In Iraq, the Hashemite monarchy was very much a British puppet, but even the King balked at the amount of power reserved by the British. It soon became a domestic political imperative for the King to regain some of the powers from the British. Protocols and treaties were negotiated and added in 1923, 1924, 1926 and 1927. However, these did not fully mollify many of the nationalists and tribal leaders who continued to agitate for independence. In 1929, the British finally decided to yield and started a series of negotiations that would leave them with control of foreign policy and 'common interests' and some air bases but to hand most domestic matters to the Hashemite rulers. This treaty was agreed in 1930 and came into effect in 1932 when Iraq was allowed to enter the League of Nations as an independent nation.
When the British occupied Iraq they had ‘promised to create an indigenous Arab government under British “guidance”’ . However, it became clear once their administration had started to gain structure in the country that they were ruling according to the policies and procedures assigned to India. This suggested that the British simply saw the Iraqi’s as ‘other’ and another asset to their empire and failed to pay attention to the specific needs or ambitions of Iraq under their rule. This thoughtlessness shaped the nationalist and anti-colonialist visions of rulers of the Great Arab Revolt. Only after the Revolt of the 1920s did Britain introduce some minor concessions however, in order to keep the peace, they were made out to be a great privilege for the Iraqi’s ‘no one, not even His Majesty’s government, would have thought of giving the Arabs such a free hand as we shall now give them- as a result of the rebellion’. October 1920, Sir Percy Cox ended military rule and set up a constitution in consultation with local elites. This showed the British willing to consult the public, even if it were the higher echelons who were most likely to support the British.
Although technically independent, the Hashemite rulers were as dependent on British expertise and advice as they ever had been. ‘I emphasize, of course, our constant need of the moral support of Great Britain in any political or military emergency’ With British advisers, their children schooled in England, British governors and nannies, the Hashemites remained as puppet leaders who were only allowed to control events in Iraq as long as those events did not encroach on British political or commercial interests. The British were never preparing them to rule independently as when the mandate officially ended in 1932 ‘Iraq’s British-built institutions began, one by one, to collapse’ The amount of dependence on the British was further emphasized by events in 1941, when Iraqi parliamentary leaders refused to back Britain in its war against the Germans. The British landed a force in Iraq and overthrew the elected government and replaced it with a pro-British government and one that was required to declare war on Germany.
The Iraqi army of the 1930s was the most dangerous kind: it was easily the most powerful institution in the country, too strong to be checked by other groups and free from any real constitutional constraints, but it was also too weak to actually defend Iraq from outsiders after the British had left Iraq. As the British-installed King Faisal lay dying in Switzerland in 1933, Iraqi troops massacred Assyrians in northern Iraq and returned to Baghdad as heroes. Army leaders then used their newfound prestige to meddle in the country's politics, backing certain factions in parliament in return for the passage of conscription laws that bolstered the army's strength but turned young Shiite men into a military underclass. By 1936, Iraq's generals had gathered enough power to carry out a military coup, ending constitutional government and setting a precedent that would recur again and again.
Britain’s primary concerns for the control of Iraq were to maintain communications with India and to maintain the flow of oil in the region. As naval power was superseded by aerial power, the importance of Iraq actually increased rather than decreased. Air bases were now required to link Britain to her most important imperial possession; India. It was for this reason that the British so assiduously tried to maintain complete control over the air bases when negotiating for the technical independence of Iraq. In 1941, Faced with the prospect of an Axis stronghold on their line of communication to India, the British were forced to invade Iraq once again. A great deal of money was spent on the armed forces during British occupation, in comparison virtually no money was spent on public works projects such as ‘irrigation schemes and infrastructural development’ . This angered the Iraqi public as it became clear they their resources were being taken advantage of for Britain’s economic gain.
Britain invested a considerable amount of money and expertise in extracting oil from the region. However, its dominant political position also meant that it had extracted highly favorable commercial concessions for these activities. Under their mandate they could ‘severely restrict and safeguard’ this resource which caused great unrest The Turkish (later Iraqi) Petroleum Company earned a great deal of money for the British owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company and also, after a series of protracted renegotiations, for the Iraqi government. The question of who owned the Mosul Oil Fields was seen as one of the most important problems to be settled by the proposed Anglo-Iraqi Treaty.
Britain's withdrawal from Iraq was a swift one. It came with the overthrow of the Hashemite regime that Britain had so assiduously cultivated over the years. The Hashemites had never fully gained legitimacy as rulers in the eyes of the Iraqis. They were regarded as little more than foreign rulers who followed every beck and call of their British masters. The British and the Hashemites were so fully dependent upon one another that they both became even more alienated and distant from the Iraqi people; hatred for one institution translating into hatred for the other. The creation of Israel further inflamed passions and brought the British into even further disrepute. Their all-embracing dependence upon one another meant that with the fall of the Hashemites, British power and influence disappeared abruptly.
In Palestine, intense rivalry and competition between the Jews and Arabs was to afflict the British administration for virtually their entire period of governance. Shepherd puts forward the case that ‘however conscientious their efforts, British officials were ultimately “ploughing sand” in their attempt to develop administrative apparatus able to nurture Arab-Jewish partnership as the foundation for polity’ Unfortunately, the Zionists and the Arabs had mutually exclusive goals. The Zionists wished to create a Jewish homeland in their Holy Land. Or if independence could not yet be granted, for ‘unrestricted Jewish immigration and settlement throughout Palestine’ Whereas the Arabs were equally adamant that they should not lose their autonomy and rights in their own homeland. At this stage, the Arabs still massively formed the majority of the population. But what the Zionists lacked in numbers they more than made up for with political influence in the West and a zeal to succeed that bordered on fanaticism. In this case, unlike the mandate of Iraq it would appear that the British government had made some effort to realize that there needed to be a peaceful solution to the Arab- Jewish conflict however they weren’t yet equipped to deal with this conflict.
