early writings were
pictographic and renderings of symbols and rough
sketches were used to denote meaning. The Sumerians
also invented calendars, which they divided into
twelve months based on the cycle of the moon. They
also developed sophistication with mathematics that
had never been seen before on the human landscape.
The Akkadians (2340-2125 B.C.) were a Semitic people
living on the Arabian Peninsula during the great
flourishing period of the Sumerian city-states. They
migrated north and came in increasing conflict with
the Sumerian city-states, and in 2340 B.C., the
great Akkadian military leader, Sergon, conquered
Sumer and built an Akkadian empire stretching over
most of the Sumerian city-states. In 2125 B.C. the
Sumerian city of Ur rose up in revolt, and the
Akkadian empire fell before a renewal of Sumerian
rule.
The Amorites and the Old Babylonian Period
(1800-1530 B.C.). After the last Sumerian dynasty
fell around 2000 B.C., Mesopotamia drifted into
conflict and chaos for almost a century. Around 1900
B.C., a group of Semites called Amorites had managed
to gain control of most of the Mesopotamia region.
Like the Akkadians, the Amorites centralized the
government over the individual city-states and based
their capital in the city of Babylon , which was
originally called Akkad and served as the center of
the Amorite empire. For this reason, the Amorites
are called the Old Babylonians.
The Assyrians (1170-612 B.C.) were a Semitic people
living in the north reaches of Mesopotamia . The
Assyrian dream of an empire began with the monarch,
Tiglat-pilaser (1116-1090 B.C.), who extended
Assyrian dominance to Syria and Armenia, but the
greatest period of conquest occurred between 883 and
824 B.C., under the monarchies of Ashurnazirpal II
(883-859 B.C.), Shalmenser III ( 858-824 B.C.) who
conquered all of Syria and Palastine, all of Armenia
and Babylon and south Mesopotamia. The last great
Assyrian monarch was Ashurbanipal (668-626 B.C.),
who not only extended the empire, but also began a
project of assembling a library of tablets of all
the literature of Mesopotamia . Thirty thousand
tablets still remain of Ashurbanipal's great library
in the city of Nineveh ; these tablets are the
single greatest source of knowledge of Mesopotamian
culture, myth and literature. The great Assyrian
empire began to crumble; the greatest pressure came
from the Babylonians.
The Chaldeans and the Neo-Babylonian Period (612-539
B.C.) The Babylonians led by Nabopolassar eventually
conquered the Assyrian capital of Nineveh forever
ending Assyrian dominance in the region.
Nabopolassar was succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar
II (605-562 B.C.). Under his monarchy, the city of
Babylon was rebuilt with great splendor; it would
eventually become one of the most magnificent human
cities in the Middle East and Mediterranean .
Around 539 B.C., Cyrus the conqueror of Persia
invaded the city of Babylon and forever ended
Semitic domination of Mesopotamia . The center of
the Middle Eastern world shifted to Cyrus's capital,
Susa , and it would shift again after the Greeks and
then to Romans. For almost two and a half centuries,
Mesopotamia and Babylon at its center, dominated the
landscape of early civilization in the Middle East
to be finally eclipsed by the rising sun of the
Indo-European cultures.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Arabic Period
The first conflict between the local Arabic tribes
and Sasanian forces seems to have been in 634 A.D.,
when the Arabs were defeated at the battle of the
Bridge. In 637 A.D. a much larger Muslim force under
Sa'd ibn Abe Waqqas defeated the main Persian army
at the battle of Al-Qadisiyya and moved on to
Ctesiphon . By the end of the following year (638
A.D.), the Muslims had conquered almost all of Iraq
.
Iraq now became a province of the Muslim Caliphate.
At first the capital of the Caliphate was at Madinah,
but after the murder of the third Calipha Uthman, in
656 A.D., his successor, Ali, made Iraq his base. In
661 A.D., however, Ali was murdered in Al-Kufah, and
the Caliphate passed to the Umayyad family in Syria
. Iraq became a subordinate province.
