The humiliation of the Arab political class reached its finale in March 1924 when the elected members of Iraq’s constituent assembly were dragged into parliament by armed British guards to ratify the Anglo-Iraq Treaty that established Iraq’s independence, but gave Britain control of its army and its finances.28 A new order had been created in the Middle East, anchored on nominally independent Egypt and Iraq, but in fact based on a wilful disregard for political legitimacy, a lack that in turn rebounded on the moral foundation of the British Empire as a whole.
