A History of the Middle East (33 page)

The mandated territories, which included the former German colonies in Africa and the Pacific, were at varying stages of political and social development. Since the mandate principle was that they should be brought to independence as soon as was practically possible, they were divided in three classes. The former Turkish vilayets of Mesopotamia (Iraq), Palestine and Syria, were included in class A, for which early independence could be most easily foreseen. The mandates for them were issued to Britain and France only when the Treaty of Lausanne came into force in August 1924, by which time the two Allies had already made various
de facto
arrangements for the establishment of boundaries and forms of administration which the League of Nations was in no position to reverse. Many
faits accomplis
had to be accepted.

The League was supposed to enjoy an unqualified right of supervision, and the mandatary powers were obliged to submit annual reports on the exercise of their trusteeship. In addition the League could receive petitions from inhabitants of the territories and other interested parties. The weakest point in the system lay in the impossibility of independent verification of the mandataries’ reports, which varied in completeness and accuracy.

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RAQ

The new kingdom of Iraq suffered from many problems related to its national unity. The centrifugal forces were powerful. The large
and rebellious Kurdish minority in the north felt that it had been deprived of its hopes of self-determination by the post-war settlement. There were also substantial Turkoman and Christian Assyrian minorities. The Arab population was divided between Sunnis and Shiites, the latter being more numerous but the Sunnis being politically dominant.

However, Iraq was perhaps the most successful of the mandatary regimes. Although King Feisal I had been imposed on the country from outside, he proved to be an effective unifying force. Kurdish and tribal beduin lawlessness was gradually overcome, and the Shiite
mujtahids
or religious authorities (who were mainly Persian) were brought under control. Relations with Persia were not cordial but remained peaceful. The boundary disputes with Ibn Saud, exacerbated by Hashemite–Saudi rivalry, were more bitter, but a measure of reconciliation was achieved through British mediation. The relationship with the former Turkish suzerains was the most difficult. At the 1923 Lausanne Conference, the Turkish Republic demanded the return of most of the vilayet of Mosul, which was widely believed to be rich in oil. After two years of wrangling within the League of Nations, Turkey reluctantly but unequivocally accepted the award of Mosul to Iraq.

Following the defeat of those British officials in the immediate post-war period who favoured Iraq’s incorporation into the British Empire, relatively liberal policies were pursued. The initially extensive powers of British officials were gradually reduced. A constituent assembly was convened in 1924 which, in the following year, approved an Anglo-Iraqi treaty and an Organic Law which made Iraqi ministers responsible to a two-chamber parliament. However, the treaty, which maintained important exclusive British rights in Iraq, was approved only under heavy British pressure against the radical opposition which demanded unfettered independence.

By the late 1920s Britain was prepared to end the mandate, provided British interests could be maintained, but a new treaty was long delayed because of the continued nationalist opposition to any
British tutelage in a concealed form. Some League of Nations members also insisted that Iraq was not yet ready for full independence. (France, in particular, was alarmed by the possible precedent for its own mandates.) Finally, an Anglo-Iraqi treaty was concluded in 1930, providing for a twenty-five year alliance during which the two countries undertook to consult each other in order to harmonize their common interests in matters of foreign policy. Britain would have the use of certain air bases in Iraq and existing means of communications and in return would provide a military mission to help train the Iraqi army.

In 1932 the British mandate formally ended; Iraq became independent and joined the League of Nations under British sponsorship. Only a strong body of Iraqi opinion remained dissatisfied, believing that the country was still under British hegemony. In their view this was aggravated by the power of the Iraq Petroleum Company, which monopolized Iraq’s oil resources. In August 1933, an ominous prelude to independence was the massacre by an army unit of three hundred Assyrian villagers in northern Iraq. The massacre was applauded by most Iraqi opinion and the soldiers were never punished. A large part of the Assyrian community left for Syria.

