1 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:10,370 Welcome, everyone. It's wonderful that so many people have joined us from near and far. 2 00:00:10,370 --> 00:00:16,010 My name is Dr. Milan Lloyd and I'm an independent historian and media consultant. 3 00:00:16,010 --> 00:00:25,660 I worked with Paul Collins, curator at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, to develop the exhibition, Owning the Past from Mesopotamia to Iraq. 4 00:00:25,660 --> 00:00:35,560 This free exhibition uses the Ashmolean archaeological collection from what was Mesopotamia to explore the relationship between heritage and identity. 5 00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:40,840 It focuses on the creation of Iraq and the role that the British and particularly figures from Oxford itself, 6 00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:49,260 played during the period at the end of the First World War. The exhibition will be on display until the middle of August, and we expect the Ashmolean, 7 00:00:49,260 --> 00:00:54,660 which is currently closed to reopen as the lockdown in the U.K. eases. 8 00:00:54,660 --> 00:01:00,720 In the meantime, an introductory film is being made about the development of the exhibition and in particular, 9 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:10,510 the role played by our two page community ambassadors who are vital in linking us to people from the Middle East diaspora now living in Oxford. 10 00:01:10,510 --> 00:01:17,890 The voices of these local people are central to the exhibition and the exhibition text is presented in Arabic as well as English. 11 00:01:17,890 --> 00:01:25,700 Through art. I'm delighted to introduce today's panel will explore the troubled history of Anglo Iraqi relations. 12 00:01:25,700 --> 00:01:30,920 Starting with Professor Eugene Rogan, who was a key adviser for the exhibition. 13 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:35,630 Professor Rogan is director of the Middle East Centre at, say, Tammany's College, Oxford, 14 00:01:35,630 --> 00:01:42,520 and author of The Fall of the Ottomans, The Great Wall in the Middle East, 1914 to 1920. 15 00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:48,400 Our next speaker is Charles Tripp, professor of politics, with reference to the Middle East and North Africa. 16 00:01:48,400 --> 00:01:55,000 So as part of the University of London, he's author of the very well known history of Iraq. 17 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:59,550 And finally, joining us from the United States is Professor Dina Courey. 18 00:01:59,550 --> 00:02:07,330 She's professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University and author of Iraq in Wartime Soldiering, 19 00:02:07,330 --> 00:02:14,440 Martyrdom and Remembrance. After the three presentations, there will be time for questions and discussion. 20 00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:19,780 But first, Professor Ragan is going to take us back to the start of the century of conflict. 21 00:02:19,780 --> 00:02:24,630 Thank you. Don, we thank you so much for such a warm introduction. 22 00:02:24,630 --> 00:02:29,880 And welcome, everyone. It's a pleasure to have you with us and to celebrate the partnership between the Middle East centre and the 23 00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:37,920 Ashmolean Museum in bringing about this review of a century that has defined Iraqi as much as British history. 24 00:02:37,920 --> 00:02:44,010 On the 5th of November 1914, Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire and the very next day, 25 00:02:44,010 --> 00:02:47,610 British units of the Indian Expeditionary Force entered the shuttle. 26 00:02:47,610 --> 00:02:57,030 A lot of that waterway that separates Iran from Iraq and fired on the Ottoman forts guarding the entrance at the Foul Peninsula. 27 00:02:57,030 --> 00:03:05,040 As far as I know, that was the first hostile action taken by the British military against the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. 28 00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:10,890 Course, it wouldn't prove the last. And it wasn't that the British were already gunning to occupy Iraq. 29 00:03:10,890 --> 00:03:17,630 In fact, their interests at that stage in the war were limited to Abbadon Island, 30 00:03:17,630 --> 00:03:26,430 the terminal of the Iranian oil operation, and the source of refining and storage of of US oil. 31 00:03:26,430 --> 00:03:35,280 So really, the objective was just to secure an essential oil field at the start of a war which was going to be increasingly fed by oil. 32 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:41,610 British forces come under attack and trying to hold Abbadon by the Ottomans and realised to secure their position. 33 00:03:41,610 --> 00:03:45,360 They need to advance into a hinterland that takes some soon to Basra. 34 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:51,790 They occupy the city of Basra as early as the twenty third of November against relatively light autumn in opposition. 35 00:03:51,790 --> 00:03:58,200 And at that point, Sir Percy Cox, a man who'd be very instrumental in Anglo Iraqi relations, 36 00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:08,130 issued a proclamation to the residents of Baghdad in which he promised no remnant of Turkish administration now remains in this region. 37 00:04:08,130 --> 00:04:16,260 In place there of the British flag has been established under which you will enjoy the benefits of liberty and justice, 38 00:04:16,260 --> 00:04:21,150 both in regard to your religious and your secular affairs. 39 00:04:21,150 --> 00:04:24,600 It sounded like imperial conquest, but I assure you at this point, 40 00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:30,940 Britain actually had no territorial interests in Iraq, let alone the Ottoman Empire. 41 00:04:30,940 --> 00:04:38,200 British policy up until this point had always been to preserve the Ottoman Empire as a weak buffer state separating strong powers like Russia, 42 00:04:38,200 --> 00:04:45,710 Germany, as well as keeping French ambitions for territorial expansion of their empire at bay. 43 00:04:45,710 --> 00:04:51,150 So in the course of the First World War, this would be one thing that would change. 