Last King of Iraq

[Awad]

Faisal II (2 May 1935 – 14 July 1958) was the last King of Iraq. He reigned from 4 April 1939 until July 1958, when he was killed during the 14 July Revolution. This regicide marked the end of the thirty-seven-year-old Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, which then became a republic.

In the summer of 1958, King Hussein of Jordan asked for Iraqi military assistance during the escalating Lebanon crisis. Units of the Royal Iraqi Army under the command of Colonel Abd al-Karim Qasim, en route to Jordan, chose to march on Baghdad instead, where they mounted a coup d'état on 14 July. During the 14 July Revolution, Faisal II ordered the Royal Guard to offer no resistance and surrendered to the insurgents Around 8 am, Captain Abdul Sattar Sabaa Al-Ibousi, leading the revolutionary assault group at the Rihab Palace, which was still the principal royal residence in central Baghdad, ordered the King, Crown Prince 'Abd al-Ilah, Crown Princess Hiyam ('Abd al-Ilah's wife), Princess Nafeesa ('Abd al-Ilah's mother), Princess Abadiya (Faisal's aunt) and several servants to gather in the palace courtyard (the young King had not yet moved into the newly completed Royal Palace). There they were told to turn toward the wall and were immediately executed by their captors.Many years later, when the Iraqi historian Safa Khulusi met Al-Ibousi, who was once one of Khulusi's students, and questioned him on his part in Faisal's death, the former student answered, "all I did was remember Palestine, and the trigger on the machine-gun just set itself off".

 

[Awad]

Pictures of him:

 

[Somali Saayid]

Damn, didn't even try to mount resistance. If that was me, I would've fought tooth and nail. I would've butchered those coup plotters and then once emerged victorious, I would use it as an opportunity. to clear all of my supposed enemies from the floor and secure the throne. Then I would launch a mass program to secure loyalty to my dynasty and children. I'd disperse all of my key advisor and ministers to different cities to then stop further planning of a coup. In honored Japanese way I'd keep their wives and children and family within the palace compound to use as bartering chips. I would then strengthen palace defenses and add artillery and barracks. I'd take the most elite soldiers around 500 of them and place them in the palace to defend at all times. I'd set out spys to detect any revlotions. From the liberals to the extreme conservatives, I'd paint myself as the successor to the Abbasid widely popular in Iraq and establish myself as the self-proclaimed Caliph via connection to the Prophet and Bani Hashim solidifying my rule.

 

[DubatDiaries]

questioned him on his part in Faisal's death, the former student answered, "all I did was remember Palestine, and the trigger on the machine-gun just set itself off".

I’m confused. What did king Faisal do to Palestine?

 

[Somali Saayid]

BAGHDAD/LONDON: With Iraq facing its latest security challenge amid growing protests over unemployment, Iraqis could be forgiven for harking back nostalgically to an era of rising prosperity when the country appeared to be on the cusp of a gilded age.

Sixty years ago, Iraq’s monarchy came to an end with a bloody coup that killed the young King Faisal II. Many Iraqis still believe it was the start of a catastrophic slide downhill.

While it lasted less than four decades, the constitutional monarchy is viewed by many as a golden period in the country’s history. That the king’s execution gave way to a tumultuous republic and, ultimately, the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, only adds to the sense of nostalgia.

On the anniversary of the July 14 revolution, Iraqis on Saturday reflected on what might have been had the king managed to survive the swirling and explosive political forces tearing through the Middle East at the time.

But some also said the era of the monarchy is too often seen through rose-tinted spectacles, and that the reality was a deeply polarized country divided between the elites and the mostly rural poor.

Sadaih Khalid, 45, a Baghdad businessman, described Brig. Abdul Karim Qassim, the nationalist Iraqi army officer who led the coup, as a “crazy man” who killed the king and other royal family members in “cold blood.”

Qassim “opened the gates of blood and released the killing, torturing and looting, since the dawn of that black July 14 until now,” Khalid told Arab News.

“We wouldn’t have passed through all these tragedies if the royal family was still here.”

 

[DubatDiaries]

Damn, didn't even try to mount resistance. If that was me, I would've fought tooth and nail. I would've butchered those coup plotters and then once emerged victorious, I would use it as an opportunity. to clear all of my supposed enemies from the floor and secure the throne. Then I would launch a mass program to secure loyalty to my dynasty and children. I'd disperse all of my key advisor and ministers to different cities to then stop further planning of a coup. In honored Japanese way I'd keep their wives and children and family within the palace compound to use as bartering chips. I would then strengthen palace defenses and add artillery and barracks. I'd take the most elite soldiers around 500 of them and place them in the palace to defend at all times. I'd set out spys to detect any revlotions. From the liberals to the extreme conservatives, I'd paint myself as the successor to the Abbasid widely popular in Iraq and establish myself as the self-proclaimed Caliph via connection to the Prophet and Bani Hashim solidifying my rule.

