New York Post

TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1948

Iraq’s Decay and Its Remedy


An International Quiz; From Where Can
Iraq Obtain New Immigrants?

By OBSERVER

Iraq, formerly known as Mesopotamia on the Tigris and the Euphrates, is a country of 175,000 square miles. Its population is estimated to be between three and four million, but the exact figure is not known, since no census has been taken.

Twenty-five centuries ago this country had a population of more than 50 million. The Iraqi peasants are destitute and illiterate, yet according to Strabo, Pliny, and other classical authors, the soil of Mesopotamia is the richest in the world, and in their day produced a 300-fold return.

Today the country’s agriculture is undeveloped, and the peasant walks behind a plow drawn by a lean cow. Or he may even harness his wives to the plow. The earth yields meager return, and the peasants starve because of oppressive interest they have to pay in their loans—300 per cent—from the landowners. The landowners do nothing to improve the land, and the money extorted from the peasants is squandered in the stagnant air of the harems and on the boulevards of Paris.

The Iraqi Government drew up projects of land improvement, drainage and irrigation of vast areas that belong to the state, and reconditioning of old canals dating from Babylonian and Persian times. Marshes between the two great rivers were to be drained and the rich soil prepared for intensive agriculture. But the Iraqi Government did woefully little to realize this plan because of lack of money as well as of people, for the country is very much underpopulated.

The Government draws its income mainly from the Iraq Petroleum Development Co. (British, American, French interests), and is as sleepy and as inefficient as only an oriental government with a secure income from royalties can be. This income from oil royalties does not benefit the country or the poor, but only a few rich families closely connected with the Government.

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The military weakness of Iraq was painfully brought to the fore by its war in Palestine. The Syrian and the Iraqi states, so vociferous in the United Nations, proved to be no military match for the new state of Israel, not even for a small part of its force, since the main troops of Israel were engaged by the Transjordan Legion and the Egyptian armies.

The military weakness of Iraq is the direct result of the policies of the inefficient government, the retardation and destitution of the Iraqi population, the backwardness of its agriculture, and the absence of industry. The Iraq Petroleum Development Co., aside from paying royalties, also did nothing to develop the country.

Judged by Iraq, by its standard of living and education and sanitary conditions, by the appearance of its cities and its fields, and by its military impotence, civilization is regressing, not progressing. The very existence of this state depends on whether it will be able to make progress in the near future, develop its soil, build cities, and return the land to the path of progress. Maybe, you know from where Iraq can obtain new population.

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At present, as a result of the war declared by the Arabs against the State of Israel, there are about three hundred thousand Arab refugees. These Arabs are of the same race, language and religion as the Iraqi peasants. Their homes were destroyed in battles, their fields are untilled, they drove their live stock away with them when they fled.

They are superior to Iraqi peasants, for in the course of two or three generations they have learned from their Jewish neighbors how to plant fruit gardens and irrigate them, and how to care for animals and for their own health. They were not expelled by the Israelis; they ran away from the war area to the neighboring Arab countries, who provoked them to leave the borders of Israel.

Now these Arab countries are impatient of get rid of them, but the Israeli Government will not re-admit them as long as the conflict continues and the truce is not replaced by peace; when they do return, they will be required to become Israeli citizens and to swear loyalty to the State of Israel.

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Palestine is the only country from which the Iraqis may hope to acquire new population. If in the past it was undesirable, from the Arab national viewpoint, to decrease the Arab population of Palestine, the existence of an Arab minority in Israel cannot be a national Arab goal.

Ex-President Hoover, a few years ago, offered a plan for transplanting Palestinian Arabs in Iraq with international help.

Similar plans were made by other statesmen during the years between the two World wars. According to Hoover’s plan the economy of Iraq would rise; the revenue of the state would increase; the strategic oil fields would be better secured in a country with an increasing population.

The present conditions of war in Palestine, the many Arabs being uprooted, and the exposed weakness of Iraq, all call for the realization of this plan. It can be coupled with the transfer of Jews from Iraq (Bagdad) to Israel.

Thus Iraq has the chance of its life to start again on the road to prosperity.