44 00:04:51,150 --> 00:04:58,380 It's not until March, April of 1915, that we really get to see how limited Britain's interests were. 45 00:04:58,380 --> 00:05:03,440 We're on the eve of the Dardanelles campaign. The three Entente allies, Russia, 46 00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:09,830 France and Britain meet to agree that territorial carve up of the Ottoman Empire in the event of a 47 00:05:09,830 --> 00:05:15,620 quick and successful campaign to force the Straits and seise the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. 48 00:05:15,620 --> 00:05:18,580 For that reason, it's called the Constantinople agreement. 49 00:05:18,580 --> 00:05:26,330 The Russians were the first out of the blocks and they claimed Constantinople the Straits as their war prises for beating the Ottomans. 50 00:05:26,330 --> 00:05:37,130 The French were no less certain of what they wanted, and they claims to Syria and solicitor still lot ill-Defined territories, but clearly ambitious. 51 00:05:37,130 --> 00:05:43,940 And at that point, Britain said to its allies that they would just reserved the right to claim territory of equal strategic importance, 52 00:05:43,940 --> 00:05:48,870 as when they worked out what would be in the best interests of their British Empire. 53 00:05:48,870 --> 00:05:54,210 Being Britain, they did the next typical thing, which is to convene a commission. 54 00:05:54,210 --> 00:05:59,940 They found a Mandarin Sir Maurice de Bunson charged with the task of finding out what 55 00:05:59,940 --> 00:06:05,300 territories in the Ottoman Empire would actually be to the advantage of the British Empire. 56 00:06:05,300 --> 00:06:08,940 And in the course of the deliberations that a Bunson committee identified the 57 00:06:08,940 --> 00:06:13,260 Persian Gulf region as the area of greatest importance to the British Empire, 58 00:06:13,260 --> 00:06:19,560 given its proximity to India. With British forces already in Basra, 59 00:06:19,560 --> 00:06:28,050 the De Bunson committee argued that it made sense for Basra to be added to what was now a British lake in the Persian Gulf. 60 00:06:28,050 --> 00:06:37,170 The Arab territories from Oman through the crucial states, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, all tied by treaty relations to Britain, 61 00:06:37,170 --> 00:06:42,950 securing, but for now, gave them the head of the Persian Gulf in a way which was strategically valuable to them. 62 00:06:42,950 --> 00:06:51,090 And then the committee went on to reason that you couldn't really hold Basra province against a hostile force in Baghdad, say, Russia or France. 63 00:06:51,090 --> 00:06:59,860 So you wanted plus for reinforced with Baghdad and then to really secure Mesopotamia, you wanted Mosul. 64 00:06:59,860 --> 00:07:09,310 And as they write in the demands and committee report and oil, again, makes it commercially desirable for us to carry our control on to Mosul. 65 00:07:09,310 --> 00:07:16,360 So we have the first articulation and, of course, the 1915 of British territorial interests in Audibert domains. 66 00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:18,690 And the focus, Mesopotamia. 67 00:07:18,690 --> 00:07:26,260 This is reinforced, of course, by the Mesopotamia campaign conducted by the British in Iraq in the course of the First World War. 68 00:07:26,260 --> 00:07:30,100 And the British enjoyed very rapid success at the beginning of the conflict, 69 00:07:30,100 --> 00:07:37,540 moving up the Tigris to occupy Amara by the 3rd of June, 1915 and up the Euphrates to occupy not Syria. 70 00:07:37,540 --> 00:07:42,910 By July of the same year, these swift British victories were brought to a halt. 71 00:07:42,910 --> 00:07:50,290 In November of 1915, when in some ways to compensate for the failings of the Dardanelles, 72 00:07:50,290 --> 00:07:58,810 the British made a bid on Baghdad that was brought to a quick halt in November of 1915 at the Battle of Selman Park. 73 00:07:58,810 --> 00:08:06,670 General Townsend and his army were driven into retreat. They fell back on a then to the river and could Amara, where for one hundred and forty days, 74 00:08:06,670 --> 00:08:15,550 Townshend and his army withstood determined siege from the Ottoman authorities and were ultimately starved and total surrender. 75 00:08:15,550 --> 00:08:23,380 On the 24th of April of nineteen sixteen. At that point, Townshend gave his unconditional surrender. 76 00:08:23,380 --> 00:08:30,790 And over thirteen thousand generals, officers and men of the Anglo Indian Army fell into the hands of the Ottoman forces, 77 00:08:30,790 --> 00:08:37,480 the largest victory the Ottoman Empire enjoyed in the whole of the First World War. 78 00:08:37,480 --> 00:08:46,060 It didn't end for the Ottoman Empire as well as it had in Kuwait, and British forces in Mesopotamia regrouped, 79 00:08:46,060 --> 00:08:53,350 resumed conquest, took Baghdad by the 11th of March 1917 and ultimately to secure Mosul. 80 00:08:53,350 --> 00:08:58,270 The British broke international law by fighting 10 days beyond the signing of their armistice, 81 00:08:58,270 --> 00:09:04,670 with the Ottoman Empire entering the city of Mosul on the 10th of November 1918. 82 00:09:04,670 --> 00:09:10,370 So by the end of World War One, all three provinces of Iraq were under British rule in 1918, 83 00:09:10,370 --> 00:09:16,670 unlike 1914, Britain openly sought add that territory to its imperial possessions. 84 00:09:16,670 --> 00:09:25,040 It had negotiated that outcome with the Sharifs of Mecca and Hussein McMann correspondence and with their allies France in the CITES SpinCo agreement. 85 00:09:25,040 --> 00:09:31,610 But the Iraqis themselves had not been consulted, and they never gave their consent. 86 00:09:31,610 --> 00:09:33,070 Britain and France. 