Status Updates From Pride and Power: A Modern H...

“Taking over the power is a simple operation that can be executed by a group of adventurers and military coup amateurs at the right time. But interaction with the masses, expressing their interests and aspirations, can only be carried out by ideological revolutionaries..."

"Great upheaval beset Iraq when the Ba'th Party seized control of the country in July 1968. Rather than the Arab 'rebirth' promised by the Resurrection Party, the new era saw Iraq moving further away from the Arab fold. Painstakingly, the Ba'th Party entrenched itself and outmanoeuvred its main rivals - the Communists and the Kurds... Behind the scenes, Saddam Hussein, consolidated and expanded his power base."

“The seemingly improved relations between the Kurds & Baghdad had, as many remembered, originated in the understanding between the Bathists and Mulla Mustafa Barzani as an unofficial ceasefire … this temporary rapprochement soon vanished as Barzani now demanded autonomy for Kurdistan.”

The second chapter impressively captures the nuances of early Iraq and the formation of its competing parties/ideologies. While it has its faults in regards to the massacres of Assyrians in 1933, it illustrated the longstanding implications of the atrocities committed by the army. In essence, the state would determine that the most effective way for it to deal with its defiant groups was to brutally subdue them.

So far, the first two chapters of this book have been very informative on state-building and the complex dynamics of mandate/early Iraq. However, the book has shortcomings, especially regarding the so-called "Assyrian issue." Franzen fails to capture the Assyrian perspective, which is characterized by insecurity, vilification, and betrayal, as he rather depends on British and Iraqi (mainly Arab) accounts of 1933.