Iraqs 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 countrys 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 loans300
per centfrom 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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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 Hoovers 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.