87 00:09:33,070 --> 00:09:41,710 Wilfully misled the Arab peoples about their intentions when in November of 1918, they issued a joint declaration promising and I quote, 88 00:09:41,710 --> 00:09:46,510 the complete and definite emancipation of the peoples so long oppressed by 89 00:09:46,510 --> 00:09:51,850 the Turks and the establishment of national governments and administrations, 90 00:09:51,850 --> 00:09:58,270 deriving their authority from the initiative own free choice of the indigenous populations. 91 00:09:58,270 --> 00:10:05,170 When in April of 1920, the Iraqis learnt that instead of their own government, they would come under British mandate. 92 00:10:05,170 --> 00:10:11,210 They rose in revolt from the end of June to the end of October 1920. 93 00:10:11,210 --> 00:10:16,770 For four months, the Iraqi revolution of 1920 challenged British rule. 94 00:10:16,770 --> 00:10:25,770 Britain responded with great force. They raised their troop numbers from sixty thousand to over 100000 soldiers in Iraq and they deployed 95 00:10:25,770 --> 00:10:32,220 scorched earth tactics that left by British count eight thousand four hundred and fifty Iraqis dead. 96 00:10:32,220 --> 00:10:36,700 Iraqi counts go much higher. But we won't have a more accurate figure. 97 00:10:36,700 --> 00:10:44,350 Bringing to an end the First World War experience at a very inauspicious start to the British mandate for that history. 98 00:10:44,350 --> 00:10:49,540 I will now pass the floor to my colleague, Charles Tripp. Charles, over to you, Eugene. 99 00:10:49,540 --> 00:10:53,950 Thank you very much indeed. And welcome to all of you who tuned in. 100 00:10:53,950 --> 00:11:02,410 I'm going to talk about Iraq under the British mandate and then under the informal British rule until the revolution of 1958. 101 00:11:02,410 --> 00:11:08,770 And I suppose what one wants to bring out is the fact that something that Eugene has already talked about, 102 00:11:08,770 --> 00:11:14,620 which is effectively that the British had a instrumental view of Iraq. 103 00:11:14,620 --> 00:11:20,920 In other words, Iraq was to be a means to an end, and the end was the service of the British Empire. 104 00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:25,180 So for the British in Iraq, there were three priorities. 105 00:11:25,180 --> 00:11:31,750 One was by territory to secure its imperial communications with India and the empire to the east. 106 00:11:31,750 --> 00:11:38,560 The second was the social fabric and state order of Iraq itself to ensure stability in Iraq by whatever means, 107 00:11:38,560 --> 00:11:47,180 giving no opportunity for others to intervene. And thirdly, there were the resources to ensure privileged access to oil. 108 00:11:47,180 --> 00:11:52,760 These three properties you can see throughout the period of 1921 to 1958. 109 00:11:52,760 --> 00:11:59,700 First of all, the fact of the League of Nations granting the mandate of Iraq to Great Britain in 1920, 110 00:11:59,700 --> 00:12:05,210 in 1921, Britain founding the Iraqi state and the Iraqi monarchy, 111 00:12:05,210 --> 00:12:15,580 1927, largely British company, discovering oil in major quantities near Kirkuk and eventually forming the Iraq Petroleum Company, 112 00:12:15,580 --> 00:12:24,770 a British dominated company, in 1929. In 1932, a grant of limited independence to Iraq from Great Britain. 113 00:12:24,770 --> 00:12:28,130 But again, the limitations became apparent in 1941, 114 00:12:28,130 --> 00:12:37,640 when an independent Iraq took a different direction than Britain wanted and Britain reinvaded Iraq and militarily reoccupied the country in 1941. 115 00:12:37,640 --> 00:12:45,410 And even after the Second World War, Britain trying to tie Iraq for several decades to its own particular interests. 116 00:12:45,410 --> 00:12:50,090 In 1948, the British tried to get the Iraqis to sign, which they did sign. 117 00:12:50,090 --> 00:12:57,230 The governments sign the Portsmouth's treaty, which would have tied Iraq to Britain for another 30 years. 118 00:12:57,230 --> 00:13:03,050 There was such a rebellion in Iraq itself, the Westberg, as it's called, that the Iraqi government backed out. 119 00:13:03,050 --> 00:13:13,250 But again, in 1955, Great Britain tying Iraq to its Cold War strategy in the Baghdad pact that was formed in 1955. 120 00:13:13,250 --> 00:13:21,280 So throughout this, there is this clear notion that Iraq should serve a purpose and the purpose should be British. 121 00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:27,790 Often this was dressed up with loftier ideals, not always hypocritical, but always in need of Iraqi allies. 122 00:13:27,790 --> 00:13:33,130 And it had important consequences for Iraq and for the Iraqis and for the kind 123 00:13:33,130 --> 00:13:38,020 of state that emerged not simply as territorial boundaries were defined, 124 00:13:38,020 --> 00:13:43,000 but also the boundaries between the Iraqi state and the Iraqi people in all its diversity. 125 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:47,560 And I would argue this produced a very distinctive kind of state under the mandate, 126 00:13:47,560 --> 00:13:52,000 leaving a legacy that the Iraqis felt long after the British had departed. 127 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:59,340 So there are three aspects of that state that I just want to highlight which will help to make my argument. 128 00:13:59,340 --> 00:14:05,730 The first is the notion of oligarchy, a state ruled UN representation thee through oligarchy rule. 129 00:14:05,730 --> 00:14:11,770 A second, a political economy of that state based upon land ownership first and then on oil. 130 00:14:11,770 --> 00:14:16,000 And thirdly, the politicisation of the Iraqi armed forces. 131 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:20,860 So in the first case, the British, of course, needed to try and make the state work, 132 00:14:20,860 --> 00:14:26,920 which meant, of course, looking for those Iraqis who shared British views of order and power. 133 00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:31,020 And in the early years, this privilege, two kinds of Iraqi, 134 00:14:31,020 --> 00:14:37,900 the first with the ex Ottoman officials drawn mainly from Arabic, Turkish, largely Sunni sections of society. 135 00:14:37,900 --> 00:14:39,730 And the second were the tribal sheiks. 