Iraq

D

British Mandate

Early in the war, in order to ensure the interest of the Arabs in a military uprising against the Ottoman Turks, the British government promised a group of Arab leaders that their people would receive independence if a revolt proved successful. In June 1916 an uprising occurred in Al Ḩijāz (the Hejaz), led by Faisal al-Husein, later Faisal I, first king of Iraq. Under the leadership of British general Edmund Allenby and the tactical direction of British colonel T. E. Lawrence (known as Lawrence of Arabia), the Arab and British forces achieved dramatic successes against the Ottoman army and succeeded in liberating much Arabian territory. After signing the armistice with the Ottoman government in 1918, the British and French governments issued a joint declaration stating their intention to assist in establishing independent Arab nations in the Arab areas formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Allies (the coalition of the victorious nations in World War I, including Britain and France) made Iraq (the territory encompassing the three former Ottoman vilayets of Mosul, Baghdād, and Al Başrah) a Class A mandate entrusted to Britain. Under the mandate system, a territory that had formerly been held by Germany or the Ottoman Empire was placed nominally under the supervision of the League of Nations, and the administration of the mandate was delegated to one of the victorious nations until the territory could govern itself. Class A mandates were expected to achieve independence in a few years. In April 1920 the Allied governments confirmed the creation of the British mandate in Iraq at a conference in San Remo, Italy.

In July 1920, when the Iraqi Arabs learned of the decision, they began an armed uprising against the British, then still occupying Iraq. The British were forced to spend huge amounts of money to quell the revolt, which they did through air raids and bombings that left some 9,000 dead. The British government concluded that it would be expedient to give up plans for direct British rule in Mesopotamia. The British civil commissioner, their top administrator in Iraq, thereupon drew up a plan for a provisional government of the new state of Iraq: It was to be a kingdom, with a government directed by a council of Arab ministers under the supervision of a British high commissioner. Faisal was invited to become the ruler of the new state. In August 1921 a plebiscite elected Faisal king of Iraq; he won 96 percent of the votes cast in the election.

The new king had to build a local power base in Iraq. He accomplished this task primarily by winning the support of Iraqi-born military officers who had served in the Ottoman army and of Sunni Arab business and religious leaders in Baghdād, Al Başrah, and Mosul. To win support in the Shia south, in the center north among the Sunni Arab tribes, and among the Kurds, the king with British support gave tribal chieftains wide powers over their tribes, including judicial powers and responsibility for tax collection in their tribal domains. The British retained some control until 1932, and launched large numbers of bombing raids in the 1920s as a way of controlling the tribes.

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The Sunni Arab urban leaders and some Kurdish chieftains came to dominate the government and the army, while the Shia Arab chieftains and, to a lesser extent, the Sunni Arab chieftains came to dominate the parliament, enacting laws that benefited themselves. The lower classes had no say in the affairs of the state. They included poor peasants and, in the towns, a growing layer of Western-educated young men who were economically vulnerable and depended on the government for jobs. This latter group, known as the efendiyya, grew more and more restive. Both the Sunni Arab ruling elite and the efendiyya embraced the ideas of the pan-Arab movement, which sought to join all the Arab lands into one powerful state. Pan-Arabism was seen as a way of uniting most of the diverse Iraqi population through a common Arab identity. The elite advocated achieving pan-Arabism through diplomacy with British consent, while the efendiyya developed a revolutionary and radically anti-British ideology. Pan-Arabism was less popular among the Shia of the south, who favored a distinctly Iraqi nationalism, since they knew they would be a small minority in a pan-Arab federation, whereas they were the majority in Iraq.

E

Independent Kingdom of Iraq

The integrity of the newly established state was challenged by various groups with separatist aspirations, such as the Shias of the Euphrates River area and the Kurdish tribes of the north. These groups acted in conjunction with Turkish armed forces endeavoring to reclaim the lands in the Mosul area for Turkey. The British were thus forced to maintain an army in Iraq, and agitation against the British mandate continued. King Faisal I formally requested that the mandate under which Iraq was held be transformed into a treaty of alliance between the two nations. Although Britain did not end the mandate, in June 1922 a 20-year treaty of alliance and protection between Britain and Iraq was signed. The treaty required that the king heed British advice on all matters affecting British interests and that British officials serve in specific Iraqi government posts. In return, Britain provided military assistance and other aid to Iraq. The British also created an Iraqi national army, which became an indispensable tool of domestic control in the hands of the ruling elite.