A solid game plan
When shit hits the fan… I'm on your team.

 

[Somali Saayid]

This sentiment is common in Baghdad, even among those born decades after the dynasty ended. It is not only that the demise of the monarchy was the start of the country’s descent toward dictatorship and years of war, but also that the coup — with no mercy shown toward the royal family — set a precedent for how the country’s most powerful figures would come to deal with political opponents.

That precedent came back to haunt Qassim less than five years later when he, too, was killed during a 1963 coup by the Baath party during Ramadan.

The kingdom of Iraq was founded in 1932 under Faisal I after the fall of the Ottoman empire. Faisal, who was born in Saudi Arabia, was a member of the Hashemite dynasty and fought alongside T.E. Lawrence during World War I.

Faisal ruled for 12 years under a constitutional monarchy imposed by the British until his death from a heart attack, aged 48.

Faisal’s son, King Ghazi, took the throne, but died six years later in a car crash in Baghdad. The title of king fell to Faisal II, who was just 3 years old, and his reign began under the regency of his uncle Crown Prince Abdallah.

Faisal II was educated in Britain at Harrow, along with his cousin, King Hussein of Jordan.

Highly intelligent, and leading a country blessed with a wealth of natural resources, Faisal seemed destined to build on his father and grandfather’s foundations when he took the throne, aged 18, in 1953.

Iraq at the time was prospering. Oil revenues were flowing in and the country was undergoing rapid industrialization.

The kingdom was also gaining prominence on the world stage.

Iraq then was “more democratic and cleaner than today,” Saad Mohsen, a professor of modern history at the University of Baghdad, told AFP recently.

“We were far from the blood and fighting that we have come to know,” he said.

But it was also a country of social polarization. While the wealthy and well-connected enjoyed the good life in a thriving capital, resentment was building among the country’s poor, who were more conservative and receptive to complaints that the monarchy was too compliant to the needs of the West.

“The royal system was not as good as people think,” Abdallah Jawad, 53, told Arab News in Baghdad on Sunday. “People are just tired (of insecurity) and because of this they are willing to go back and live under the royal system.

“They don’t know that most policies adopted by the royal family at that time were sectarian and discriminatory.”

The tide would soon start to turn against the kingdom. Iraq’s close relationship with Britain — a policy Faisal II continued from his grandfather — became the source of increasing hostility that was exacerbated by the Suez crisis in 1956.

On July 13, 1958, when two army brigades were ordered to go to Jordan to help quell a crisis in Lebanon, Qassim, a disaffected officer leading one of the units, saw his chance and sent troops to the Qasr Al Rihab palace. By early the following morning, they had surrounded the palace with tanks and opened fire.

Shortly after 8 a.m., King Faisal II, his uncle the crown prince, and other members of the royal family and their staff were ordered from the rear entrance and killed.

The 23-year-old king was engaged to marry.

Saddam Hussein, who became president in 1979, setting the country on its calamitous course of foreign wars and brutal dictatorship, was fascinated by the young king.

He even restored the royal mausoleum where Faisal II’s marble tomb is located next to his father’s.

Their resting place has survived some of the darkest episodes of the nation’s history. But as Iraq looks to recover from its latest calamity — Daesh’s occupation of large parts of the country — many Iraqis will quietly mourn the 60 years since the monarchy’s downfall.

 

[niggaibnh]

Faisal II (2 May 1935 – 14 July 1958) was the last King of Iraq. He reigned from 4 April 1939 until July 1958, when he was killed during the 14 July Revolution. This regicide marked the end of the thirty-seven-year-old Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, which then became a republic.

In the summer of 1958, King Hussein of Jordan asked for Iraqi military assistance during the escalating Lebanon crisis. Units of the Royal Iraqi Army under the command of Colonel Abd al-Karim Qasim, en route to Jordan, chose to march on Baghdad instead, where they mounted a coup d'état on 14 July. During the 14 July Revolution, Faisal II ordered the Royal Guard to offer no resistance and surrendered to the insurgents Around 8 am, Captain Abdul Sattar Sabaa Al-Ibousi, leading the revolutionary assault group at the Rihab Palace, which was still the principal royal residence in central Baghdad, ordered the King, Crown Prince 'Abd al-Ilah, Crown Princess Hiyam ('Abd al-Ilah's wife), Princess Nafeesa ('Abd al-Ilah's mother), Princess Abadiya (Faisal's aunt) and several servants to gather in the palace courtyard (the young King had not yet moved into the newly completed Royal Palace). There they were told to turn toward the wall and were immediately executed by their captors.Many years later, when the Iraqi historian Safa Khulusi met Al-Ibousi, who was once one of Khulusi's students, and questioned him on his part in Faisal's death, the former student answered, "all I did was remember Palestine, and the trigger on the machine-gun just set itself off".

Was he good or bad ?
Did the people of Iraq love him ?
Did he make Iraq a safe land ?