136 00:14:39,730 --> 00:14:46,300 That is the local notables through whom the British Empire had exercised power across its territories, across the world. 137 00:14:46,300 --> 00:14:52,990 And in fact, it got enshrined in Iraq in a particularly notorious measure, the tribal disputes regulation, 138 00:14:52,990 --> 00:15:00,340 which effectively gave the tribal sheiks completely separate jurisdiction until it was ended in the revolution of 1958. 139 00:15:00,340 --> 00:15:09,670 So the state became under British rule or British guidance, a vehicle for power, privilege and wealth of those who were in at the start. 140 00:15:09,670 --> 00:15:13,450 That is the state servants, the army officers, the Hashemite court, 141 00:15:13,450 --> 00:15:21,270 the new men of this new order, as well as the co-opted tribal sheiks both and uncertainty. 142 00:15:21,270 --> 00:15:27,750 But just as it was a vehicle for power, for some, it was also used as a mechanism for excluding others. 143 00:15:27,750 --> 00:15:32,130 Those who did not seem to be trustworthy to the British or to its allies. 144 00:15:32,130 --> 00:15:38,850 First of all, they were the Kurds who were regarded as troublesome, an unruly and difficult to place within a modern state. 145 00:15:38,850 --> 00:15:44,550 And in 1931, 32, on the eve of independence, the British and Noorie side, 146 00:15:44,550 --> 00:15:53,940 the Iraqi prime minister cooked up an outrageous report to the League of Nations claiming that Kurdish rights would be guaranteed after independence, 147 00:15:53,940 --> 00:16:01,040 which, of course, they weren't. The second group that the British tended to and some of its allies tended to look upon with great 148 00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:07,160 suspicion were the Shia community leaders and their clerics who were regarded as far too close to Iran, 149 00:16:07,160 --> 00:16:16,100 obscurantist, fanatical and so on. But equally as became clear during the course of the mandate and after the British were also very wary, 150 00:16:16,100 --> 00:16:21,620 as were their allies of democratic and radical social reformers in Iraq itself. 151 00:16:21,620 --> 00:16:31,490 So there's a very characteristic comment by a British official in the 1920s who says in exasperation this Iraq has become a nation of lawyers. 152 00:16:31,490 --> 00:16:39,080 In other words, what the British really dislike that the Iraqis should stand up for their rights has quite understandably, the Iraqis tended to do so. 153 00:16:39,080 --> 00:16:47,560 In short, if they weren't recognised by the British and their successors as useful for your own state projects, then. 154 00:16:47,560 --> 00:16:52,400 You were marginalised, written out of the dominant narrative of Iraqi state formation. 155 00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:58,670 And, of course, all this was cemented by the emerging political economy of landownership and that eventually of oil that the 156 00:16:58,670 --> 00:17:07,070 British used and their allies used to enshrine and to substantiate that hold over Iraqi society and state. 157 00:17:07,070 --> 00:17:15,230 In Britain, there were different ideas about the ideal patterns of land ownership. Some favoured romanticised sheikhs as great semi-final landlords. 158 00:17:15,230 --> 00:17:19,070 Others favoured small, middling landholding peasantry. 159 00:17:19,070 --> 00:17:23,320 Both systems, in fact, were in place in Iraq in different parts of the country under British rule. 160 00:17:23,320 --> 00:17:31,970 But the balance of power clearly lay with the large landowners. They were seen as protectors of the status quo, a force for stability. 161 00:17:31,970 --> 00:17:32,600 And of course, 162 00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:41,600 it was a way a land became a way of binding these social leaders to the state and giving the state enormous patronage over the countryside. 163 00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:47,720 It produced very notoriously in 1933, the law of the rights and duties of the cultivators. 164 00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:50,630 Rather, euphemism is actually more about the duties of the cultivators. 165 00:17:50,630 --> 00:17:59,000 In other words, it's abrade, the peasants from Amara who lived in virtually serfdom and feudal conditions from even leaving their land, 166 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:05,420 which of course they took no notice of and fled to create the slums in southeastern Baghdad. 167 00:18:05,420 --> 00:18:10,370 When oil came into the equation, particularly after 1945, it was used in much the same way. 168 00:18:10,370 --> 00:18:14,990 Mainly, it prompted the Iraq Petroleum Company, largely British owned company. 169 00:18:14,990 --> 00:18:18,590 But of course, it also benefited the ruling oligarchy of Iraq itself. 170 00:18:18,590 --> 00:18:25,760 And the privileges were passed on to its allies in the name of development, namely through the Iraq Development Board, 171 00:18:25,760 --> 00:18:32,180 which tended to favour those who were in a good position politically with the elite. 172 00:18:32,180 --> 00:18:40,970 But the third and disturbing feature of the state that was emerging was the politicised armed forces of Iraq. 173 00:18:40,970 --> 00:18:44,690 The British decided that the Iraqi armed forces were going to be used to build the 174 00:18:44,690 --> 00:18:48,200 stage and in fact the Iraqi armed forces were the first foundation of the state. 175 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:57,050 They were set up in January 1921, before the monarchy, before the parliament, before virtually all the apparatus of the state itself. 176 00:18:57,050 --> 00:19:02,370 They were used and intended to be used to extend the reach of central government. 177 00:19:02,370 --> 00:19:08,070 To suppress rural revolts, to enforce revenue collection and to disarm the tribes. 178 00:19:08,070 --> 00:19:15,900 When the British initiated the Iraqi army, it commanded something like 20000 rifles. 179 00:19:15,900 --> 00:19:20,790 The Iraqi army itself, there was some like 200000 rifles in the countryside at large. 180 00:19:20,790 --> 00:19:26,540 So you can see the balance of power was in the British food, deeply disturbing. 