IRAQ: Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq

Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq, by Reidar Visser. Munster: LIT Verlag, 2005. x + 238 pages. Gloss, to 209. Notes to p. 207. Bibl. to p. 231. Index to p. 238. $39.95.

Reviewed by Hala Fattah

Reidar Visser is a Norwegian researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in Oslo. The bulk of his study, which is excellent, concerns Basra's politics in the early 20th century, with a final chapter examining the post-2003 period. He uses Ottoman documents, Arabic-language materials, and British consular records of the era to analyze the transition from late Ottoman to royalist rule, as well as contemporary newspaper reports and transcripts of television interviews to cover the post-2003 period. Visser's thesis tackles issues of autonomy/independence and countervailing movements of political centralization that alternately dominated southern Iraq from the beginning of the 20th century until 2004. Beginning with an in-depth look at the Basra separatist movement of the 1920s, a singular exercise bringing together some of the most prominent Basrawi merchants and landholders in a petition seeking to break away from Baghdad, he goes on to explain why it failed and why, from 1928 onwards, an "Iraqist" nationalism became de rigeur among the majority of Basra's population, both...