This study is an assessment of Anglo-Iraqi relations and of Britain’s role in Iraqi affairs during the period of the British occupation and mandate. The eighteen years which are surveyed here are among the most crucial in the country’s recent history, and are of the utmost importance in understanding developments in both pre- and post-revolutionary Iraq.
The book is based primarily on British sources, and much of the more detailed research has been made possible through the use of hitherto unexploited materials now located in the National Archives of India. The papers of the Baghdad High Commission, which were taken to Bombay in 1941 and are now in the National Archives of India, New Delhi, are an invaluable source of information for the day to day working of the mandate as an instrument of government and control within Iraq. Similarly the RAF records in the Air Ministry papers contain a wealth of information on local conditions, and are particularly useful for the study of the changes in rural society and politics brought about by the advent of British rule.
The work has been divided into two sections, the first a chronological account of the eighteen years of the ‘official’ British connection, and the second a series of studies of aspects of policy and administration. Unaccountably, I had missed Briton Cooper Busch’s Britain, India and the Arabs 1914–1921 (University of California Press, 1972) when making my final revision of Chapter 1, but although Professor Busch covers a wider canvas, I do not think that he will disagree with my briefer survey and conclusions. Central political questions, such as the role of oil in Anglo-Iraqi relations, the Mosul frontier question, and the beginnings of the Kurdish problem, are covered in Chapters 2 and 3, while Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the years 1926–1932, with special reference to the question of Iraq’s entry to the League of Nations and the attitudes to this taken by different political groups.
CONTENTS
Notes on Transliteration / vii Abbreviations / viii Foreword by Albert Hourani / ix Preface to the Second Edition / xi Preface to the First Edition / xv Maps / xvii Introduction / 1
1 From the Outbreak of War to the Cairo Conference, 1914–1921 / 8 2 From the Cairo Conference to the Ratification of the Anglo-Iraq Treaty, March 1921 – September 1924 / 42 3 Oil, Boundaries and Insolvency: Political and Economic Problems, 1924–1926 / 65 4 The Years of Frustration, 1926–1929 / 93 5 Prelude to Independence, 1929–1932 / 121 6 Tenurial, Revenue and Tribal Policy / 161 7 Defence and Internal Security: The Role of the Iraq Army and the RAF / 182 8 Educational Policy / 193 9 The Mandate and its Legacy / 210
Appendix I: A Note on Shi‘i Politics / 219 Appendix II: Tenurial and Taxation Arrangements in ‘Amara Liwa Under the Mandate / 233 Notes / 245 Bibliography / 289 Index of Persons and Places / 305 Index of Subjects and Themes / 313
FOREWORD
The British ruled Iraq from the First World War until 1932, and the way in which they ruled was widely regarded as being new. They exercised authority, under mandate from the League of Nations, by means of the RAF, a network of advisers and officials in government departments, and control of the country’s most important economic resource, oil, and they used this authority in order to create an administration and a political order which would in the long run be able to stand by themselves. It was generally thought at the time that the experiment was successful, and by 1930 the British Government believed itself to be in a position to assure its essential interests through a treaty negotiated between equals, and to recommend to the League of Nations that the mandate should be ended and Iraq admitted to membership.
The sense of having done well which was widespread among British officials and politicians was shared by the most influential Arab political writer of the time, George Antonius. In his Arab Awakening published in the 1930s in circumstances which led him to emphasize the contrast between what Britain had done in Iraq and what France had not done in Syria, Antonius wrote in warm terms of the efforts and devotion of ‘an unusually capable and conscientious band of British Officials’ and of Iraq’s good fortune that ‘in many important respects, Great Britain’s interests marched with her own’.
In the post-imperial age, we are perhaps less inclined to believe that there can be a pre-established harmony between the interests of different peoples, or even that it is possible to speak of a whole people as having a single interest. Whether or not we are inclined to make judgements, we at least want explanations of the way in which policies were formed, the means by which they were carried out, and their effects on different sections or strata of society. Dr. Sluglett’s careful study, based on a wide range of unpublished sources, and guided by a historian’s sense of the way in which governments work and societies change, helps us to understand much better than before both the aims and the methods of the British imperial administration. The narrative of political history and the analysis of defence and security policy show clearly that it was not fortune or harmony of interests, but skilful administration, discreet but firm political action, and where necessary the use of the RAF which made it possible for the British to pass responsibility to an indigenous government so soon; and his study of tenurial, fiscal and tribal policy in Chapter 6 and Appendix II disentangles with great skill that combination of misunderstanding of the Ottoman land-system, calculations of interest, and preconceptions about the nature of rural society which led the British to support and strengthen the power of landowners and tribal chiefs.
Albert Hourani
BRITAIN IN IRAQ Contriving King and Country
PETER SLUGLETT
Published in 2007 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com
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