A perception that Iraq was valuable to Britain in a defence perspective had gained foothold.
The Foreign Office, the Air Ministry and the War Office all agreed that Britain’s diplomatic relationship with Iraq was closely intertwined in the Anglo-Iraqi military cooperation, which the two latter regarded as strategically necessary to increase. The Commander in Chief for MEAF, Air-Marshal Baker, explicitly considered political and strategic aims in one scope, thereby merging foreign and defence policy as outlined by Wyn Rees in Britain and Defence 1945–2000: A Policy Re-evaluation.456 Baker initiated a campaign of his own to encourage closer interaction between the British air forces at Habbaniya and the Iraqi airbases nearby.
The fact that closer interaction took place on Iraqi soil, at Habbaniya, was something that had not happened since the withdrawal of the British Advisory Military Mission in March 1948.
The Field-Marshal’s initiatives in April 1951 was the beginning of a re-establishment of the Anglo-Iraqi military cooperation. During spring 1951, the Chiefs of Staff also agreed that Iraq needed higher priority regarding equipment, and therefore decided to confront the Ministry of Defence on this and raise Iraq’s importance to NATO-level. For the service departments and the Chiefs of Staff, it was not any longer a question of willingness to defend Iraq.
However, General Robertson had discovered that the Iraqi High Command was ineffective in their use of equipment, and worse, opposing to MELF training courses and thus opposing to closer Anglo-Iraqi military cooperation. This had led Robertson to believe that replacements was in order. It is questionable to what extent the Iraqi officers, young or old, was inspired by Nasserism or to what extent they sought to seize political power in the period from April 1951 to the end of 1952. A belief that Iraqi officers indeed were thinking to seize political power led the British Chiefs of Staff to prepare a British military intervention in Iraq if the situation in Iraq did not calm down. The COS moreover assumed that it was possible that the Iraqi army would subvert the pro-British regime, and therefore prepared British forces to fight for
456 FO 371/91657/EQ1193/21, COS (51)244, COS Committee, minutes of meeting held on 24 April 1951, extract from a letter CinC/TS/201/3 from Commander in Chief MEAF to CAS, dated 12 April 1951., Rees,
"Britain's Contribution to Global Order," 30.
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the old gang and Britain’s position in Iraq. Whether this would be necessary or not depended on the extent of control that Nuri had, or could gain, over the Iraqi armed forces.
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5 Looking for new defence policy: 1953
The uprisings in Baghdad in November 1952 could possibly lead to a revolution and collapse of the pro-British Iraqi political elite. In January 1953, the Iraqi political situation was so unstable that Britain still prepared for military intervention on 8 January – and the consequences of such actions. Two weeks later, on 22 January, the situation in Iraq had largely calmed down and Britain thus underwent one of its most fundamental change of strategic concepts in the early 1950s – the abandonment of the Inner Ring and implementation of the Outer Ring.
Because of the Egyptian revolution it was believed that British troops eventually would have to withdraw from the Canal Zone, but negotiations were ongoing and the outcome was highly uncertain in January 1953. If Britain were to deploy its troops elsewhere, the countries and new locations had to be secure allies. As the Anglo-Iraqi treaty had been open for renegotiation since 3 October 1952, Britain constantly feared that the pro-British Iraqi elite would be forced by public opinion to either step down or to revise the treaty in unfavourable terms for Britain. Whilst Britain was operating under the Inner Ring this had been regarded as bad, but because Britain now were considering to adopt the Outer Ring, the loss of Iraq would be fatal. At the outset of 1953, the British plan was to eliminate some of these challenges by establishing a multilateral Middle East Defence Organisation (MEDO). The British felt alone in the Middle East because, in their opinion, the United States had not shown enough initiative. Additionally, as Britain had been redeploying troops from the Suez Canal Zone base installations since in compliance with the Free Officer’s regime – although most of the British troops remained and a redeployment agreement was not reached until 1954 – it was already necessary to discuss whether an adoption of the Outer Ring strategy was favourable.457 The Outer Ring strategy would demand a build-up of troops in the states that shared borders with the Soviet Union, including Iraq. This would definitely become too costly and too big a challenge for Britain to solve without American support. Therefore, the British government tried to convince the US to take a more active role in the establishment of regional defence as well as financial aid to the Arab states and Israel for military purposes from the beginning of 1953.
457 McNamara, Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power in the Middle East, 1952–1967, 36.
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Across the Atlantic, Dwight Eisenhower entered the Oval office in January 1953. The Eisenhower administration continued Truman’s policy of divergence from the British.458 However, the Eisenhower administration’s Middle East policy differed from that of Truman’s; in the aftermath of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles visits to the Middle East in spring 1953, American foreign policy towards Israel and the Arab states changed. The US came to be deeply involved in what had used to be a British’s sphere of influence. In fact, the US came to challenge Britain’s hitherto unique position in Iraq. Towards the end of 1953, the departments in Whitehall also came to re-evaluate, disagree and conclude differently on the Anglo-Iraqi military alliance and the diplomatic friendship – and what these were.