The Abbasid Caliphate (749- 1258 A.D. ) Opposition
to the Umayyads finally came to a head in
northeastern Iran (Khorasan). In 749 A.D. the armies
from the east reached Iraq and the first Abbasid
Calipha, As-Saffah was proclaimed in the mosque at
Al-Kufah. In 762 A.D., the Abbasid Calipha Al-Mansur
founded a new capital on the site of the old village
of Baghdad . It was officially known as Madinat
as-Salam (City of Peace ). The high point of
prosperity was reached in the reign of Harun ar-Rashid
(786-809 A.D.), when Iraq was very much the center
of the empire and riches flowed into the capital
from all over the Muslim world. In 819-833 A.D.,
during the Abbasid Calipha Al-Ma'mun, Baghdad became
the center of remarkable cultural activity, notably
the translation of Greek science and philosophy into
Arabic. The Calipha established an academy in
Baghdad , the Bayt al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom) with
a library and an observatory.
Around 1227 A.D. the Mongols under Genghis Khan had
already conquered much of northern Iraq . In 1258
A.D. Baghdad was invaded by a major Mongol force
commanded by Hulegu, a grandson of Genghis Khan, who
had been sent from Mongolia expressly to deal with
the Abbasids. Baghdad fell on February 10, 1258 A.D.
and the last Abbasid Calipha, al-Must'asim, was
executed shortly thereafter.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Fall of Baghdad …Aftermath
After the fall of Baghdad in 1258 A.D., Iraq was
dominated by the Mongol tribes until 1432 A.D., and
then by the Turkmen tribal federation (Kara Koyunlu
and Ak Koyunlu) that ruled Azerbaijan, Anatolia, and
Iraq until 1508 A.D.
In 1508, Shah Isma'il I, founder of the Safvid
dynasty in Iran , entered Baghdad . In 1534 the
Ottoman sultan Suleyman I (also known as Suleyman
the Magnificent) took Baghdad from the Safavids.
Baghdad was integrated into the Ottoman Empire until
1918, except for a brief Safavid reoccupation from
1623 to 1638.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Modern History of Iraq
At the end of World War I, the League of Nations
gave the United Kingdom a mandate to administer Iraq
until it established its own government. Many Iraqis
resented the British, and public rebellions broke
out in Iraq in 1920. The British reacted by setting
up a new government. King Faisal I became the first
king of Iraq . In 1930, the United Kingdom and Iraqi
government signed a treaty which stated that the
British government would provide military protection
and eventual independence and Iraq would continue to
allow the United Kingdom to use the British air
bases in Iraq . Iraq became an independent state in
1932. King Faisal I died and his son Ghazi ascended
to the throne.
In 1939 king Ghazi was killed in a car accident. His
three-year old son Faisal II became the king, but
his uncle ruled for him. In 1958 Army officers
overthrew the kingdom system and proclaimed Iraq a
republic. General Abdul Karim Kassem became the
president of the Republic. In 1963 General Kassem
was assassinated by army officers and members of the
Baath party and General Abdul Salam Arif became the
President. In 1966 Abdul Salam was killed in a
helicopter accident. His brother Abdul Rahman became
the new President. In 1968, the Baath party aided by
military officers took control of the Iraqi
government and General Ahmad Hassan Al-Bakr became
the President. In 1979 Al-Bakr resigned the
presidency and Saddam Hussein became the president
of Iraq .
Since 1979 and for over three decades, Iraq 's
standing in the international community has been
steadily eroded by the disastrous foreign policy of
the former regime. The tyranny Saddam Hussein
inflicted upon the Iraqi people extended to Iraq 's
international relations through catastrophic wars, a
blatant disregard for international law, support for
international terrorism and proliferation of WMDs.
In the Middle East, Saddam Hussein agitated
violence, intimidated Iraq 's neighbours, fomented
regional instability and continued to pose a
dangerous threat to the rest of the world. Continued
Saddam noncompliance with UNSC resolutions over a
period of 12 years resulted in the US-led invasion
of Iraq in March 2003 and ouster of the Saddam
Hussein regime. Iraq regained its sovereignty in
June 28, 2004.
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