History of Iraq

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Iraq is the state that currently partially encompasses the territory of the civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. This civilization came into being between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. These rivers flow into the Persian Gulf, through the State of Iraq. The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq, also known as Mandatory Iraq in its early phase, was established by the Anglo-Iraqi treaty of 1922 resulting from the 1920 Iraqi revolt against British rule. It is centered in Lower Mesopotamia (corresponding to historical Babylonia) but also includes part of Upper Mesopotamia (corresponding to historical Assyria) and of the Syrian Desert and the Arabian Desert. The history of this area has witnessed some of the world's earliest writing, literature, sciences, mathematics, laws and philosophies; hence its common epithet, the Cradle of Civilization.

As part of the larger Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia saw the earliest emergence of civilization in the Neolithic (the Ubaid period) Age and formed a significant part of the Ancient Near East throughout the Bronze Age and the Iron Age (Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian).[1] After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Mesopotamia fell under Persian and then Greek rule. By the 3rd century, when it was once again under Persian (Sassanid) control, the earlier population was increasingly displaced by Arabs, and the Arabic name al-ʿIrāq dates to about this time.[2] The Sassanid Empire was destroyed by the Islamic conquests and displaced by the Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century. Baghdad became the center of the "Islamic Golden Age" under the Abbasid Caliphate during the 9th century. Baghdad's rapid growth stagnated in the 10th century due to the Buwayhid and Seljuq invasions, but it remained of central importance until the Mongol invasion of 1258. After this, Iraq became a province of the Turco-Mongol Ilkhanate and declined in importance. After the disintegration of the Ilkhanate, Iraq was ruled by the Jalairids and Kara Koyunlu until its eventual absorption into the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, intermittently falling under Iranian Safavid and Mamluk control.

Ottoman rule ended with World War I, and the British Empire administered Iraq as Mandatory Iraq until the establishment of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1933. A republic formed in 1958 following a coup d'état. Saddam Hussein governed from 1968 to 2003, into which period fall the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein was deposed following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Over the following years in the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Iraq disintegrated into a civil war from 2006 to 2008, and the situation deteriorated in 2011 which later escalated into a renewed war following ISIL gains in the country in 2014. By 2015, Iraq was effectively divided, the central and southern part being controlled by the government, the northwest by the Kurdistan Regional Government and the western part by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. ISIL was expelled from Iraq in 2017, but a low-intensity ISIL insurgency continues mostly in the rural parts of northern Iraq.[3]

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