Cap. 8 The poisoned well

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the British-backed monarchy that had ruled Iraq since the end of the First World War. When a 5,000-strong force of British and Indian troops landed there in November 1914, the country was under the rule of the Ottoman Turks.

Faisal’s death left a void. He was succeeded by his 21-year-old son Ghazi, who lacked his father’s charm and political skill and surrounded himself with a sycophantic coterie of nationalist army and air-force officers.

India captured Basra-British captured Baghdad

A trio of colonial officials

His deputy, Captain Arnold Wilson (a steeped in the Indian Raj tradition)

Cox’s Oriental Secretary, Gertrude Bell.

Sir Percy Cox (Colonial Office administrator)

Arnold Wilson underestimated the current of nationalism now entering the bloodstream of the Middle East

Resentment of British rule briefly united Sunni and Shi’a, who rallied at mosques to show their opposition to the mandate.

The following month the Shi’a tribes of the south rose up in revolt. Soon much of the country was aflame. Suppressing the revolt, using British planes and reinforcements from India, cost £40 million, with a death toll of some 6,000 Iraqis and 500 British and Indian troops.

In September 1920 Cox returned to take up the post of High Commissioner. His aim, energetically supported by Bell, was to build up, as the cornerstone of their ‘Arab façade’, an Arabian prince called Faisal

After the coronation in August 1921, an Arab government was formed, with two of Faisal’s closest allies, both former officers in the Ottoman army, in key positions: Nuri al-Said as chief of staff of the new Iraqi army and Jafar al-Askari as minister of defence

Faisal was tied to foreigners whose rule was deeply resented, and he had somehow to mould a new nation from the most unpromising materials.

there was fierce debate over a proposed treaty designed to formalise relations between Iraq and Britain. When Faisal was suddenly rushed to hospital with appendicitis, Cox took charge

Wakness

little was achieved in the way of economic and social development. The education system, in particular, remained stunted and the rural areas, where 70 per cent of Iraqis lived, were scarcely touched by modernisation

n the years to come, leading political figures—and here Nuri was the master—were able to fill parliament with their supporters

The Shi’a tribes in the south and the Kurds of the north had little reason to identify with the new state, and their deeply-rooted sense of alienation found expression in periodic revolts

The Anglo-Iraqi treaty of 1930 was only ratified after a prolonged and heated debate. While it offered Iraqis an obvious inducement, the treaty preserved Britain’s interests

In October 1932, the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq duly became the first of the mandated territories to become a sovereign independent state.

Under Ghazi, cabinets came and went with alarming frequency and the military increasingly became the arbiter of Iraq’s political life.

Political movements began to take root. These included a loose coalition of socialists and social democrats known by the name of Al-Ahali (The People).

In April 1939, Ghazi died after crashing his Buick sports car into an electricity pylon

Since the Crown Prince, Faisal II, was only three years old, the country was ruled for the next fifteen years by his uncle, Abdul-Ilah

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Germany’s desire for influence in Iraq acquired new significance.

In 1940 Rashid Ali al-Gailani, an ardent nationalist with pro-German sympathies, became prime minister, with Nuri as his foreign minister. When Italy joined the war on the side of Germany, the cabinet split, with Rashid Ali favouring neutrality and Nuri supporting Britain. In alarm, the British ambassador intervened with Abdul-Ilah to insist that Rashid Ali should go

The British ambassador, Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, invoking the treaty, demanded that British troops be allowed to land in Iraq, which Rashid Ali grudgingly accepted.

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Fall of the Rashid Ali government and the reimposition of British control which was to last five years.

In the 1940s the Iraqi Communist Party became a significant force. This was largely due to the skilful leadership of Yusuf Salman, better known as Comrade Fah

Periods of liberalisation, when opposition parties were able to operate more freely, alternated with periods of repression. in January 1947, that Nuri had Comrade Fahd arrested.

In May 1953 Ghazi’s son, Faisal II, came of age and ascended the throne

Iraqi Jews with the birth of Israel in 1948 enabled their enemies to denounce them as Zionist agents, and the majority left the country

Popular anger. In January of that year, Iraqis took to the streets in a series of demonstrations which became known as the Wathbah.

Once Nasser had become the champion of Arab nationalism, the days of ‘the pasha and the palace’—Nuri and the monarchy—were numbered. The Suez crisis of 1956 marked the beginning of the end of British hegemony in the Middle East

The referendum which claimed that 96 per cent of tragis wanted him to govern them. Wallace Lyon received ‘a top-secret coded telegram instructing to persuade the people to elect Faisal.

Faisal. Born in Mecca in 1883 into the Hashemite family, which claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad. During the First World War, as we have seen, Faisal led the Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Turks. After the war, he was, briefly, king of Syria, until the French rudely ejected him. British saw him as a loyal ally.

Alexa Esther Castillo Alamilla
21 de octubre de 2019