As Colonial Secretary in the 1920s Winston Churchill made a decision regarding the Middle East that was to have calamitous consequences. Scholar and strategic policy consultant, Christopher Catherwood discusses how Churchill created an artificial monarchy of Iraq after the First World War, forcing three radically different peoples to combine under a single ruler. Today's map of the Middle East, the rise of Saddam Hussein and Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003 are the unwitting legacy of a conference led by Churchill in Cairo in 1921. Inducing Arabs under the rule of the Ottoman Turks to rebel against their oppressors - abetted by T. E. Lawrence - the British and French during the First World War convinced the Hashemite clan that they would rule over Syria. In fact, Britain had already promised the territory to the French. Partly to make amends and partly for pragmatic economic reasons, Churchill created a single nation state, Iraq, and made the Hashemite leader Feisel king of a land with which he had no connection. Catherwood dissects Churchill's decision - the results of which continue to cause terrible grief to Iraq's indigenous peoples and anxiety to the rest of the world.
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About the Author
Christopher Catherwood, as constultant to the Blair cabinet's Strategy Unit, worked in the Admiralty building where Churchill was based (1939-40) as First Lord of the Admiralty. He teaches history at the universities of Cambridge and Richmond (Virginia), where he is annual Writer in Residence. His books include Why the Nations Rage: Killing in the Name of God, Britain's Balkan Dilemma in World War II and Christians, Muslims and Islamic Rage.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The most enduring legacy of the First World War was the decision by the victorious Allies to dismember the Ottoman Empire. Stripping the Turks of their domination of the Middle East had a seductive logic to it, particularly for European Powers who wanted to restore their own hold on empire. They posed as liberators, as the guarantors of civilisation and modernism, freeing the Arab peoples from the oppression and darkness represented by a decaying, barbaric Ottoman Empire.
Catherwood here dissects the assumption that the Arabs wanted freedom from Turkey - he argues that most of them remained loyal throughout the war, but that a handful of prominent families saw an opportunity to seize power and secure British and French support for their political coups.
Churchill was colonial secretary in 1921. He assumes direct responsibility for the creation of what would become Iraq - a decision which has returned to haunt British politicians in the 21st century. He was convinced that the Hashemites were popular rulers, and welded together a number of Ottoman provinces to provide them with the kingdom of Iraq. From the start, this was an artificial country, impossible to reconfigure as a nation. It contained too many different peoples with too many different agendas for there ever to be unity or peace here.
Almost immediately, British troops and airmen were dragged into service to try to enforce national unity and prop up the regime and Hashemite dynasty. Catherwood pulls no punches in his denunciation of Churchill's role in this botched piece of colonialism. The incompetence, the lack of information, the misuse of information, and the ego and arrogance of the leading political figures provide a salutary lesson for history ... one which appears to have gone unread.
A fascinating, stimulating, and accessible account (despite the complexity of the subject), and an important corrective to many of the contemporary assumptions about the state of the Middle East.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The most enduring legacy of the First World War was the decision by the victorious Allies to dismember the Ottoman Empire. Stripping the Turks of their domination of the Middle East had a seductive logic to it, particularly for European Powers who wanted to restore their own hold on empire. They posed as liberators, as the guarantors of civilisation and modernism, freeing the Arab peoples from the oppression and darkness represented by a decaying, barbaric Ottoman Empire.
Catherwood here dissects the assumption that the Arabs wanted freedom from Turkey - he argues that most of them remained loyal throughout the war, but that a handful of prominent families saw an opportunity to seize power and secure British and French support for their political coups.
Churchill was colonial secretary in 1921. He assumes direct responsibility for the creation of what would become Iraq - a decision which has returned to haunt British politicians in the 21st century. He was convinced that the Hashemites were popular rulers, and welded together a number of Ottoman provinces to provide them with the kingdom of Iraq. From the start, this was an artificial country, impossible to reconfigure as a nation. It contained too many different peoples with too many different agendas for there ever to be unity or peace here.
Almost immediately, British troops and airmen were dragged into service to try to enforce national unity and prop up the regime and Hashemite dynasty. Catherwood pulls no punches in his denunciation of Churchill's role in this botched piece of colonialism. The incompetence, the lack of information, the misuse of information, and the ego and arrogance of the leading political figures provide a salutary lesson for history ... one which appears to have gone unread.
A fascinating, stimulating, and accessible account (despite the complexity of the subject), and an important corrective to many of the contemporary assumptions about the state of the Middle East.
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