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The Iraq's Leadership in Baghdad Pact

Iraqi leadership seriously regarded the Soviet Union as a real threat to the country's independence and its monarchy. It believed that the Soviet Union would try to expand its influence on Iraq in order to gain Iraq's rich oil reserves through direct aggression, or though members of the banned local Communist Party and its sympathizers, or though manipulating Kurdish nationalist sentiment in northern Iraq. The Iraqi establishments had been shocked in seeing that the Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran were forced to leave his country because of domestic uprisings in 1953, and had feared that coming to power in Iran of the radical-leftist Tudeh Party might have serious consequence in Iraq. From these reasons, Iraqi regime had strong interest in maintaining close ties with Britain, especially in national security. On the other hand, Iraqi leaders had realized that American influence in the Middle East was growing very rapidly, began to strengthen the relationships with the US, especially the US armed forces. From these reasons, the leaders or Iraqi regime decided to participate in this pact.