181 00:19:26,540 --> 00:19:31,100 And of course, the Iraqi army helped to alter that balance of power, helped by the British, 182 00:19:31,100 --> 00:19:35,810 by the Royal Air Force, between central government and provincial Iraq. 183 00:19:35,810 --> 00:19:45,420 Initially, the officers employed in setting up the Iraqi army were those who had been part of the Arab revolt. 184 00:19:45,420 --> 00:19:50,100 Or they were out of work, officers of the old Ottoman army, some of whom had been active in fact, 185 00:19:50,100 --> 00:19:56,610 in the 1920 revolution, but who had since been co-opted into serving the new state. 186 00:19:56,610 --> 00:20:03,000 Inevitably, therefore, it favoured those sections of society from which the Ottoman Empire had drawn its officers, 187 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:08,080 largely provincial Sunnis, that is Arab, Turkish and Kurdish. 188 00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:13,470 The British saw the Iraqi army largely as a small internal police force to 189 00:20:13,470 --> 00:20:18,420 ensure internal order and to build the state not to go on foreign adventures. 190 00:20:18,420 --> 00:20:27,720 And in fact, for the first decade or more, two decades of its existence, it was a purely internal force. 191 00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:36,030 And one can see its gradual politicisation emerging out of this internal role as a policing force. 192 00:20:36,030 --> 00:20:39,240 It became eventually a political actor in its own right. 193 00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:46,080 And you see that in 1931 to thirty three with the suppression of the Kurdish Barazani revolt in 1933, 194 00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:55,430 with the massacre of the Syrians in 1935, with the suppression of the Yazidi revolt and with the tribal revolts of the middle Euphrates. 195 00:20:55,430 --> 00:20:57,270 And in 1936, 196 00:20:57,270 --> 00:21:08,880 the first of six military coup d'etat took place whereby Iraqi army officers determined who should govern from Baghdad till nineteen forty one. 197 00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:13,500 And that's what provoked the British military intervention of that year. 198 00:21:13,500 --> 00:21:22,230 And finally, of course, in 1958, when the military officers overthrew the monarchy and initiated the Iraqi revolution of 1958. 199 00:21:22,230 --> 00:21:31,700 So. I suppose to sum it up, one could argue and I would argue strongly that these are three features of the state, the oligarchy, 200 00:21:31,700 --> 00:21:41,600 the political economy of land and oil, and then the politicised armed forces, which formed a baneful legacy of the British in Iraq. 201 00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:47,180 And in many ways, what the British had built up in Iraq was what I call a dual state. 202 00:21:47,180 --> 00:21:55,760 That is, it set up institutions of the public state, the monarchy, the parliament, the judiciary, the ministries of finance and so forth. 203 00:21:55,760 --> 00:22:01,610 But behind them, it had also set up networks of association, patronage and violence, 204 00:22:01,610 --> 00:22:08,670 what I call a shadow state, which was used by the British and by its allies to retain control. 205 00:22:08,670 --> 00:22:15,550 The legacy of this, I would argue, remained long after the British control or influence had ended in Iraq. 206 00:22:15,550 --> 00:22:22,070 And I I'm happy to hand over to Dina Houri, who takes the story further. 207 00:22:22,070 --> 00:22:30,980 Thank you, Charles. Thank you, Eugene. It's a pleasure to join you at this event that's hosted by the Middle East Centre at St. Anthony's. 208 00:22:30,980 --> 00:22:39,200 I'm tusked today with making some brief comments on the U.S. involvement in the 1991 Gulf War. 209 00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:47,460 The U.N. sanctioned embargo and the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. 210 00:22:47,460 --> 00:22:55,490 It's a tall order to cover this period, particularly because it is still part of our lived experience. 211 00:22:55,490 --> 00:23:06,170 And for the Iraqis amongst our audience. You or your families and your friends have been affected by the wars and have had 212 00:23:06,170 --> 00:23:12,380 endless discussions and have been active in the politics revolving around these wars. 213 00:23:12,380 --> 00:23:16,700 And you've had a very rich experience in the process. 214 00:23:16,700 --> 00:23:25,610 What I'd like to do today is set the special place that these wars against Iraq and I consider the embargo as a war, really, 215 00:23:25,610 --> 00:23:36,350 by other means, have occupied an international order that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. 216 00:23:36,350 --> 00:23:43,820 And the first point I'd like to make is that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 217 00:23:43,820 --> 00:23:50,060 provided the opportunity for the United States to refashion its role in the world. 218 00:23:50,060 --> 00:23:58,300 And what the Bush administration described to define the contours of the new world order. 219 00:23:58,300 --> 00:24:08,650 As the dominant military and economic power, the United States, with its junior allies amongst them, Britain, of course, would lead this order. 220 00:24:08,650 --> 00:24:20,800 It embraced a policy that sought to bring democratic reform and an economic liberalisation of state run economies when it intervene militarily. 221 00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:31,540 It sought to deploy its military power in a manner that avoided the political costs of the loss of life that had happened in the Vietnam War. 222 00:24:31,540 --> 00:24:42,880 It used new military technologies and established strategic military bases in areas that had hitherto been close to Western powers. 223 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:49,000 And Iraq, unfortunately, became the test case for the implementation of these policies. 