West Asia At War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games

by Talmiz Ahmad

1918, Foreign Secretary Balfour affirmed that Mesopotamia should be under British control; he said, ‘I do not care under what system we keep the oil, but I am quite clear it is all-important for us that this oil should be available.’26 As war ended, British troops in Mesopotamia occupied Mosul after the armistice with Turkey. After heated discussions between the British and French delegations at the Paris Peace Conference, it was finally decided at the San Remo Conference in April 1920 that Mosul would be part of the British Mandate, while France would get 25 per cent of the oil produced in Iraq. Thus, the story of Iraq under the British Mandate runs in two parallel courses: one, political developments within the country; and, two, the complex aspects of Iraq’s oil-related story. Before the enforcement of the Mandate, many Iraqis had believed that they would secure independence. Within British counsels, opinion was divided between those who advocated direct colonial control – as in British India – while others thought a more effective (and less expensive) arrangement would be to have a monarchy in Baghdad, which would avoid direct British confrontation with nationalist forces.