Word: kassem
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...mobs and secret agents have so riled the Arab leaders that nearly all mistrust him. Though they still are wary of his power over the bazaars and the street mobs, neither Jordan's King Hussein, nor Saudi Arabia's King Saud nor Iraq's Premier Karim Kassem has proved willing to accept his leadership. The Sudan, Libya and Lebanon remain cautiously aloof, despite Nasser's best efforts. Though Nasser supported the Algerian rebels with arms and sanctuary, the current peace negotiations are the work of Tunisia's moderate President Bourguiba, with whom Nasser has long...
Physically mended from bullet wounds sustained when an assassin tried to kill him in the fall of 1959, Kassem has put his bloodstained tunic on display at his office in the Defense Ministry. Kassem describes his escape from death as an act of providence. As a result, his style of rule now often seems to transcend the merely earthly. He roams his curfewed capital in the early hours of the morning visiting bakeries "to taste the people's bread." He engages in talks with the goatskin-clad poor who live in reed huts on the mud flats of Baghdad...
Puffed Candle. That did not keep Kassem from making new efforts to establish himself as a counterweight to the U.A.R.'s Nasser within the Arab League. Last week, at Kassem's invitation, Tunisia's Habib Bourguiba rejoined the councils of the Arab League; he walked out in a huff two years ago on the straightforward ground that Nasser had tried to have him assassinated...
...celebrate the occasion, Kassem had planned a warm reception when Tunisia's delegate arrived for the Arab League meeting held in Baghdad. He was disconcerted when 10,000 Iraqis flocked to the airport to greet not the Tunisian but the U.A.R.'s Foreign Minister Mahmoud Fawzi, shouting "Union under Nasser soon...
...relaxed atmosphere, no one seemed much upset. Even pro-Nasserites seem in no hurry to unhorse Kassem. "He could probably be puffed out like a candle, but he may very well go on for a long time," said one pro-Nasserite comfortably. The freedom from tension has pervaded all levels and classes. At a political rally recently, Sole Leader Kassem orated to his working-class audience: "Like you, I have only one shirt." Out of the crowd came a heckler's cry: "Before you came, I had two." Such casual impudence belongs to Iraq's new mood...