Mandatory Iraq
The Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration, or Mandatory Iraq, was created in 1921, following the 1920 Iraqi Revolution against the proposed British Mandate of Mesopotamia, and enacted via the 1922 Anglo-Iraqi Treaty and a 1924 undertaking by the United Kingdom to the League of Nations to fulfil the role as Mandatory Power.
Faisal ibn Husayn, who had been proclaimed King of Syria by a Syrian National Congress in Damascus in March 1920, was ejected by the French in July of the same year. Faisal was then granted by the British the territory of Iraq, to rule it as a kingdom, with the British Royal Air Force retaining certain military control, but de facto, the territory remained under British administration until 1932.
The civil government of postwar Iraq was headed originally by the High Commissioner, Sir Percy Cox, and his deputy, Colonel Arnold Wilson. British reprisals after the capture and killing of a British officer in Najaf failed to restore order. The British occupiers faced the growing strength of the nationalists, who continued to resist against the British authority. British administration had yet to be established in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Although often thought to have been invented by the British after World War I, Iraq had long existed as a distinct region under the Ottoman Empire, encompassing the provinces of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra and officially referred to as 'the Iraq Region'.
History
Background
Contrary to the common belief that Iraq was invented by the British following World War I, the region had long existed as a coherent administrative entity under the Ottoman Empire. As early as the 16th century, the Baghdad Eyalet encompassed districts such as Kerne in the south, Kasr-ı Şirin in the east, İmadiye and Zâho in the north, and Ane and Deyrü Rahbe in the west, forming a territorial configuration that closely resembles the later borders of Mandatory Iraq. By the 17th century, the territory was reorganized into four Ottoman eyalets, Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, and Shahrizor. By the mid-19th century, Ottoman Iraq was divided into the three vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, which were frequently treated collectively in official Ottoman documents as the Iraq Region.In 1850, a request to establish a provincial council in Shahrizor was denied by the Sublime Porte, which noted that Shahrizor, although a separate province, was considered part of the Iraq Region and could therefore not establish a provincial council before the capital, Baghdad. In 1879, Mosul governor Feyzi Pasha referred to the Mosul Vilayet’s inclusion in the Hıtta-i Irakiyye in a telegram seeking tax relief, indicating the term was used in practice to describe a unified administrative space. This sense of territorial cohesion extended into imperial economic planning: a 1902 Ottoman railway concession contract described the project as intended “for the purpose of increasing the prosperity, development, wealth, and trade of Imperial Anatolia and of Iraq”. The document listed Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra among the Iraqi cities through which the railway would pass, reflecting Iraq's intended integration into the Ottoman imperial economy.
Early unrest
Three important anticolonial secret societies had been formed in Iraq during 1918 and 1919. The League of the Islamic Awakening was organized at Najaf. The Muslim National League was formed with the object of organizing and mobilizing the population for major resistance. In February 1919, in Baghdad, a coalition of Shia merchants, Sunni teachers, and civil servants, Sunni and Shia ulama, and Iraqi officers formed the Guardians of Independence. The Istiqlal had member groups in Karbala, Najaf, Kut, and Hillah.The Grand Mujtahid of Karbala, Imam Shirazi, and his son, Mirza Muhammad Riza, began to organize the insurgent effort. Shirazi then issued a ruling, and he called for a resistance against the British. By July 1920, Mosul was in rebellion against British rule, and the armed resistance moved south down the Euphrates River valley. The southern tribes, who cherished their long-held political autonomy, needed little inducement to join in the fray. They did not cooperate in an organized effort against the British, however, which limited the effect of the revolt.
The Iraqi revolt of 1920 was a watershed event in contemporary Iraqi history. For the first time, Sunnis and Shias, tribes and cities, were brought together in a common effort. In the opinion of Hanna Batatu, author of a seminal work on Iraq, the building of a nation-state in Iraq depended upon two major factors: the integration of Shias and Sunnis into the new body politic and the successful resolution of the age-old conflicts between the tribes and the riverine cities and among the tribes themselves over the food-producing flatlands of the Tigris and the Euphrates. The 1920 rebellion brought these groups together, if only briefly; this constituted an important first step in the long and arduous process of forging a nation-state out of Iraq's conflict-ridden social structure. The Assyrian Levies, a military force under British command, participated in the Kirkuk Massacre of 1924 of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomen.