King Feisal I died suddenly in 1933 and was succeeded by his son Ghazi. Handsome and popular, Ghazi had the reputation of being an Arab nationalist, but he lacked his father’s authority. In 1927 oil had been discovered in commercial quantities near Kirkuk in the north, and production bringing in the first substantial revenues began in 1934. Irrigation, communications and the public services all made progress – the development of the country’s vast potential resources had begun. However, the absence of King Feisal made the development of a viable political system more difficult. The country was served by some able and devoted ministers and officials who survived from the Ottoman period, of whom the most outstanding was Nuri al-Said. But parliamentary democracy failed to take root. No authentic political parties developed. Elections were largely controlled, with conservative, personal and class interests remaining
dominant. A series of incompetent, reactionary and increasingly authoritarian cabinets succeeded each other in office. Politicians had no hesitation in organizing a tribal uprising, which could never be fully controlled, against the government of their rivals in office. The old-style politicians were opposed by an alliance of reformist middle-class intellectuals and young nationalist army officers inspired by the example of Kemal Atatürk. In 1936 these seized power under the leadership of General Bakr Sidqi. The movement ended, ten months later, as it had begun – with assassination and a military coup. It had failed because the reformist elements were soon set aside; the army was divided and the bulk of the population was alienated from the new rulers. But the coup was an event of great significance, because it established a precedent for military coups in the Arab world. Despite its failure, the Iraqi army had gained a new self-assurance and a taste for interference in political life.

The army faction which overthrew Bakr Sidqi remained in power behind the scenes, capable of making or unmaking cabinets. However, in 1938 this group, known as The Seven, was instrumental in bringing a civilian – Nuri al-Said – to power. Pro-British and conservative, Nuri was to dominate the Iraqi state for the next twenty years through his strong personality and political finesse.

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YRIA AND
L
EBANON

Having enlarged Lebanon at Syria’s expense, France based its policy in the two mandates on the strengthening and promotion of the traditionally Francophile Maronite Christian elements as against the Muslim Arab population. In both countries in the early years of the mandates France behaved in the manner of a colonial government backed by superior military power. The press was controlled, and nationalist demonstrations were instantly suppressed.

The terms of the mandates promised a constitution for both countries in three years. But France considered the creation of an independent unitary state in Syria to be a very distant goal. The French army regarded strategic control of the region as essential,
and French politicians were always concerned with the potential effect of concessions on France’s North African possessions.

Some members of the minorities and a small proportion of the Sunni Muslim majority accepted that French rule might bring advantages. But the vast majority, especially the educated élite, demanded immediate independence, and many went further to insist that the independent state should also include Palestine and Transjordan. France, on the other hand, with the unmistakable purpose of dividing Syria in order to rule it more easily, partitioned the country into separate autonomous districts: one in the Alawite (Nusairiyah) mountains in the north-east inhabited mainly by the sub-Shia Alawite sect, one in the Jebal Druze in the south where most of the people were Druze, and one in the rest of Syria with Damascus as the capital. Within the last a special status was given to the district of Alexandretta (now Iskenderun) with its mixed population of Arabs, Turks and Armenians. All three districts had autonomous administrations with French advisers, but there was an overall supervisory administration under the high commissioner for Syria and Lebanon in Beirut.

The fragile framework was soon shaken when in 1925 a revolt in the Jebal Druze, due to local grievances, led to an alliance between the Druze and the nationalists of Damascus, who had begun to organize themselves in the People’s Party.

The Druze warriors penetrated Lebanon and even the suburbs of Damascus, provoking a two-day French bombardment. The rebellion continued sporadically for two years, leaving much bitterness, but the French were constrained to pursue a more conciliatory policy. In 1928 they allowed elections to be held for a Constituent Assembly. These were clearly won by the nationalists, who formed a cabinet. The constitution drafted by the assembly was, as expected, unacceptable to the French because it spoke of the unity of geographical Syria and failed to recognize French control.

