The title of king fell to
Faisal II, who was just 3 years old, and his reign began under the regency of his uncle Crown Prince Abdallah.
Faisal II was a regular in Life magazine, which ran a 1942 photo essay showing the seven-year-old king first in shorts on an oversized throne, then on the palace grounds with his German shepherd dog.
A series of military coups (King
Faisal II and Nuri Pasha were both brutally murdered in the 1958 coup) inspired by Nasser, finished off budding Arab democracies and unleashed vicious forces, the offshoots of which still rampage through the region today.
These days Iraq may be nominally socialist but back then it was ruled by King
Faisal II and he took a dim view of lefty radicalism.
The 1995 referendum was the first since the monarchy was overthrown in a July 1958 coup by units of the army, in which King
Faisal II was killed along with the crown prince).
An insightful discussion of the failure of attempts to liberalize Iraqi politics and to establish a functioning electoral system, culminating in the bloody ouster of the Hashemites (led by
Faisal II) and their political supporters by the Iraqi Officers Corps concludes Chapter 4 (pp.
Ghazi was succeeded in 1939 by his son,
Faisal II, then four years old and thus controlled, till his majority, by a regent.
The Hashemite monarchy he established survived until 1958 when soldiers gunned down King
Faisal II and a mob dismembered his Prime Minister's corpse and dragged it through the streets.
Faisal II of Iraq was assassinated on July 14, 1958, and the monarchy in that nation came to an end.
1953 -
Faisal II becomes King of Iraq on his 18th birthday.
1953 -- Iraq's King
Faisal II visited Kuwait for the first time, accompanied by Prince Abdulilah, the Crown Prince, Minister of Defense Nouri Al[euro]oA[degrees]Saeed, in response to an invitation from His Highness the Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al[euro]oA[degrees]Sabah.
Experts from the ministry confirmed that the Iraqi coins date back 1921-1958 under the reigns of Kings Faisal I,
Faisal II and Ghazi, which makes them subject to Iraq's antiquities law.