The fact that the British mandate included references to the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of a Jewish homeland was a severe blow to the Arabs. Partly to try and mollify this disappointment, the British split the Palestine mandate into two distinct areas, using the Jordan River as a natural boundary. The British claimed that Jewish immigration would be confined to the West of the river. The East of the river, which represented three quarters of the whole mandate area was to be reserved for the Arabs alone. Most Arabs still felt ill at ease with this British plan. They regarded Transjordan as little more than an arid, empty desert. Besides, the principle of any Jewish homeland anywhere in Arab lands was still completely abhorrent to them.
Unlike in Iraq, the British made repeated attempts to include both Arab and Jewish communities in the day to day running of the mandate. Time and time again, Arab intransigence resulted in an absolute refusal to cooperate in any way. Conversely, the Jews were happy to work and cooperate with the authorities and thus gained a legitimacy and administrative experience far and above that which the size of their community merited. The best example of this was the creation of a Jewish agency in 1929. Arabs flatly refused to do the same.
The most important outcome of the Wailing Wall incident was the establishment of the Shaw commission. This commission reported that the Arabs were very concerned about Jewish expansion and that steps should be taken to redress these feelings. The resulting Passfield white paper recommended that Jewish immigration should be stopped and that Jews should not be able to acquire new land. It also suggested a new legislative council which was biased more towards the Arabs. Once again, Arab intransigence failed to take advantage of the situation offered to them. When the Arabs refused to take part in a conference at which Zionists were present, the council lapsed. These are examples of small concessions the British were offering to try and appease the Arabs, although they could be argued as the foundation blocks needed for the peaceful settlement they were seeking however the Arabs were not going to damage their pride over superficial concessions.
The Arabs responded to the commission with yet more riots and violence. The British felt compelled to disband the Arab High Commission and deport its leading members. Meanwhile, they also appointed yet another commission to examine the Peel commission report. The Woodhead report felt that the Peel commission was too generous to the Jews in terms of land to be set aside, but that the principle of partition was still maintained. All be it on a much smaller scale for the Jews. This had the effect of losing the support of the Jews, who thought that it was still inadequate, and yet didn't reconcile the Arabs who were against any partition.
As it happened, international events were eclipsing the luxuries of negotiated settlements in Palestine. The rise of Hitler inevitably cast the Jews into the camp with the British, who were unquestionably the lesser of two evils. The Arabs however, also needed to be coaxed into submissiveness so that the Suez Canal could be maintained in relative tranquility. With this in mind, the British published yet another White paper which was heavily biased in favor of the Arabs. It stated that there would be no partition of Palestine and that Jewish immigration would be limited to 75,000 a year for the next five years and that the Arabs could veto any immigration after that period. Jews had no option but to throw in their lot with the allies and most of them cast aside concerns for their dreams of a homeland in order to concentrate on the destruction of the virulently anti-Semitic German Reich. Arabs were similarly pacified by these concessions to them. Palestine settled down to a relatively quiet time during the Second World War.
Despite the massive upheavals and difficulties between the two competing communities, economically, Palestine was a surprisingly successful colony. In fact, the main reason for success of Palestine was probably a strange combination of the competition between the Arabs and Jews and the synthesis that they also provided for each other. In competitive terms, both communities wanted to prove themselves better and abler than the other. They both realized that economic success for their community would probably be the clinching factor in demonstrating their ability to govern themselves.
As the Second World War came to a close, the Jews felt that it was time to redress the imbalances of the 1939 White Paper. A number of factors contributed to giving them the diplomatic initiative. The first was the fact that so many Jews had fought so loyally with the Allies against the Germans and that the Jewish Agency had done so much to help the Allied war effort within Palestine itself. Another, was the guilt felt by the Allied powers as they uncovered the full extent of German designs against the Jews at concentration camps throughout Central Europe. Britain leapt at the opportunity of off-loading this problem of the mandate to the United Nations to examine the problem whilst they hastily made preparations to withdraw. The British had completed their withdrawal of forces by 1948. Not long after this the Jews were to declare independence to which various surrounding Arab countries responded by invading the new Israel. On 15th May when the British announced their withdrawal from Palestine the Arabs and the Jews were ‘locked in hand-to-hand fighting south of Jerusalem where the Arab public regarded conditions as “tantamount to a state of war”’ . The highly motivated Jews not only withstood the onslaught of the Arabs but actually turned them back and captured many areas that were not designated to them by the United Nations. A new nation had been formed out of the imperial mandate.
The mandate of Palestine, unlike in Iraq wasn’t simply a misjudgment of what was needed by the country and their downfall brought about by concessions that were superficial and came too late to have the desired effect therefore leading to chaos. In Palestine Britain inherited the already tumultuous relationship and had to ‘hold apart two peoples bent on open war’ As a result, Britain never managed to secure a governing structure that would be sustainable and the economic cost of their relationship made it almost impossible for the British to benefit from their rule. Their rule was beneficial in some ways but it was always very apparent that Palestine was being ruled by a foreign power that had little invested interests.
It seems that in both cases, British occupation was not a synthesizing of two cultures but an invasion. The British asserted their way of governance and their culture onto both countries, neglecting what the countries needed from their authority. The British made changes but they were ultimately superficial and reacted the same to both countries despite the public having different reactions to their presence.