IraqIraqEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

During ancient times, lands that now constitute Iraq were known
as Mesopotamia (“Land Between the Rivers”), a region whose extensive
alluvial plains gave rise to some of the world’s earliest civilizations, including
those of Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria. This wealthy region, comprising
much of what is called the Fertile Crescent, later became a valuable part of
larger imperial polities, including sundry Persian, Greek, and Roman
dynasties, and after the 7th century it became a central and integral part of the
Islamic world. Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, became the capital of the ʿAbbāsid
caliphate in the 8th century. The modern nation-state of Iraq was created
following World War I (1914–18) from the Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Al-
Baṣrah, and Mosul and derives its name from the Arabic term used in the
premodern period to describe a region that roughly corresponded to
Mesopotamia (ʿIrāq ʿArabī, “Arabian Iraq”) and modern northwestern Iran
(ʿIrāq ʿajamī, “foreign [i.e., Persian] Iraq”).

IraqEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Iraq gained formal independence in 1932 but remained subject to British

imperial influence during the next quarter century of turbulent monarchical
rule. Political instability on an even greater scale followed the overthrow of the
monarchy in 1958, but the installation of an Arab nationalist and socialist
regime—the Baʿth Party—in a bloodless coup 10 years later brought new
stability. With proven oil reserves second in the world only to those of Saudi
Arabia, the regime was able to finance ambitious projects and development
plans throughout the 1970s and to build one of the largest and best-equipped
armed forces in the Arab world. The party’s leadership, however, was quickly
assumed by Saddam Hussein, a flamboyant and ruthless autocrat who led the
country into disastrous military adventures—the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) and
the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). These conflicts left the country isolated from
the international community and financially and socially drained, but—through
unprecedented coercion directed at major sections of the population,
particularly the country’s disfranchised Kurdish minority and the Shīʿite
majority—Saddam himself was able to maintain a firm hold on power into the
21st century. He and his regime were toppled in 2003 during the Iraq War.