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I'm going with a PoD proposed by David Tenner awhile back.

(2) Alternatively, they might have succeeded by getting along better with
Qassem and gradually gaining more and more influence within his regime.
Obviously, the Kirkuk massacre hurt the ICP badly here, but even before
that, Qassem seems to have begun to curb the ICP's influence. So maybe
what we need is a Qassem who underestimates the communist menace and
overestimates the nationalist one, rather than vice versa as in OTL. (In
1963 the ICP appealed to Qassem for arms to help them resist the Ba'athist
coup that they said was imminent, but Qassem, confident that he could
defeat the coup on his own, declined.)

Obviously, communist parties face serious obstacles in Muslim countries.
Still, South Yemen was officially "Marxist-Leninist" for many years, so I
would not rule out the possibility of a Communist Iraq. Admittedly,
though, the IRC had only a brief window of opportunity under Qassem, and
it is questionable whether their leadership had the competence to take
advantage of it.
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/U7F8yOI_fnE/wk9ERyli0OQJ

So, the local upshot in Iraq is that it becomes a Communist one-party-state by early 1961 by building influence from within the Qassem regime.

Is there a civil war in which non-communists can wrest any of the country from control of the Communists and Qassem.

And what are the regional and geopolitical consequences of a Communist regime in Baghdad at this time?

Does Khrushchev find the Communist Iraq an embarrassment in his relationship with Egypt and Syria, and thus keep his distance? Such a course would have Baghdad soon align with China in the Sino-Soviet split.

Or does Khrushchev invest fullest support in the new Baghdad Communist regime? If so, will Nasser break with the Soviet Union and rapproche with the United States? Kennedy would have been receptive to a great extent, as he was in OTL.

Also, Egypt was still united with Syria in the United Arab Republic at this time. Could fear of a Communist takeover supported by Iraq make the Egyptian-Syrian union last longer?

Or, could Khrushchev have his cake and eat it too, building up its relations with both the true People's Democracy of Iraq at the same time keeping a strong patronage relationship with the Egyptian-led United Arab Republic?

If Nasser ends up fixating on Iraq as a major problem, might that discourage him from getting involved in Yemen?

Are plans for the formal independence of Kuwait and reduction of British forces there put on hold?
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