Mesopotamia and the British (The Literary Digest, 1920)
This is a very interesting report concerning the 1920s British experience in Iraq (Mesopotamia); regardless as to where the reader stands concerning the 2003 Iraq War, you will find a striking similarity in the language used in this piece and the articles printed prior to the U.S. infantry surge of 2008: "Unless there is a complete change of policy, Mesopotamia, which has been the grave of empires, is now likely to be the grave of the Coalition".
| A Cartoon that Lampooned Balfour, Churchill, the Whole Iraq Adventure (Punch, 1922)
A 1920s cartoon from a well-known British humor magazine depicted the doomed British adventure in Iraq as a result of an unbridled lust for oil and nothing else.
| The Growing Popularity of Abd-el-Wahab Throughout Islam (Current Opinion, 1922)
"I predict increasing ferment and unrest throughout all Islam; a continued awakening to self-consciousness; an increasing dislike for Western domination." So wrote Lothrop Stoddard (1883 - 1950), an author who was very much a man of his time and tended to gaze outside the borders of Western Civilization with much the same vision as his contemporary Rudyard Kipling, seeing the majority of the world's inhabitants as "the white man's burden". Yet, for all his misplaced concern on the matter of Anglo-Saxon hegemony, he seemed to recognize the growing discontent in Islam, even if he was some sixty years early. He understood the significance of Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab and unlike most ink-slingers of his day, he understood that the First Word War was the primary turning point in modern history.
|   | Winston Churchill and the Mesopotamia Occupation (The Spectator, 1921)
To say that the British Colonial Office had a difficult time in Iraq would be an understatement, as the THE SPECTATOR made quite clear in this article, with some very harsh words directed at Lord Winston Churchill. Indeed, the author wrote plainly and without deference to rank when he stated that "Mesopotamia should be placed in the same file as Gallipoli, along with all the other various assorted fantasies conceived by his Lordship. Mr. Churchill hopes to avert any fresh rising by setting up an Arab Government. The people are to elect a National Assembly this summer, and the Assembly is to choose a ruler...Mr. Churchill admits that that he does not know whether the people of [Iraq], who are rent with tribal, sectarian, racial, and economic feuds, will choose the Emir Feisul."
Click here to read about Churchill's other folly: the Battle of Gallipoli.
| Britain and the Burden of Iraq (The Literary Digest, 1922)
The attached article from LITERARY DIGEST will give you a good understanding of all that Britain went through in order to govern Iraq in the early Twenties; Britain's treaties with the Turkish and Angoran Governments in regards to the oil-rich region of Mosul, the selection of an Arab King and the suppression of various Iraqi revolts."The Mesopotamian Adventure" required a tremendous amount of treasure and yielded very little excitement for either party:
"At the end of the war we found Iraq upon our hands, and our Government agreed to accept a mandate for the administration for this inhospitable territory."
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