Faisal II was shot in the royal palace of Baghdad in a coup in which a very young Saddam Hussein participated
On July 14, 1958, a brutal coup state ended the monarchy in Iraq and the life of the young King Faisal II, barely 23 years old. Many Iraqis who still remember that dramatic outcome and lived through such bloody moments as the war between Iran and Iraq, the iron dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, the war with the United States, and the ensuing chaos, consider that this assassination marked the beginning of a catastrophic descent into the hells.
The constitutional monarchy was a regime that lasted four decades and left a considerable mark if we consider subsequent events. For this reason, on the day of the revolution on July 14, Iraqis were divided between those nostalgic for the institution (a small number) and those who considered that at that time they lived in a country where there was an abyss between the elites and an impoverished population, especially in rural areas.
Some consider Abdul Karim Qassim, the Iraqi nationalist army officer who led the coup that killed several members of the royal family, a lunatic. Others, a figure that turned history upside down. However, the soldier would also be assassinated during another coup in 1963 by the Baath party during Ramadan.
Faisal II's predecessors on the throne also died prematurely and dramatically.
To understand the figure of the last king of Iraq, we have to go back to the founding of the kingdom, in 1932, through the figure of Faisal I, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Faisal, who was born in Saudi Arabia and was a member of the Hashemite dynasty, fought alongside T. E. Lawrence, the mythical Lawrence of Arabia portrayed by David Lean, in World War I.
His reign lasted twelve years, as he died of a heart attack at the age of 48. His successor was his son, King Ghazi, but he did not fare better than him either: he died in a traffic accident in Baghdad six years later. It was then the turn of his son, Faisal II, but he was only three years old, so his uncle, Crown Prince Abdallah, Faisal I's brother, was appointed as regent.
Faisal II received a careful education in the United Kingdom, at Harrow, along with his cousin, King Hussein of Jordan. When he came to the throne at the age of 18, the omens could not have been better. In addition to being a very intelligent young man, although in fragile health (he suffered from excruciating asthma), he put himself in command of a country on the rise, which was industrializing and with enormous natural resources, especially oil.
That prosperity, however, had fine print... The polarization between the rich and well-connected, who prospered in the capital, Baghdad, and the poor, much more conservative and recipients of anti-imperialist messages from broad sectors of society who considered that the country was serving the interests of the West.
Faisal II had inherited from his grandfather, Faisal I, a foreign policy closely linked to the United Kingdom, which generated enormous internal tensions. Hostilities were exacerbated by the Suez Crisis in 1956. On July 13 of that year, two army brigades had been ordered to Jordan to help quell a crisis in Lebanon. the aforementioned Qassim, an officer leading one of the units, decided to send troops to the Qasr Al Rihab palace.
A bloody coup in which Saddam Hussein participated
The next morning, shortly after 8 o'clock, the coup d'état was consummated. The palace was surrounded by tanks that opened fire. King Faisal II, his uncle, the crown prince, other members of the family, and his chamber staff were killed while trying to escape. The monarch, only 23 years old, was engaged to Sabiha Fazila Khanum Sultana, the only daughter of Prince Damad Muhammad 'Ali Ibrahim Bey, Efendi of Egypt, and his wife, Princess Zahra Khanzadi Sultana, second daughter of Captain and Prince Omar Faruk. , Efendi of Turkey.
Saddam Hussein, who had been instrumental in the 1968 military coup, known as the July 17 Revolution, and who came to power officially, rather than unofficially, in 1979, felt great admiration for the ephemeral monarch. So much so that he ordered the restoration of the royal mausoleum where the tomb of Faisal II is located, along with that of his father.
In May 2020, completely forgotten and cut off from everything, the last representative of the Iraqi monarchy, Badiya bint Ali, sister of Prince Regent Abdallah, who had managed to escape the massacre that wiped out her family, died at the age of 100, in which, by the way, a very young Saddam Hussein had also participated, ironies of life... Her son, who had escaped with her when he was only two years old, returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam in 2003 to claim a throne that counts, as we said, with few acolytes and a handful of nostalgics.
