In 1920 the League of Nations granted
Britain a mandate to control Iraq. Britain
provided Iraq with a constitution and arranged for Faisal
ibn Ali, the son of Sharif Husain of Mecca, to become king of
Iraq. The Kurds were unhappy with this arrangement and were involved
in several uprisings against British rule.
The
mandate came to an end in October, 1932 when Iraq entered the League
of Nations as an independent state. However, Britain bound Iraq
closely to the British Empire by a 25
year military alliance. Britain retained military bases in Iraq and
exerted a strong political influence in the country. This included
ensuring that the concession for oil exploration and exploitation
to the Iraq Petroleum Company, a conglomerate of British, French and
United States interests.
During
the 1930s there were seven military coups. These all failed but Faisal
I rule
came to an end when he was killed in a car accident in 1939. He was
now replaced by Faisal II and as he was
only four years old his uncle, Emir Abd al-llah, became regent.
During
the Second World War Arab nationalists established
close links with Germany in an attempt to
gain Iraq independence. Rashid Ali set up a pro-German government
in Baghdad and in May 1941 the British Army
invaded Iraq and remained until October 1947.
The
British continued to give its support to the government of Faisal
II and Nuri es-Said. The Baghdad Pact,
an agreement on collective security between the two countries, was
signed in 1955.
Faisal's
rule was destabilized by the events of the Suez Crisis. On
26th July 1956 Gamal
Abdel Nasser,
the president of Egypt, announced he intended
to nationalize the Suez Canal. The shareowners,
the majority of whom were from Britain
and France,
were promised compensation. Nasser argued that the revenues from the
Suez Canal would help to finance the Aswan Dam.
Anthony
Eden, the British
prime minister, feared that Nasser intended to form an Arab Alliance
that would cut off oil supplies to Europe. On 21st October Guy
Mollet, Anthony
Eden and
David Ben-Gurion met
in secret to discuss the problem. During these talks
it was agreed to make a joint attack on Egypt.
On 29th
October 1956, the Israeli Army, led by General Moshe
Dayan, invaded Egypt.
Two days later British
and French bombed Egyptian airfields. British and French troops landed
at Port Said at the northern end of the Suez Canal on 5th November.
By this time the Israelis had captured the Sinai peninsula.
Although Iraq
was a close ally of Britain, King Faisal, under pressure from his
own population, was forced to give his support to Egypt in the war.
However, he upset Arab nationalists in 1958 when he opposed the plan
to establish the United Arab Republic of Egypt and Syria.
In July 1958,
King Faisal
II and his entire
household were assassinated during a military coup.
Nuri
es-Said
attempted to escape from Baghdad disguised as a woman but he was captured
and executed on 14th July, 1958.
As
a result of the Iraqi Revolution,
the Arab nationalist, Abdul Karim Kassem,
became the country's new leader and in 1959 Iraq withdrew from the
Baghdad Pact.
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