Copyright by Shaherzad Rashin Ahmadi 2018
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Copyright by Shaherzad Rashin Ahmadi 2018 The Dissertation Committee for Shaherzad Rashin Ahmadi Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: Living on the Edge: The Iran-Iraq Frontier, 1881-1981 Committee: Kamran S. Aghaie, Supervisor Yoav Di-Capua, Co-Supervisor Benjamin Brower Blake Atwood Omnia El Shakry Living on the Edge: The Iran-Iraq Frontier, 1881-1981 by Shaherzad Rashin Ahmadi Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2018 For my parents Acknowledgements They say it takes a village to raise a child; they also say (well, at least graduate students do) that your dissertation is your baby. So, it’s only natural that it took a village – both in the United States and Iran – to write this dissertation. I begin by thanking my father and his family; if not for them, I would have been unable to access archives, interview veterans, and travel to Khuzistan. I am grateful for their time and interest. Before embarking on my research year, I naively imagined that the archives would somehow present me with an argument – despite clear warnings from my colleagues and professors that this would not be the case. After collecting and examining archival documents, I realized that piecing together a coherent story from my sources would be far more difficult than I anticipated. Without my advisors, Kamran Aghaie and Yoav Di-Capua, I would have been unable to make sense of my sources and, bit by bit, stitch together my argument. I deeply appreciate the time they both invested in my intellectual development. My entire committee has contributed to my professional growth, both as a scholar and as a teacher. Over the years, I worked closely with Blake Atwood, a mentor and friend, who taught me about cinema, Persian, and pedagogy. I have also had the pleasure of working with Benjamin Brower, whose intellectual and professional advice improved this dissertation immeasurably. Finally, I want to thank Omnia El Shakry, whose courses nurtured my interest in academia as an undergraduate student at the University of California, Davis and led me to apply to graduate school. Aside from my esteemed committee and loving family, many others contributed to this dissertation by reading chapters, offering advice, and bearing through the hundred iterations of my arguments. I am especially thankful to Alison Frazier, who led the dissertation colloquium for advanced graduate students in the Department of History, bringing together students from a variety of fields to share their works and offer their v perspectives. The colloquium also provided me with the opportunity to benefit from her discerning scholarly eye. I also leaned on my childhood Persian teachers, the Jorjanis, to decipher difficult-to-read Persian documents. The support Bijan Jorjani, in particular, offered me was invaluable. I am grateful to him and his wife for not only teaching me Persian as a child but also nurturing my interest in Iran and offering me their expertise in the Persian language during my studies. Finally, a special thanks to my colleagues who read my chapters and critically engaged my work, including Laura Fish, Julia Gossard, Chris Rose, Sandy Chang, Etai Eisinger, and Lior Sternfeld. Separately, I would like to thank many of the same people I have already mentioned for offering me incredible emotional support during what became a very trying period of research and writing. First, I would be lost without my parents, who have encouraged me in all of my endeavors, as well as their wonderful and loving partners, Alicia Tuesta and Patrick Durkin. My parents and their partners were not the only ones, however, on the receiving end of frustrated late-night phone calls when I worried that I was not making enough progress. Melody Chi, Defne Gun, Nadya Ahmadi, Kian Ahmadi, Ali Gharakhani, and Daniel Skipp, my dearest friends and family back home in California, were indispensable to me during my time at UT Austin. Marilyn Lehman and Alison Frazier were also kind enough to offer me critical advice on innumerable occasions regarding a variety of subjects, from coursework to teaching. I was also fortunate enough to build a phenomenal support system of friends in Austin, which included Julia Gossard, Laura Fish, Jeffrey Handel, Kevin Baker, Sandy Chang, Chris Rose, Etai Eisinger, Kristie Flannery, Lior Sternfeld, Mohammadreza Shafiei, Mardin Aminpour, Charalampos Minasidis, and Mikiya Koyagi. Although I am sorry to leave Austin soon, I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to study history at the University of Texas and work with my generous and brilliant professors and colleagues. vi Abstract Living on the Edge: The Iran-Iraq Frontier, 1881-1981 Shaherzad Rashin