224 00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:53,650 For over the following twenty five years or so. 225 00:24:53,650 --> 00:24:57,820 So the first is that what is deemed is the second Gulf War. 226 00:24:57,820 --> 00:25:06,700 The 1991 Gulf War was the first war that tested the international system in the post-Cold War era. 227 00:25:06,700 --> 00:25:13,900 And the reaction of the international community to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait was swift. 228 00:25:13,900 --> 00:25:24,610 Seeing the invasion as a threat to its interests in the region and to the global flow of oil, the United States led the international response. 229 00:25:24,610 --> 00:25:40,350 So starting on August 2nd, the day of the invasion and extending until the official start of the war on January 17th, 1991, the U.N. Security Council. 230 00:25:40,350 --> 00:25:45,990 Issued twelve resolutions that set the stage for military action against Iraq 231 00:25:45,990 --> 00:25:51,950 and shape the post-war settlement that was imposed on the defeated regime. 232 00:25:51,950 --> 00:26:00,300 You are perhaps familiar with the story of the war. He had what bears highlighting are issue aspects of the war. 233 00:26:00,300 --> 00:26:07,410 First, the large coalition of states that the United States built included 28 members. 234 00:26:07,410 --> 00:26:11,970 Amongst them, three Arab states, Egypt, Morocco and Syria. 235 00:26:11,970 --> 00:26:21,240 And the major Western European powers. It was clear that the U.S. administration had a vision of a new world order in which it was the 236 00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:28,110 dominant military power that could intervene to rectify a threat to the international order. 237 00:26:28,110 --> 00:26:38,070 But that dominance was to be sanctioned by multilateral agreements and by the international community represented by the United Nations. 238 00:26:38,070 --> 00:26:45,240 And so the 1991 Gulf War was the first such concrete illustration of how this new system would work. 239 00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:54,120 Over the next decade. And the system, of course, evaporated. After September 11 and after the Iraq war. 240 00:26:54,120 --> 00:27:04,530 The 2003 war. Now, the second aspect of the war that those of your of us who watched it happen on television. 241 00:27:04,530 --> 00:27:11,760 I'd like to highlight is the sheer destructiveness of it over a remarkably short period of time. 242 00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:17,670 The war started on January 17th and effectively ended on February 24th. 243 00:27:17,670 --> 00:27:27,840 So despite the deployment of some 400000 troops, the U.S. military command to minimise American troop casualties used airpower, 244 00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:34,080 as the British had done in 1920, to destroy the infrastructure of Iraqi cities. 245 00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:46,240 Visiting fighter, more destruction in a few days than eight years with Iran had caused Iraqis talk about these days in really apocalyptic terms. 246 00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:53,110 The war was also the first war in which American and international viewers were able to view the 247 00:27:53,110 --> 00:28:01,910 bombing and destruction from that home television sets simultaneously as the bombing was taking place. 248 00:28:01,910 --> 00:28:08,980 The only aspects of the destruction that parent blood lessness of it all remains a singular feature of the 249 00:28:08,980 --> 00:28:16,780 new deployment of military technologies that would characterise U.S. military dominance and intervention. 250 00:28:16,780 --> 00:28:24,730 It represented a politically acceptable antidote to the kind of war that the Americans had experienced in Vietnam. 251 00:28:24,730 --> 00:28:33,710 It repaired the American public and its policy establishment for future interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. 252 00:28:33,710 --> 00:28:36,650 The view from Iraq was, of course, quite different. 253 00:28:36,650 --> 00:28:46,160 The destruction caused by the war, the massive rebellion of its population against catastrophic policies of politics, 254 00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:52,220 of the baths, the repression that followed the uprising in the south and north. 255 00:28:52,220 --> 00:28:57,500 The effective loss of sovereignty over its economy and its territory. 256 00:28:57,500 --> 00:29:02,080 All of these were the consequences of the 1991 war. 257 00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:11,160 So the invasion of 2003 destroyed the Iraqi state, but the process had begun actually in the 1990s. 258 00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:20,130 The second point I want to make has to do with the United Nations and particularly that all of the United Nations in the new post-Cold War era, 259 00:29:20,130 --> 00:29:22,110 the 1991 Gulf War, 260 00:29:22,110 --> 00:29:31,650 transformed the nature and role of the United Nations as an international body whose mandate was to mediate conflict through diplomacy, 261 00:29:31,650 --> 00:29:40,870 mitigate the effects of humanitarian crises, and ensure the biological survival of the global population. 262 00:29:40,870 --> 00:29:50,260 Instead, it's sanctioned intent to enforce and manage the most comprehensive embargo ever imposed on one of its members. 263 00:29:50,260 --> 00:29:56,140 Joe Gordon has called the embargo an invisible war against Iraq. 264 00:29:56,140 --> 00:30:02,770 The Security Council, that effective decision making executive body of the United Nations, 265 00:30:02,770 --> 00:30:09,790 came to be dominated in the 1990s by the foreign policy interests of the United States. 266 00:30:09,790 --> 00:30:19,840 In a particularly ironic twist, the various humanitarian agencies within the United Nations found themselves working to mitigate 267 00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:27,240 the catastrophic impact of the decisions about the embargo taken by its Security Council. 268 00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:36,100 And so there are agencies working to mitigate the decisions of the executive body of the United Nation. 