In 1920 from July to October, there was a revolt in Iraq, and there are those who try to explain the revolt in terms of notions borrowed from Arab nationalism, as if this was an Arab nationalist revolt. But in fact, it was in the main, a reaction of Shi'i tribe to the new reality in Iraq. The Shi'i tribes rose revolt [SOUND] because of their hostility to the British deeply encourage by the men of religion many of whom were actually Persian in origin with no loyalty either to the state of Iraq nor to Arab nationalism. [SOUND] And as Elie Kedourie, the British-Iraqi historian has put it, in fomenting an anti-British rising in 1920, the Shi'ite divines no doubt hope to gain and establish ascendancy for their community in a country where the Shi'ites were the majority, albeit hitherto a powerless one. It is difficult to say whether the failure of the uprising or the importation of Faisal and his men which followed it was to them more galling. The Hashemites in Baghdad, at all events, spelt renewed Sunni dominance. [SOUND] For them, for the Shi'ites that is, the government in Baghdad that was now imposed upon them, was a creature of the British, and an instrument of Sunni persecution, different from its Ottoman predecessor only in that it was without benefit of long time legitimate possession, and that its rule did not arrive from conquest, but was bestowed upon it by the British. So said Elie Kedourie about Iraq but that was not all. Aside from Shi'ite disapproval of the new order in Iraq, it was the Kurdish problem. The Kurds were now in the uneasy situation of becoming a minority in an Arab-Iraq, whereas under the Ottomans, they had been part of the ruling majority, which was Sunni Muslim just as they were. So the Kurds were these unhappy new members of this Iraqi state in which they were striving for at least autonomy, and if not, even secession from the state altogether. As opposed to the Shi'ites who did not wish to secede. After all, the Shi'ites being the majority wanted to dominate Iraq. Eh, the Kurds were very much prone to secession. [SOUND] But Iraq, despite the Kurdish problem, despite the Shi'ite majority, Iraq was ruled under Sunni Arab predominance for decades. Faisal, the Hashemite prince was installed as the king of Iraq in 1921 with a referendum that was carefully stage managed by the British to produce the desired result of popular Iraqi approval. And the dominate political elite of Hashemite Iraq was strongly Sunni. [SOUND] Between 1921 and 1936, 71% of the ministerial post were held by Sunnis and only 24%, and mostly minor post at that were held by Shi'ites. In 1928, among the ATA deputies elected to the parliament in Iraq, only 26 were Shi'ites. In 1946, only 3 of 80 senior officers of the Iraqi military were Shi'ites and all the rest were Sunnis. The British, however, were relatively liberal when it came to the question of independence. The British understood the revolt of 1920 to be an Arab nationalist revolt, meaning that they must move quickly to according the Iraqis' political independence. And indeed, in the treaty signed in 1922, Britain devolved more responsibilities to the Iraqi government. In a new treaty that was signed in 1930, which further restricted British powers, Iraq became independent. And Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations in 1932 and it was the first Arab state to be a member of the League of Nations. But before his death, Iraq's first ruler, King Faisal, who died in 1933, noted that in Iraq, there is still no Iraqi people. But unimaginable masses of human beings, devoid of any patriotic ideal, imbued with religious traditions and absurdities, connected by no common tie, giving ear to evil, prone to anarchy, and perpetually ready to rise against any government whatsoever. So said, the first king of Iraq about his country. [SOUND] The British historian Elie Kedourie, who we have already mentioned, summarized the history of Iraq as follows. From the very foundation, then, of the Iraqi kingdom, there was this nagging feeling that it was a make-believe kingdom, built on false pretenses, and kept going by British design and for a British purpose. [SOUND] The new Arab states that were created in this fashion had, of course, questionable legitimacy. And as a result, you had a reality where independence movements in countries like Syria, Iraq, and transjordan, were fighting for the independence of states when they did not really believe in the right of these states to actually exist as independent entities, and therefore, the great appeal of Arab unity. And of all sorts of unity schemes such as those of the Hashimites, the Iraqi Hashimites to unite the fertile crescent which was to unite Iraq and Syria with Jordan and with Palestine and Lebanon in one big Arab country. Where at long last the Sunnis would be majority and overcome their problem of the Shi'ite eh, majority in Iraq. Abdullah had his own ideas of Greater Syria, which meant a union between Syria and Lebanon and transjordan and Palestine, which would, of course, have him as the King of Greater Syria sitting in Damascus. And then of course, there were in later years, the Baath party in Syria and the Baath party in Iraq, and Abdel Nasser who emerged as the president of Egypt as we will see later on, who were great supporters of Pan-Arab unity. [SOUND]