In the spring of 1924 a constituent assembly was convened. It passed an organic law establishing the permanent form of the government of Iraq. The king was given great, but not absolute, power. He could dismiss parliament, call for new elections, and appoint the prime minister. Elections for the first Iraqi parliament were held in March 1925. In the same year a concession was granted to an internationally owned oil company to develop the oil reserves of the Baghdād and Mosul regions.

In 1927 Faisal I requested that the British support Iraq’s application for admission to the League of Nations. The British refused to take such action at that time, but in June 1930 a new treaty of alliance between Britain and Iraq included a recommendation by Britain that Iraq be admitted to the League of Nations as a free and independent state in 1932. The recommendation was made that year, and the British mandate was formally terminated. In October 1932 Iraq joined the League of Nations as an independent sovereign state. Faisal I died in 1933 and was succeeded by his son, Ghazi, a radical pan-Arab and anti-British figure.

E

1

Foreign Agreements

In 1931 the exploitation of the oil reserves in Iraq was further advanced by an agreement signed by the Iraqi government and the Iraq Petroleum Company, an internationally owned organization composed of Royal Dutch/Shell, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, French oil companies, and the Standard Oil companies of New York and New Jersey. The agreement granted the Iraq Petroleum Company the sole right to develop the oil fields of the Mosul region, in return for which the company guaranteed to pay the Iraqi government annual royalties. In 1934 the company opened an oil pipeline from Mosul to Tripoli, Lebanon, and a second one to Haifa, in what is now Israel, was completed in 1936.

In 1936 Iraq, under King Ghazi, moved toward a pan-Arab alliance with the other nations of the Arab world. A treaty of nonaggression, reaffirming a fundamental Arab kinship, was signed with the king of Saudi Arabia in the same year. Iraq’s parliament, with an elected lower house, conducted lively debates but lacked much real power.

E

2

Military Coup

Iraq experienced its first military coup d’état in 1936, when the army overthrew the pan-Arab Sunni government. The coup opened the door to future military involvement in Iraqi politics. Its leaders included a Kurdish general and a Shia politician. The moderate coalition government they put in power was accepted by the king and remained in office until 1939. In April 1939 King Ghazi was killed in an automobile accident, leaving his three-year-old son, Faisal II, the titular king under a regency.

E

3

World War II

In accordance with its treaty of alliance with Britain, Iraq broke off diplomatic relations with Germany early in September 1939, at the start of World War II (1939-1945). During the first few months of the war Iraq had a pro-British government under General Nuri as-Said as prime minister. In March 1940, however, Said was replaced by Rashid Ali al-Gailani, a radical nationalist, who embarked at once on a policy of noncooperation with the British. The British pressured the Iraqis to cooperate with them. This pressure precipitated a military revolt on April 30, 1941, and a new pro-German government headed by Gailani was formed.

Alarmed at this development, the British landed troops at Al Başrah. Declaring this action a violation of the treaty between Britain and Iraq, Gailani mobilized the Iraqi army, and war between the two countries began in May. Later that month the government of Iraq conceded defeat. The armistice terms provided for the reestablishment of British control over Iraq’s transport, a provision of the 1930 treaty of alliance. Shortly afterward, a pro-British government headed by Said was formed.

In 1942 Iraq became an important supply center for British and United States forces operating in the Middle East and for the transshipment of arms to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). On January 17, 1943, Iraq declared war on Germany, the first independent Muslim state to do so. Meanwhile, Iraq’s continuing assistance to the Allied war effort made possible a stronger stand by Arab leaders on behalf of a federation of Arab states. After the war ended, Iraq joined with other Arab states in forming the Arab League, a regional association of sovereign states.

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