ASQ 44.1 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals Ibrahim G. Aoudé is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Ethnic Studies, University of Hawai‘i- Mānoa, Honolulu THE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN HISTORY Reflections on Min Zawaya Ath-Thakira: Ala Hamesh Thawrat 14 Tammuz Ām 1958 1 Ibrahim G. Aoudé Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. 2 The July 14, 1958 military coup in Iraq was a momentous event in the ongoing revolutionary process in the Arab world. It shattered the web of Western alliances, primarily the Baghdad Pact led by the United States. It also bolstered the anti- imperialist struggle at the height of Arab nationalism expressed in the formation of the United Arab Republic (UAR—the union between Syria and Egypt) early in that year. The Iraqi coup also demolished the union between the two Hashemite kingdoms—Iraq and Jordan (created by Western imperialism as a counter to the UAR) and strengthened the hand of Gamal Abd el-Nasser (the UAR president) in ending the 1958 Lebanese civil war through negotiations with the United States. Prior to the formation of the UAR, Nasser had led the July 23, 1952 Egyptian mili- tary coup that toppled the Egyptian monarchy. He became the undisputed hero of the struggle for Arab nationalism and unity after the 1956 nationalization of the Suez Canal and the failed Tripartite invasion of Egypt in that year by the British, French, and the Zionist settler-colonial entity in occupied Palestine. The Iraqi coup led by Abd el-Kareem Qasim and Abd es-Salam Aref was the crowning touch to the popular struggle against the Iraqi monarchy, which comprised the core of the Baghdad Pact. Tareq Y. Ismael’s memoirs of the July 14 coup, its political development, and its ultimate demise, represent a rich intervention that contributes to a better understand- ing of the historic significance of that period for Iraq and, by implication, the Arab region. 2 Recognizing the importance of the context in which those events had occurred, and the way in which the July 14 coup influenced those events, Tareq Ismael lays out an historic background that not only frames his account, but also situates him as an individual in the larger narrative of Iraqi history. Tareq Ismael DOI:10.13169/arabstudquar.44.1.0029