269 00:30:36,100 --> 00:30:41,290 And the United Nations policy on Iraq. Particularly on the Iraqi embargo, 270 00:30:41,290 --> 00:30:45,870 rendered utterly bearable damage to the mission and legitimacy of the United 271 00:30:45,870 --> 00:30:52,890 Nations and eroded its role as a legitimate mediator of international conflict. 272 00:30:52,890 --> 00:30:57,660 At least outside the Middle East, because it's stolen in Palestine. 273 00:30:57,660 --> 00:31:06,780 Israel is quite another matter. So the impact of the embargo on Iraqi society is well documented, in a word. 274 00:31:06,780 --> 00:31:13,560 It was devastating. Malnutrition, inflation. Shortage of medical supplies. 275 00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:25,640 Unemployment decline and literacy rate. And a long list of human costs that continue to reverberate in Iraqi society to the present. 276 00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:33,980 I conclude with a final point on the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, the US invasion, 277 00:31:33,980 --> 00:31:44,150 occupation and establishment of a post Baathist Iraq marked the effective application of the U.S. vision for a new world order. 278 00:31:44,150 --> 00:31:52,160 It's dreamscape, if you wish. It also marked the disastrous end of that vision, 279 00:31:52,160 --> 00:32:02,270 the US invasion and occupation brought a specific kind of democracy to Iraq based on the apportionment of office along confessional lines. 280 00:32:02,270 --> 00:32:09,740 The privatisation of the resources of the state and the establishment of a free market. 281 00:32:09,740 --> 00:32:19,100 You are familiars with the results of these policies, sectarian politics, the militarisation of every aspect of life in Iraq, 282 00:32:19,100 --> 00:32:24,140 civil war and ethnic separation, corruption at every level of government. 283 00:32:24,140 --> 00:32:30,440 The rise of ISIS and the erosion of a national narrative that would unify all Iraqis. 284 00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:40,760 Clearly, the neoliberal vision of a democratic and free market system that was imposed by the occupation had been an utter failure, 285 00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:45,560 and the U.S. has washed its hands effectively from the whole project. 286 00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:54,320 And, you know, unlike the [INAUDIBLE] cot report that was issued by the British government in 2016, 287 00:32:54,320 --> 00:33:05,930 that has been really know the assessment or on the impact of the war or any sort of verdict on why what went wrong. 288 00:33:05,930 --> 00:33:10,160 The Iraqis are left to pick up the pieces. 289 00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:19,500 I want to conclude by pointing actually to promising developments that have been taking place in Iraq in the past three or four years. 290 00:33:19,500 --> 00:33:24,090 I think there's a new generation of Iraqis, the children, not of Baccus Tors, 291 00:33:24,090 --> 00:33:34,850 but of the two thousands who are now asking insistently at great cost to themselves for a new politics that moves beyond sectarianism. 292 00:33:34,850 --> 00:33:44,930 They are demanding a responsible state capable of distributing public goods equitably and a nation that is inclusive and democratic. 293 00:33:44,930 --> 00:33:56,060 It's not clear how successful they will be in the short run, but they have at least begun the work of reconstructing, I think, an alternative future. 294 00:33:56,060 --> 00:34:00,750 And I think I'll conclude with that. Dana, thank you so much. 295 00:34:00,750 --> 00:34:10,380 And Charles, again, thank you so much. I feel that the audience has really had the benefit of your scholarship and the years that you have spent 296 00:34:10,380 --> 00:34:17,910 in studying a country that the century of domination has been the subject of tonight's conversation. 297 00:34:17,910 --> 00:34:22,530 I would like to invite our audience to join us with their questions. 298 00:34:22,530 --> 00:34:28,140 If you go to the Q and A bar at the bottom of your screen, you can enter a question. 299 00:34:28,140 --> 00:34:31,980 If you give your name, then I'll assume you want your name read out loud. 300 00:34:31,980 --> 00:34:39,500 If you'd rather ask the question privately, you can just market as anonymous and then we'll respect your adult liberty. 301 00:34:39,500 --> 00:34:47,030 OK, I have a first question here from Mohammed Tofik, Ali, who would like to know if. 302 00:34:47,030 --> 00:34:50,850 Well, you're asking about Iraq, Syria and Yemen. 303 00:34:50,850 --> 00:34:59,650 For the interest of tonight's audience, I might focus the question just on Iraq and say, ah, is the Iraq fragile, failing or a failed state? 304 00:34:59,650 --> 00:35:05,520 So could I put the question after a century of war and domination? 305 00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:14,580 Dana Charles, would you agree with the claim that Iraq is on its path to becoming either a fragile or a failed state? 306 00:35:14,580 --> 00:35:19,470 Why don't we start with Charles? I'm happy to go after Charles. 307 00:35:19,470 --> 00:35:20,520 Thank you, Dana. 308 00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:29,610 Well, briefly, all states are fragile and clearly many of the things that Dana was talking about increased the fragility of the Iraqi state. 309 00:35:29,610 --> 00:35:36,870 But, of course, all states are also resilient in the sense that what is emerging and what emerged from what seemed to be chaos, 310 00:35:36,870 --> 00:35:47,460 civil war is a pattern of order and a pattern of privilege and sometimes a ruthlessly directed set of power relations, 311 00:35:47,460 --> 00:35:55,680 which is reconstructing the Iraqi state, reconstructing it in a way that some clearly and the younger generation find deeply troubling. 312 00:35:55,680 --> 00:36:00,750 But for others, there's been a very wealth bestowing possibility. 313 00:36:00,750 --> 00:36:04,350 So I think one has to be wary about the notion of failed states. 