The End of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the Iraqi state beyond Sykes-Picot Between Imperialism and Revolution (original) (raw)
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By using data from the Records of Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Asia, 1910-1929 and the Iraqi Administration Reports, in regards to the railway and pipeline infrastructure, along with integral secondary source material like Peter Sluglett’s Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country (2007, 2nd ed.), this study addresses the concept of identity among the Sunni Arab elite as well as Kurds within Iraq, who were embedded within this new imperial reality of oil and railways between 1920 and 1929. This study has found that the U.S. had a covert interest in the shaping of the Iraqi nation, while most research has focused on the British imperial agenda concerning railways. Furthermore, the question of Mosul implicated a desire of the British to include the former province in Iraq between the years 1920 to 1926. However, it seems through U.S. correspondence that the potential pipeline within the Mosul region, suggested prior to the settling of the Mosul question between Britain and Turkey that surveying the area was a paramount issue though much of the U.S. correspondence, though British Iraqi Reports cite it rarely. The methodology employed within this research project consists of both the imperialist agenda of Britain and the U.S. embryonic interests in Iraq, while conveying the consciousness of those imperialized and/or colonized. Therefore, this had implicated that there was a vested interest in the creation of Iraq, and more specifically the railways and pipelining were a burgeoning concern for these imperial powers throughout the primary source documentation. This interest in surveying the newly fashioned Iraq led to what one scholar terms as an “emerging fault line” among the ethnically heterogeneous populations throughout the former vilayets, which had not existed prior to the formation of the Iraqi nation.
Iraq Between Occupations: Perspectives from 1920 to the Present
Iraq Between Occupations: Perspectives From 1920 to the Present (Eds. Amatzia Baram, Achim Rohde, Ronen Zeidel (New York: Palgrave Macmilan, 2010), 2010
A fresh look at Iraqi history through the twentieth century until today, this book identifies continuities and breaks in the Iraqi experience. It combines chapters that provide each an expansive bird's-eye view of a key issue spanning a century with chapters that focus on more specific case studies that have been largely overlooked so far but such that are of great significance for Iraq's present and future. Some of the events and developments discussed were enforced from the outside and some grew out of particular and historically changing configurations within Iraqi society, but all are highly relevant to the understanding of contemporary Iraq. Written by leading scholars in the field, the chapters focus on such topics as the changing features of the of Iraqi identity, the rise of Iraqi nationalism alongside competing identities, ethnic and sectarian communalism, the role of women, Iraq's military history, the Iraqi economy, state building after the 2003 invasion, and a comparative discussion of the British and U.S. colonial adventures and the implications of those developments for the future of the country. The volume raises some pertinent questions on the way Iraqi history and present are interpreted and adds knowledge to the existing scholarship.
Iraq, Imperialism and Global Governance ERIC HERRING & GLEN RANGWALA
Third World Quarterly, 2005
The Iraqi state is not representing Iraq in a globalising world: it is representing the globalising world in Iraq. The fact that the USA physically occupied Iraq, installed a government and passed a raft of legislation by decree might suggest almost total US dominance over broader globalising forces and thus that the Iraqi state is almost solely an instrument of US empire. Certainly, Iraq's imperial globalisation from above is not primarily decentred in terms of the actors involved or the interests served: US actors and interests are at the forefront. However, other actors have played a significant role, and the actions of the US agents have tended to favour US political power and the US-based fraction of capital less than the fact of occupation would suggest. Furthermore, this advantage has declined over time. In addition, there is a second force for decentred globalisation in Iraq, namely, globalisation from below by means of the workings of the transborder informal economy. Many but not all of the activities of this informal economy are closely related to the insurgency. The interaction of all these forces is generating sometimes competing and sometimes mutually reinforcing effects, and these effects are highly contingent and continue to be contested. What has been the relationship between the Iraqi state, on the one hand, and globalising processes and actors, on the other, after the dissolution of the US-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the installation by the Coalition of the Iraqi Interim Government on 28 June 