File:Coronation of Prince Faisal as King of Iraq, 1921.jpg|thumb|Coronation of Faisal as King of Iraq. Faisal seated, to his right are British High commissioner Percy Cox and Lieutenant Kinahan Cornwallis, to his left commander-in-chief of all British troops in the Mesopotamia Commander General Aylmer Haldane.
On 1 October 1922, the Royal Air Force elements stationed in Iraq were reorganized into the RAF Iraq Command, which came about partially as a result of the 1920 revolt. This new command was primarily designed to suppress any threats to the Hashemite monarchy. Air control was considered by the British government as a more cost-effective method of controlling large areas of territory than land forces, an idea that was heavily promoted by RAF officer Hugh Trenchard. During the 1920s and 30s, the RAF Iraq Command participated in the suppression of numerous protests and revolts against the Hashemite monarchy. Historian Elie Kedourie noted that "the North as a whole had to be coerced by the Royal Air Force." When the Kurdish leader Sheikh Mahmud launched an armed rebellion, the British used the newly established Iraqi army to suppress the revolt, but that proved ineffective. The British then resorted to deploying the RAF, which suppressed the revolt. In the same period, rebellions by the Shia in the South were also suppressed by the RAF.
Coronation of Faisal
At the Cairo Conference of March 1921, the British set the parameters for Iraqi political life that were to continue until the 1958 revolution; they chose a Hashemite, Faisal ibn Husayn, son of Sherif Hussein ibn Ali former Sharif of Mecca as Iraq's first King; they established an Iraqi army ; and they proposed a new treaty. To confirm Faisal as Iraq's first monarch, a one-question plebiscite was carefully arranged that had a return of 96 percent in his favor. The British saw in Faisal a leader who possessed sufficient nationalist and Islamic credentials to have broad appeal, but who also was vulnerable enough to remain dependent on their support. Faisal traced his descent from the family of Muhammad. His ancestors held political authority in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina since the 10th century. The British believed these credentials would satisfy traditional Arab standards of political legitimacy; moreover, the British thought Faisal would be accepted by the growing Iraqi nationalist movement because of his role in the 1916 Arab Revolt against the Turks, his achievements as a leader of the Iraq emancipation movement, and his general leadership qualities. Faisal was instated as the Monarch of Iraq after the Naquib of Baghdad was disqualified as being too old and Sayid Talib was deported on trumped up charges by the British. The voting was far from a reflection of the true feelings of the Iraqi people. Nevertheless, Faisal was considered the most effective choice for the throne by the British government.File:Baghdad 1923 Bell Cornwallis Eskell Bourdillon.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.35|A photograph of British and Iraqi dignitaries in Baghdad from 1923 during the era of Mandatory Iraq. From second left to right in the front row, Kinahan Cornwallis, Sassoon Eskell, and Gertrude Bell. Bernard Henry Bourdillon stands directly behind Bell in the second row.
The final major decision taken at the Cairo Conference related to the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1922. Faisal was under pressure from the nationalists and the anti-British mujtahids of Najaf and Karbala to limit both British influence in Iraq and the duration of the treaty. Recognizing that the monarchy depended on British support— and wishing to avoid a repetition of his experience in Syria – Faisal maintained a moderate approach in dealing with the UK. The treaty, which had been originally set as a 20-year engagement but later reduced to four years, was ratified in June 1924; it stated that the king would heed British advice on all matters affecting British interests and on fiscal policy as long as Iraq had a balance of payments deficit with the UK, and that British officials would be appointed to specified posts in 18 departments to act as advisers and inspectors. A subsequent financial agreement, which significantly increased the financial burden on Iraq, required Iraq to pay half the cost of supporting British resident officials, among other expenses. British obligations under the new treaty included providing various kinds of aid, notably military assistance, and proposing Iraq for membership in the League of Nations at the earliest moment. In effect, the treaty ensured that Iraq would remain politically and economically dependent on the UK. While unable to prevent the treaty, Faisal clearly felt that the British had gone back on their promises to him.
The British decision at the Cairo Conference to establish an indigenous Iraqi army was significant. In Iraq, as in most of the developing world, the military establishment has been the best organized institution in an otherwise weak political system. Thus, while Iraq's body politic crumbled under immense political and economic pressure throughout the monarchic period, the military gained increasing power and influence; moreover, because the officers in the new army were by necessity Sunnis who had served under the Ottomans, while the lower ranks were predominantly filled by Shia tribal elements, Sunni dominance in the military was preserved.