Vanguard activism and rearguard opportunism represent signposts in the ICP's journey through Iraq's political development from a backwater outpost of the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century to what is effectively a US mandate in the twenty-first century. The purpose of this chapter is to retrace the main pathways of this journey as it unfolded in the previous chapters.

Vanguard Activism

The story of the ICP's journey began in the inner recesses of Iraq's semi-feudal class structure. The last decades of the nineteenth century witnessed the growth of a land-owning aristocracy composed mainly of tribal chiefs, wealthy city merchants, upper-level bureaucrats, and religious leaders. Semi-feudal relations prevailed, but with the introduction of modern communications and transport, internal markets opened up to private financial institutions that were closely connected to the international capitalist markets. This process became more prominent following the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. European goods began to flood Iraqi markets, almost wiping out indigenous production and transforming the traditional agricultural barter system into a market economy. The British occupation of Iraq in 1917 accelerated this process, as railways, electrical companies, and waterways were opened, and the port of Basra was expanded to serve the economic demands of the British Empire. However, perhaps the most important development in this change was the introduction and development of the oil industry, which tied Iraq inextricably to the international oil monopolies.

A second significant change was the wholesale expansion of semi-feudal relations.