2004? Most of the debate has focused on a traditionally liberal theme of the locus of sovereignty, that is, final authority exercised effectively and legally by a discrete state apparatus over a bounded territory and citizenry. From this perspective the debate is over the extent to which the Iraqi state has become sovereign. The first position is that the Iraqi state is now fully sovereign, as it has had sovereignty transferred to it by an external body, and thus the acts of its government are contingent solely upon the decisions of Iraqis. The second position is that Iraq is incompletely but potentially sovereign: the Interim Government remains hemmed in by the restrictions imposed upon it by external powers and by its own limited abilities, both of which are obstacles that can be alleviated through the process of state building and the exclusion Eric Herring is in the
The Political and Administrative Situations in Iraq (1932-1958
Iraq had drawn an important role in the British policy for a long period, especially when their activities reached the gulf countries during the first quarter of the seventeenth century. They realized that their primary needs for raw materials can be obtained in these regions, apart from that Iraq was like a medium for linking Britain to the world economy, for this reason initially Britain spent their efforts for establishing some companies like Mackenzie. In fact these companies tasks were not only business, but they were also busy with political, commercial and social issues. The importance of strategic Iraq for the British traced back to its geographical location that occurs on the gulf territories, which was part of land paths to India that was a British colony, in addition to discovering oil in Abadan. These reasons were influential to urge the British politicians to stress on the importance of Iraq. Since they thought the plains of Mesopotamia were a lively field for the British commercial and political activities, in this regard Lord Curzon expressed the importance of Iraq in 1908. Before the outbreak of the First World War the British planned their military attack on the southern Iraq, and then the Indo-British government created a council 1911 to study the needs and the way of occupying it. The council suggested occupying Faw and Basra. When the First World War broke out and the Ottomans fought alongside the Axis powers against the Allies, and Iraq as part of the Ottoman Empire became the war front line that paved the way for the British to invade Iraq and establish her manda system there. During the I. World War, despite her sound defeat at Kut, the British succeeded in invading Iraq and even after the Mudros Armistice she captured Mosul. Being the mandator, the UK founded a royal regim in Iraq. But political, administrative and economic problems under the UK mandate in Iraq could not end. This period experienced many coups and internal conflicts. This work focuses on administrative and political situations in Iraq from 1932 to 1958.
THROUGHOUT ITS FOUR CENTURIES OF OTTOMAN RULE, Iraq remained a frontier of geographical, tribal, religious, economic and imperial boundaries. Iraq was an outlying region; it had a large Shi[i population; it remained a tribal and economically poor country; as a frontier region, it was vulnerable to invasion and peaceful penetration by foreign powers, Iran and Britain. These characteristics remained constant until the end of the Ottoman rule in Iraq, and they would prove to be significant challenges to the efforts of the Ottoman government to assert its rule over the Iraqi provinces. In the nineteenth century the main agenda of the Ottoman administration of Iraq was socioeconomic development and administrative reform. Implementation of this agenda was hindered by several factors which will be discussed in this chapter. Specifically, the administrative difficulties which became institutionalised at the provincial level because of the bureaucratic regulations and practices of the Tanzimat period will be explored. These regulations and practices led to further structural division among administrative bodies, and faced a precarious balance of local notables and Ottoman officials. Furthermore, tribal rivalries frustrated land and tax reforms initiated by the government , deepening the political and economic power struggle occurring at multiple levels in the Iraqi provinces. Compounding the challenges facing the Ottoman administration of Iraq was its location on the boundary of Shi[i and Sunni sects, as well as its proximity to regional powers: Shi[i Iran, and the British in India and the Gulf (Figure 14.1). These religious and imperial interests transcended Iraq's political border: Shi[i shrines and schools of jurisprudence in Iraqi cities; a growing Shi[i population, which was interpreted as a threat to the Ottoman rule; and British India's financial interference in Shi[i religious sites, as well as British economic and political penetration. These threats to Ottoman administration, thanks to Iraq's status on the frontier of varying local, regional and international interests, presented a significant and complex set of challenges to the Ottoman authorities in Istanbul.