Review Charles River Editors, The Mandate for Mesopotamia: The History and Legacy of British Occupation and Iraq’s Independence after World War I, Charles Rivers Editors, 2021

  

The Mandate for Mesopotamia is a short overview of British rule and influence in Iraq after World War I. It covers European imperialism in the Middle East before the Great War up to the 1941 Anglo-Iraq War. The history is generally well done but it missed the opportunity to draw parallels between the British and American occupations of Iraq at the end.

 

The point of the book is to explain how World War I led Great Britain to create Iraq and rule it under a League of Nations Mandate and dominate the country for decades afterwards. The narrative starts with England giving support to Hussein Ibn Ali al-Hashemi the Sharif of Mecca to rise up against the Ottomans during World War I. This led to the Arab Revolt and a promise to create an Arab state. The narrative doesn’t just stick with the British but also notes that the French were involved in the area and together with London agreed to dismantle the Ottoman Empire after the war with the Sykes-Picot Agreement. There’s also a short review of the League of Nations which created the Iraq Mandate that England would rule. This takes up the first half of the book and gives a good overview of the period.

 

The second part of The Mandate for Mesopotamia goes over the Mandate and the eventual independence of Iraq in 1932. The British were concerned with a stable country that would allow it lines of communication to India its most important colony. The Iraqis on the other hand quickly demanded independence. The book tries to say this struggle lasted all the way to World War II when Arab nationalist officers and a prime minister led to a short war with Britain.

 

The main issue with the book is the conclusion. It focuses upon the denial of Kurdish independence as one of the lasting legacies of the creation of Iraq. It could’ve mentioned that there were many similarities between the British and American occupations. That would’ve made it much more relevant to current times.

 

Overall The Mandate for Mesopotamia is a short and sweet review of British influence in Iraq. It is a very quick read with some good information. The failure to capture the full legacy of this period is not something that will detract from the book overall.

 

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