Ahmadi, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2018 Supervisor: Kamran S. Aghaie, Yoav Di-Capua In the late nineteenth-century, burgeoning nation-states began to surveil their inhabitants and incorporated them into the national community as citizens, teachers, soldiers, and civil servants. Enforcing laws in frontiers, however, often proved difficult in the Middle East, as armed tribes exploited their proximity to borders in order to avoid taxes, military conscription, and the pressure to settle. By examining Iranian and Iraqi sources from the nineteenth- to twentieth-century, “Living on the Edge” argues that the inability of officials in the Arabistan-Basra frontier to eliminate smuggling networks, curb migration, and promote national loyalty eventually led to the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). Tehran’s attempt to restrict movement at its southwestern frontier caused locals in Arabistan to regularly interact with civil servants, who often voiced their doubts about their ability to monitor movement and trade. Many local officials, in fact, participated in smuggling networks, argued against surveilling the border, and questioned the national loyalties of border dwellers and immigrants. I reveal that, although state agents were sent to Arabistan to represent Tehran’s interests, border dwellers often evaded laws or assimilated civil servants into local ways of life. Thus, “Living on the Edge” offers the vii dialectic between border dwellers, local officials, and the central government, whose conflicting interests complicated the nation-building project in the Iran-Iraq frontier. I argue that because Tehran and Baghdad failed to eliminate pre-national modes of life in their southern frontier over the course of the twentieth-century, Iraqi nationalists began to doubt the loyalties of border dwellers, who often traded in the black market and migrated when it suited them. Significantly, the Iran-Iraq War offered historically peripheral communities, which had operated in the spheres of influence of two nations, the opportunity to express their state loyalties. This dissertation thus emphasizes the ability of marginalized groups inhabiting the Iran-Iraq frontier to develop a transnational socioeconomic environment that influenced the local application of national policies. viii Table of Contents List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..xi List of Figures…...……………………………………………………………...………..xii Introduction: Living on the Edge………………………………………………………….1 Studying the Frontier……………………………………………………………...7 Transborder Movement…………………………………………………………..19 Methodology and Organization………………………………………………….22 Chapter One: The Arabistan-Basra Frontier, 1881-1925………………………………...29 Perso-Arab Coexistence………………………………………………………….32 Instituting a Modern Border……………………………………………………...41 Transborder Migration…………………………………………………………...53 The Legacy of Sheikh Khaz‘al…………………………………………………..61 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….72 Chapter Two: Settling, Smuggling, and Schooling in the Frontier, 1925-1958…………73 The Illegal Movement of Goods………………………………………………....78 The Illegal Movement of People………………………………………………...90 Education in Arabistan………………………………………………………….101 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...107 Chapter Three: The State Loyalties of Iranian Arab Shi ‘is, 1958-1980……………….109 The Iraqi Republic and Arab Shi‘is ……………………………………………112 Abdol Karim Qasim’s Iraqi Republic…………………………………..113 The Baath Party…………………………………………………………114 ix Arabistan in Iraqi Historiography……………………………………………....117 State Loyalty……………………………………………………………………126 The First Wave of Deportations, 1969-1975…………………………...128 The Second Wave of Deportations, 1980………………………………138 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...154 Chapter Four: The Fight for the Iranian Borderland, 1979-1980………………………157 The Porous Border……………………………………………………………...159 Arab Separatism………………………………………………………………...164 Khalq-e Arab and Its Rivals…………………………………………….167 “Why Do Brothers Kill Each Other in Khuzistan?”……………………………173 Arab and Iranian………………………………………………………………..184 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...188 Conclusion: Edging toward the Center…………………………………………………194 Overview………………………………………………………………………..200 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………205 x List of Tables Table 1: April 1980 deportation list…………………………………………...143 Table 2: February 1981 deportation list……………………………………….149 xi List of Figures Figure 1: Map of the Arabistan-Basra region………………………………….......9 Figure 2: Feast at Diaiji……………………………………………………….......53 Figure 3: Iranian passport issued to a Jewish Syrian in 1930………………….......92 Figure 4: Map of settlement in Iran………………………………………….......134 Figure 5: Ahmad Madani, the Government of Khuzistan……………………….166