Abdul Rahman Arif
Abdul Rahman Arif became president because his brother's helicopter crashed, and is the only modern Iraqi leader to leave power alive and unharmed. His brother had taken the presidency in 1963 and died in a crash in the south in 1966. The officers chose Abdul Rahman as a compromise, partly because he was seen as mild. He was. He kept the Ba'ath out of government, released political prisoners, and allowed a civilian prime minister to run economic policy for a year. He had been chief of staff of the army, and he inherited one real opportunity. His brother had announced a twelve-point settlement with the Kurds in June 1966, offering recognition of Kurdish nationality, a share of oil revenue and Kurdish-language schooling. Arif kept the ceasefire and did not implement the terms. The army opposed them, he had no faction to overrule it with, and the settlement lapsed into an armed truce that the next government would break. The Six-Day War ended that. Iraq sent troops to Jordan and lost aircraft on the ground, and the defeat discredited every Arab government that had promised otherwise. Iraq broke relations with the United States and Britain and cut oil supplies to them. Arif's position never recovered. He had no party, no faction of his own in the army, and a reputation for decency that was read as weakness. In July 1968 the Ba'ath took the palace with the help of the officers commanding the presidential guard and the military intelligence. Arif was woken, told he was finished, and put on a plane to London. He lived in Istanbul and then quietly in Baghdad, outlasting the men who deposed him and the state they built, and died in Amman in 2007 at ninety-one. The government that removed him held power for thirty-five years.
- Lived: 1916 CE – 2007 CE
- Nationality: Iraqi
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
