A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE ... - Stanford University

[Pages:327]THE END OF THE CONCESSIONARY REGIME: OIL AND AMERICAN POWER IN IRAQ, 1958-1972

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES

OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt March 2011

? 2011 by Brandon Roy Wolfe-Hunnicutt. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNoncommercial 3.0 United States License. This dissertation is online at:

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I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Joel Beinin, Primary Adviser

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Barton Bernstein

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Gordon Chang

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Robert Vitalis

Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education

This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives.

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? Copyright by Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt 2011 All Rights Reserved

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Abstract This dissertation analyzes the historical process that culminated in the 1972 nationalization of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) ? a consortium that included four of the world's largest and most powerful corporations. I draw on IPC archives, recently declassified U.S. Government documents, and the Arab press to trace the impact of Iraq's 1958 "Free Officers' Revolution" on IPC interests in Iraq. I show that the Revolution set in motion a process of institutional development that resulted in the complete nationalization of the Iraqi oil industry at a relatively early date, and I emphasize the agency of a particular group of Western-trained Iraqi technical experts in producing this outcome. Moreover, I examine U.S and IPC efforts to counter Iraq's radical movements and offer an original interpretation of the relationship between the American government and the international oil industry. I show that the Iraqi challenge to the IPC undermined the stability of an implicit "corporatist bargain" between the U.S. State Department and the major American oil companies, and that the breakdown of this relationship was part of a larger crisis of American hegemony in the early 1970s. In so doing, I reveal powerful underlying factors that continue to drive the historical encounter between the U.S. and the Middle East.

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Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without a great deal of support. I would first like to thank the members of dissertation reading committee: Joel Beinin, Robert Vitalis, Gordon Chang, and Barton J. Bernstein. I would also like to thank my colleagues Osamah Khalil, and Ari Cushner for reading and commenting on drafts along the way. I would also like to thank the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Stanford Humanities Center for providing financial assistance. Lastly, I would like to thank the archival staffs at the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Md., the John F. Kennedy Library, in Colombia Point, MA., the Iraq Petroleum Company Archive in Coventry, UK, the American Heritage Center, in Laramie, WYO., and Amherst College, in Amherst, MA.

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Table of Contents

Introducing the Concessionary Regime

Introduction.......................................................................................................1 Historiography....................................................................................................2 Method of Analysis and Narrative Summary...................................................5 The End of the Concessionary Regime...........................................................24

1. Overthrowing Qasim: Debating Regime Change in Iraq, 19581963

Introduction......................................................................................................26 The US, Iraq, and the Arab Cold War

Western Reactions to 1958..................................................................32 Iraq's Internal Situation: Qasim, `Arif, and the Communists...............34 The Regional Situation: The Arab Cold War and the Reorientation of U.S. Policy....................37 Debating Regime Change, April 1959 ? January 1960 Hardline pressure within the IIAG......................................................40 The CopelandEichelberger Letter and the "Health Alteration Committee"...........................................................................................49 Rapprochement, 1960-1961 The Ebb of Communist Power in Iraq..................................................52 A New Frontier? The Kennedy Administration Encounters Iraq....................................59 The Challenges of Revolutionary Government and the Origins of Law 80 Qasim's Domestic Problems..................................................................66 Debating Regime Change II: "Do Something," December 1961 ? February 1963 The Turn Toward Interventionism......................................................73 US Intelligence on the Ba`th.................................................................76 Evaluating the Balance of Forces in Iraq: The Embassy's Social Analysis.................................................................................................78 The Coup of February 8, 1963: "A Net Gain for Our Side"...................82 Conclusion........................................................................................................88

2. Things Fall Apart: The Tragedy of USBa`thist Relations, FebruaryNovember, 1963

Introduction.....................................................................................................91 The U.S. and the Consolidation of Ba`thist Power

The New Regime and its International Reception...............................95 US PublicPrivate CoOperation and the Ba`thist Regime..................98 The State Department's Assessment of the New Regime...................102

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The Wattari Overture and its Demise Internal Divisions within the IPC.......................................................102 The Failure of the Murphy Mission.....................................................109 Wattari and the "Small Committee"..................................................112

Developing a Counterinsurgency State in Iraq Mullah Mustafa Barzani and the Second Wave of the Kurdish Insurgency, FebruaryJune.................................................................114 Weighing Military Assistance to the Ba`th........................................115

The Breakdown of the Ba`thist Regime "Defensive Unionism" and the Cairo Charter....................................120 Ambassador Robert Strong's Assessment..........................................122 Anarchy in Kirkuk..............................................................................125 The Egyptian Challenge and the Ba`thist Lurch to the Left.............127

The November Coup and Postmortems of the Ba`thist Regime The Events of November 1118..........................................................134 Ambassador Strong and the Romantic View of the Ba`th................136 William Lakeland the Horror of the Ba`th........................................139

Conclusion: The Failure of Authoritarian Development............................139

3. Contested Development: Arab Socialism, International Capitalism, and the June War, 19641968

Introduction USIraq Policy in the LBJ Years..........................................................144 The Argument in Brief.......................................................................147

The Socialist Trend, November 1963 ? September 1965 The New Regime: Nasserists in Power, November 1963 ? July 1964...............................................................150 The Challenge of the Independent Internationals, February 1964January 1965............................................................157 The Rise and Demise of the Wattari Agreement, October 1964Sept 1965....................................................................165

Oil Policy Adrift: The `Arif Brothers in Power, September 1965-May 1967 The Crisis of the Officers' State and the Demise of Nasserism, September 1965 ? August 1966.....................174 Naji Talib and the IPCSyria Crisis, August 1966 ? May 1967.........180 The State Department's Strategic Assessment and the End of IPCSyria Crisis........................................................................182

The June War and the Radicalization of Iraqi Oil Policy The June War and the Arab Oil Embargo, June 1967February 1968..................................................................187 Cracks in the Concessionary Regime: France and the June War.................................................................................190

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