What was iraq called

By the time of the mandate, Iraqi nationalism outweighed pro-British feeling. British officials differed over how to deal with the threat.

Nationalist protests increased, and in the summer of , one leader, Imam Shirazi of Karbala, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that British rule violated Islamic law. He called for a jihad, or holy war, against the British—and for once Sunnis, Shiites and rival sheikhdoms united in a common cause. The armed rebellion spread from Karbala and Najaf, in the center, to the south of the country, with uprisings by Kurds in the north as well.

Wilson came down hard, ordering aerial bombardments, the machine-gunning of rebels and the destruction of whole towns. By then, the British press and public had turned against Colonial Office plans to run Iraq. The following year, a conference in Cairo presided over by Winston Churchill, then colonial secretary for Iraq affairs, determined that a constitutional monarchy was the surest path toward a stable, prosperous Iraq. At first glance, Faisal seemed an unlikely choice as ruler.

The year-old prince, son of the Sharif Hussein of Mecca now part of Saudi Arabia , had never set foot in Iraq and spoke an Arabic dialect that was barely intelligible to many of his future subjects.

But Bell and other Arabists in the Colonial Office believed that Faisal, who had fought with Lawrence against the Turks, had the charisma to hold the new country together. Also, he traced his lineage to Muhammad, and to emphasize that claim he set out for his new kingdom from Mecca, birthplace of the Prophet. In a national referendum on his monarchy, Faisal was officially declared to have won 96 percent of the vote, prompting charges that the election was rigged.

During afternoon teas at the palace, she reeled out her vision of a progressive Iraq that could become a beacon for the Middle East. Ruling his subjects—divided by ethnicity, religion and geography—was trouble enough.

Like the Ottomans before them, the British and Faisal, himself a Sunni, found it expedient to favor the more pro-Western Sunni Arabs of Baghdad and the central region, though they accounted for barely 20 percent of the population. More than half of Iraqis were Shiite Arabs, concentrated in the south.

Close to 20 percent were Kurds, living mostly in the north. The remainder included Jews, Assyrians and other minorities. It was left to Faisal to deal with the Iraqi nationalists. And no law could be passed without his assent. But Faisal struggled to balance British and Iraqi demands.

One moment, he was beseeching British officials not to withdraw from Iraq. Days later, he was refusing to suppress anti-British demonstrations in Baghdad and Basra. The most insistent issue that the king faced was a new Anglo-Iraq treaty, which would provide for the maintenance of British military bases, give British officials a veto over legislation and perpetuate British influence over financial and international matters for 20 years. Faisal equivocated.

In private, he assured Bell that he favored the treaty. But in public speeches, he criticized it for stopping short of removing the mandate. But he had demonstrated that the British could not take him for granted. Faisal ruled long enough to see the mandate end, in , when Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations as an independent state.

Faisal died of a heart attack at age 48 in while seeing physicians in Switzerland. Today, scholars debate the extent of British influence on Iraq after the mandate. But Reeva S. It had a press that was open and critical of the British. Personality Quizzes.

Funny Fill-In. Amazing Animals. Weird But True! Party Animals. Try This! Explore More. Schoolchildren play on a playground in Iraq. Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Map created by National Geographic Maps. Watch "Destination World". Now Playing. Up Next. North America. South America. More to explore. Habitats Learn about the different natural environments of plants and animals.

Destination World Our Earth is amazing! From the deserts of Africa to mega cities of Asia, watch as we explore the coolest places and most interesting facts about each of our continents. The Arabs greeted the British offer with indifference at best and not infrequently with active hostility. Maude, in whose name the Sykes proclamation had been issued, was put in the position of preaching self-rule while discouraging its practice.

Having volunteered what sounded like a pledge of independence to an area that had not asked for it, the military and civil authorities of the occupying power then proceeded to withhold it. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the rest of the Arab world, the general uprising that Britain had so long hoped for finally came about--against Britain herself.

Then as now, the Middle East was prey to a host of outside influences. What they missed, Fromkin says, was the central fact that linked myriad otherwise unconnected disturbances: Arab Muslims simply were unwilling to be ruled by this European, Christian, culturally alien power. In no area of the Arab world was the rejection of British rule more violent, more immediate or more widespread than in Mesopotamia.

That decision eventually went in favor of the French, but in compensation, on Aug. Just how well-rooted was this country? It is claimed that long before the current crisis, Saddam Hussein was afraid to leave his country for fear of overthrow. The problem may be in the land as much as in the man. The al-Sabbah ruling family of Kuwait owes its long reign and its borders in good measure to the British, who established a protectorate there in and left only in A colonial history might not seem in itself to raise doubts about legitimacy, but in this regard the Middle East may be different.

In that sense, successors to the Ottoman sultans have not yet been permanently installed, even though between and installing them was what the Allies believed themselves to be doing. In what legitimated the new countries and their leaders in Western eyes was international law, but the Arabs--upon whom these countries and these leaders were imposed--had at the time little reason to regard international law as their law.

Do they yet? Let us suppose for the sake of argument that the current American intervention brings about an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a regime more to our liking in Baghdad.