In 1930 the French high commissioner unilaterally promulgated a new constitution which made Syria a parliamentary republic with France retaining control over foreign affairs and security. Desultory
and unsuccessful negotiations followed to draw up a Franco-Syrian treaty which would be acceptable to both sides. However, by 1936 a new situation had arisen. A left-wing Popular Front government had come to power in France, and Britain had created precedents by granting independence to Iraq and reaching a treaty agreement with Egypt. Like their Egyptian counterparts, the Syrian nationalists, now organized in a National Bloc coalition, were concerned by the rising tensions in the Mediterranean region created by Italian imperial ambitions.

Negotiations now made progress, and in 1936 a treaty was signed providing for Syrian independence, with Franco-Syrian consultation on foreign policy, French priority in advice and assistance, and the retention by France of two military bases. The Druze and Alawite districts would be incorporated into Syria.

However, although the treaty was ratified by the Syrian parliament, it was never ratified by the French Chamber of Deputies and so remained inoperative. The Popular Front government fell from power and was replaced by a more right-wing cabinet which insisted on keeping control over the Levant states for strategic and economic reasons. There were prospects of the discovery of oil in north-eastern Syria, and Syria and Lebanon lay across the air-routes to the Far East. With the renewed threat of war with Germany, the potential effect of Syrian independence on French North Africa had become even more important – France, with its 40 million population, could hope to balance Germany’s 80 million only by drawing on the manpower of North Africa.

The prospect of war with Germany also led France to conciliate Turkey over the question of the district of Alexandretta, which was claimed by Turkey. In 1937 France gave the district a fully autonomous status, and after a Franco-Turkish commission had ensured a Turkish majority in parliamentary elections (although Arabs and Armenians outnumbered Turks in the population) France agreed to the absorption of the District of Alexandretta into Turkey in June 1939. The district was renamed the Hatay. Turkey in fact remained neutral during the Second World War but at least it did not become
Germany’s ally as in the First. To the present day, official maps of the Syrian Arab Republic show Alexandretta as part of Syria.

By 1939 it had become clear that the French government had no intention of ratifying the Franco-Syrian treaty. On the eve of the Second World War the Syrian president resigned and the constitution was suspended.

France expected Lebanon, with its dominant Francophile majority, to be easier to govern than Syria. However, the creation of
le Grand Liban
, which included many Muslims and non-Maronite Christians, caused the balance of the population to change. Although the Maronites remained the largest single community, their narrow majority in the population was eroding as a result of their lower birth rate and higher tendency to emigrate than other communities. A constitution, which was drafted in Paris with little consultation with the Lebanese, was imposed in 1926. It provided for a bicameral parliament and a president. In an attempt to ease sectarian tensions, the principle was established that seats in parliament and the cabinet should be distributed on the basis of religious affiliation. The president was a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the president of the Chamber of Deputies a Shiite. There would always be a Greek Orthodox and a Druze member in the cabinet. However, the president, who was elected for a six-year term and had the right to choose the prime minister, enjoyed the strongest powers and the Maronites remained politically and socially dominant in the country.

Emotionally, a large part of the Lebanese population both rejected French control and saw themselves as part either of Syria or of a wider Arab nation. The growth of a Lebanese national identity focused on the land within the borders of
le Grand Liban
was fragile and made more difficult by the sectarian basis of the political system, but it would be an error to suppose that such a national identity did not exist. The people of Tripoli, Sidon and the Bekaa were not unanimous in wishing to secede from the Lebanese Republic. The unity of the Lebanese nation could have been greatly strengthened and much more trouble avoided in the future if the Maronites had
agreed to a more equitable sharing of power – by allowing, for example, the presidency to alternate between Christians and Muslims. Nevertheless, the prosperity of Beirut as a centre of trade and services helped towards the growth of a middle class of both Muslims and Christians with some common sense of a national interest which partly transcended sectarian loyalties. A nascent movement for independence, critical of excessive and undiminishing French interference in government, was joined by a number of prominent Maronites. In 1936 the Maronite patriarch published a collection of memoranda voicing these criticisms in detail. In the same year the French government proposed a Franco-Lebanese treaty similar to the one with Syria, but, just as with Syria, although this was promptly ratified by the Lebanese parliament, it was never ratified by the right-wing governments which succeeded the Popular Front in France.