republic · Mesopotamia and Iran
Republic of Iraq
Origins
On 14 July 1958 the Free Officers under Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew the Kingdom of Iraq and proclaimed a republic. Qasim left the Baghdad Pact, began land reform and claimed Kuwait, but was killed in a Ba'athist coup in 1963. The Arif brothers then ruled until the Ba'ath Party took power again in 1968.
Rule and society
Under Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and, from 1979, Saddam Hussein, oil wealth funded development alongside a pervasive police state. Iraq fought Iran from 1980 to 1988, conducted the Anfal campaign against the Kurds, including the gas attack on Halabja, and invaded Kuwait in 1990, leading to the Gulf War and sanctions. A US-led invasion in 2003 overthrew Saddam, and a 2005 constitution created a federal parliamentary system with a Kurdistan Region.
To the present
Sectarian war followed in 2006 to 2008, and the Islamic State seized Mosul in 2014 before its defeat in 2017. Iraq remains a federal parliamentary republic, governed through power-sharing between Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties.
Lineage
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Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Republic of Iraq. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/republic-of-iraq
- MLA
- “Republic of Iraq.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/republic-of-iraq. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Republic of Iraq.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/republic-of-iraq.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Republic of Iraq’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/republic-of-iraq (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