Word: kassem
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Forget Nasser. The State Department and the British Foreign Office, not yet abandoning all hope of Kassem, put Kassem's action down to his desire to express solidarity with the Arab world. By withdrawing from the pact, Kassem freed himself from Nasser's accusation that Iraq was still allied to the "imperialist" West. To his assembled editors last week, Kassem suggested: "Forget Nasser. Do not waste time replying to criticism from abroad that does not bother...
...plain that Nasser was getting himself committed to the downfall of Kassem, and to the Communists who surround him. Last week Nasser made the sternest accusation one Arab can make about another: that Kassem was "soft" on the Jews, having refused (said Nasser) to join in a "decisive battle" against Israel last fall. And at Cairo's 1,000-year-old Al Azhar University, world center of Islamic learning, the rector or "sheik of Islam" urged the Iraqi faithful "to rise as one man" in defense against Communism's alien and atheist threat to the faith...
...Desires. It may be that Kassem withdrew from the Baghdad Pact only to quiet Nasser. But the more worrisome likelihood is that Kassem is responding to another pressure on him. The Reds, in the guise of helping him in his consolidation of power, have made four demands on him. The first was to denounce the Baghdad Pact, as he has just done. The second was to purge his army and his administration of people whom the Communists object to. This too is going on. The Reds demand vengeance against all who participated in the Mosul rebellion (TIME, March...
...dock. Press censorship is now in the hands of an army veterinarian, Colonel Loutfi Tahir, who fills the newspapers with Red propaganda. Last week Iraqi authorities expelled three U.S. correspondents-TIME's William McHale, CBS's Winston Burdett, U.P.I.'s Larry Collins-on short notice, and Kassem's office said he was helpless to save them...
Revolutionary Fire. Perhaps Kassem was already too committed to the Communists to break free from them. But he has so far not capitulated to the other two Red demands that would clear the way for their takeover. He has not yet executed such "traitors" as his onetime sidekick and coconspirator, Colonel Abdul Salam Mohammed Aref. And he has so far resisted giving arms to "the people"-i.e., the so-called Popular Resistance Force, which would be a Red militia...