Chapter 61: Revolution and Reaction
Chapter 61: Revolution and Reaction
The entry of the USSR into the politics and balance of power in the Middle East had disrupted the status quo already, but the communist juggernaut under the commands of the ambitious Second Troika was determined to continue. Before that happened, though, the instigation of the Kurdish revolt was already looked upon as a rushed attempt at expanding without much long-term thinking in the Kremlin, even if these thoughts remained in the minds of critics like Shepilov and Kosygin for now. In the months and years after, it would become painfully clear that, as we will see, this move burned more bridges than it helped construct, and a reaction would begin to develop.
In Iran, the Shah and the Majlis legislature were still torn as to how to deal with their northern neighbor especially after the aid in modernization. Surprisingly, the main opposition did not come from inside the government but from two other demographics: firstly, intellectuals and students who protested foreign dominance with support from the general population, having evolved past the World War II-era unrest over living conditions. Secondly, tribes in the provinces harder for Tehran to control occasionally engaged in short-lasting revolts that were aimed at fighting the modernization process but achieved little. Adding to the complicated pile of factors in the country that made even Soviet experts confused, the Shah intended to use the unrest in his favor to gain power regardless of foreign alignment. Obviously, now was not a good time to do that through democratic channels as it would only hurt his image more, and so the status quo held.
Turkey had been increasingly worried about Soviet expansionism in the Middle East thanks to its meddling in internal Iranian affairs and its support for the Kurdish separatists. All signs, at least to the local nationalists, pointed to Turkey being the next to be attacked as an obstacle that stood between Southeastearn Europe and pro-Soviet Middle Eastern states while controlling the strategic straits of the Bosphorus. Prime Minister Adnan Menderes was the head of government in 1954, having run on a campaign that appealed to the more conservative rural population in the last elections, but he was doing little to combat the Soviet threat and often used minorities as scapegoats to redirect popular discontent. With that in mind, many military officers started to believe that taking action was necessary so that the country did not fall to chaos, or worse, Soviet domination.
A swift coup orchestrated in 1954 ousted the Menderes government which was put on trial, and a clique of officers influenced by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş temporarily took control with promises of restoring democracy. The regime took a harder line in cracking down on those with communist or socialist sympathies, and directed more funding towards the military. Democracy would be restored the next year, but the new governments that took over from that point would continue these practices and were generally wary of army presence in politics, always lurking in the background and ready to take over should they not be pleased. Early Kurdish insurgent movements in southeastern Turkey were also gradually being established, but Kurds were attacked as proponents of socialism and had little breathing space to develop political views and groups on their own beyond a hatred of the government in Ankara.
Further south, Transjordan with Iraq and Saudi Arabia formed the "Arabian Triplet" of loosely British-aligned monarchies that had put historic rivalries between the Houses of Hashim and Saud beside to stay together. A new treaty in 1953 entrenched this relation, the last in the recent trend of multi-national cooperation and unions. One of the greatest threats presented to them, however, was the rise of internal factions striving for change and progress like the Arab Ba'ath in Syria that the authoritarian systems seen in the domains of Kings Abdullah and Saud suppressed, even though these beliefs were not eradicated. The fact that out of the three, Iraq was the most unstable and had previously faced communist unrest did not exactly encourage reform for the other monarchs.
The aforementioned Ba'ath movement had envisioned a union of Iraq, Syria and even Lebanon that would stretch from the Gulf to the Mediterranean and went about promoting this idea in the first years of the 1950s. Even if they intended it to only be a precursor to a greater pan-Arab state, Baghdad and Damascus actually went a long way to promote this idea to the dismay of smaller groups, like the Druze and the Alawites who were afraid of majority rule. In the end, despite the incentive for it, the cause of this union would end up causing one of Syria's greatest political upheavals and the single greatest since its independence.
The entry of the USSR into the politics and balance of power in the Middle East had disrupted the status quo already, but the communist juggernaut under the commands of the ambitious Second Troika was determined to continue. Before that happened, though, the instigation of the Kurdish revolt was already looked upon as a rushed attempt at expanding without much long-term thinking in the Kremlin, even if these thoughts remained in the minds of critics like Shepilov and Kosygin for now. In the months and years after, it would become painfully clear that, as we will see, this move burned more bridges than it helped construct, and a reaction would begin to develop.
In Iran, the Shah and the Majlis legislature were still torn as to how to deal with their northern neighbor especially after the aid in modernization. Surprisingly, the main opposition did not come from inside the government but from two other demographics: firstly, intellectuals and students who protested foreign dominance with support from the general population, having evolved past the World War II-era unrest over living conditions. Secondly, tribes in the provinces harder for Tehran to control occasionally engaged in short-lasting revolts that were aimed at fighting the modernization process but achieved little. Adding to the complicated pile of factors in the country that made even Soviet experts confused, the Shah intended to use the unrest in his favor to gain power regardless of foreign alignment. Obviously, now was not a good time to do that through democratic channels as it would only hurt his image more, and so the status quo held.
Turkey had been increasingly worried about Soviet expansionism in the Middle East thanks to its meddling in internal Iranian affairs and its support for the Kurdish separatists. All signs, at least to the local nationalists, pointed to Turkey being the next to be attacked as an obstacle that stood between Southeastearn Europe and pro-Soviet Middle Eastern states while controlling the strategic straits of the Bosphorus. Prime Minister Adnan Menderes was the head of government in 1954, having run on a campaign that appealed to the more conservative rural population in the last elections, but he was doing little to combat the Soviet threat and often used minorities as scapegoats to redirect popular discontent. With that in mind, many military officers started to believe that taking action was necessary so that the country did not fall to chaos, or worse, Soviet domination.
A swift coup orchestrated in 1954 ousted the Menderes government which was put on trial, and a clique of officers influenced by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş temporarily took control with promises of restoring democracy. The regime took a harder line in cracking down on those with communist or socialist sympathies, and directed more funding towards the military. Democracy would be restored the next year, but the new governments that took over from that point would continue these practices and were generally wary of army presence in politics, always lurking in the background and ready to take over should they not be pleased. Early Kurdish insurgent movements in southeastern Turkey were also gradually being established, but Kurds were attacked as proponents of socialism and had little breathing space to develop political views and groups on their own beyond a hatred of the government in Ankara.
Further south, Transjordan with Iraq and Saudi Arabia formed the "Arabian Triplet" of loosely British-aligned monarchies that had put historic rivalries between the Houses of Hashim and Saud beside to stay together. A new treaty in 1953 entrenched this relation, the last in the recent trend of multi-national cooperation and unions. One of the greatest threats presented to them, however, was the rise of internal factions striving for change and progress like the Arab Ba'ath in Syria that the authoritarian systems seen in the domains of Kings Abdullah and Saud suppressed, even though these beliefs were not eradicated. The fact that out of the three, Iraq was the most unstable and had previously faced communist unrest did not exactly encourage reform for the other monarchs.
The aforementioned Ba'ath movement had envisioned a union of Iraq, Syria and even Lebanon that would stretch from the Gulf to the Mediterranean and went about promoting this idea in the first years of the 1950s. Even if they intended it to only be a precursor to a greater pan-Arab state, Baghdad and Damascus actually went a long way to promote this idea to the dismay of smaller groups, like the Druze and the Alawites who were afraid of majority rule. In the end, despite the incentive for it, the cause of this union would end up causing one of Syria's greatest political upheavals and the single greatest since its independence.