314 00:36:04,350 --> 00:36:10,620 I do not agree with that idea. I think that states transform themselves and are transformed. 315 00:36:10,620 --> 00:36:17,760 And what you've seen in Iraq certainly over the last few years has been the transformation of the Iraqi state. 316 00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:25,410 But it remains fragile. But more importantly, much of its population, their condition remains fragile as well. 317 00:36:25,410 --> 00:36:33,780 I think I would echo Charles caution against talking about failed states or failing states, 318 00:36:33,780 --> 00:36:41,640 because the assumption is that there's an ideal state and somehow states fail that ideal. 319 00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:51,930 My understanding of what's happening in Iraq, what has been happening over the 90s and in the post post invasion is the there 320 00:36:51,930 --> 00:37:02,790 is a fragmentation of a unified and centralised state that it has become a DE. 321 00:37:02,790 --> 00:37:12,000 What stands for the state has become a contested terrain between different forces within Iraqi society. 322 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:27,600 But it functions differently than it used to function in under, let's say, the in the 1970s, over or in the 1980s. 323 00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:33,270 Certainly the institutions of the Iraqi state are transforming themselves. 324 00:37:33,270 --> 00:37:40,260 But it's still a state. And so what emerges out of this is going to be interesting. 325 00:37:40,260 --> 00:37:45,570 I mean, there are going to be winners and losers, as always and in such conflicts. 326 00:37:45,570 --> 00:37:51,750 But what I'm finding quite interesting in particularly in these uprisings and these 327 00:37:51,750 --> 00:37:59,070 protests that are taking place in Iraq and they're taking place in primarily Shiite areas, 328 00:37:59,070 --> 00:38:07,680 is there is a the conception of state that is being called for conflates state 329 00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:13,350 with nation is something that Iraqis have been dealing with for some time. 330 00:38:13,350 --> 00:38:20,940 But there is no clear definition of what the state that there are that these protests are asking for. 331 00:38:20,940 --> 00:38:29,640 These protesters are asking for I think it remains to be worked out between the different parties at the present. 332 00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:35,940 Thank you both very much. Let's move on, we have a question from an anonymous participant who wants to know if there's any evidence on 333 00:38:35,940 --> 00:38:43,270 the potential impact of highly publicised Western bombing atrocities during the 1991 war, 334 00:38:43,270 --> 00:38:49,560 fuelling the rise in support for Islamic extremism in Iraq or further afield? 335 00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:58,190 I think on this one. I'm going to start with you, Dina, and then Charles, feel free to add in response if you would like to weigh in. 336 00:38:58,190 --> 00:39:04,820 Eugene, could you repeat the question, because, you know, I just want to make sure I get the question. 337 00:39:04,820 --> 00:39:14,930 Yeah. The question really is asking about evidence that there is any link between the bombing atrocities during the 1991 war. 338 00:39:14,930 --> 00:39:16,940 So the way in which the war was conducted. 339 00:39:16,940 --> 00:39:26,810 Ninety one in terms of the violence used Motlop pass or what not fuelling the rise in support for Islamic extremist terror groups. 340 00:39:26,810 --> 00:39:37,340 I mean, you could say more generally the way the war was conducted. Ninety one perhaps provoking terrorists responses. 341 00:39:37,340 --> 00:39:52,900 I actually I think it's certainly the bombings in there and the conduct of the war in 1991 led to radicalisation of various Islamist groups. 342 00:39:52,900 --> 00:40:01,090 And for the you know, the conflation of anti imperialism with Islamic radicalism, 343 00:40:01,090 --> 00:40:07,620 i.e., Islamic radicalism, develops as a discourse of empty imperialism. 344 00:40:07,620 --> 00:40:18,420 And I can't actually perhaps Charles can speak to this with more authority, because I find that within Iraq itself, 345 00:40:18,420 --> 00:40:27,300 these bombings actually led to internal policies of Islamization by the regime itself. 346 00:40:27,300 --> 00:40:36,990 But also the the emergence of radicalism within Sheeley politics that were not actually tied with the bombings themselves, 347 00:40:36,990 --> 00:40:42,370 but tied to the suppression of the intifada 1991. 348 00:40:42,370 --> 00:40:47,560 I'm going to pause it there, Charles, and actually go on to another question, if I may, because I've got one that's right up your alley. 349 00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:53,290 This is from Nicola Byrd. Charles, do you have ideas on how institutions such as schools, 350 00:40:53,290 --> 00:41:01,670 museums and public spaces can better represent a more realistic history of Iraqi people and their experiences due to imperialism, 351 00:41:01,670 --> 00:41:07,540 rather than continue to present and engage people with one that reinforces the imperialistic ideology? 352 00:41:07,540 --> 00:41:17,380 She's interested in how we engage the public with yours and Dina's knowledge and Iraqi experience. 353 00:41:17,380 --> 00:41:22,690 I tread carefully here because I haven't actually seen the exhibition at the Ashmolean, so I don't know how they present it. 354 00:41:22,690 --> 00:41:32,510 But I think in general terms, it's putting the experience of other places, cultures and peoples in a context. 355 00:41:32,510 --> 00:41:38,110 And the context is not simply about artefacts, but is about the context of power itself. 356 00:41:38,110 --> 00:41:43,000 How did the artefacts get there? Who discovered them? Who rediscovered them? 357 00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:45,460 Who interpreted them? Who expropriated them? 358 00:41:45,460 --> 00:41:55,030 So I think it's the it's always important to present that within a properly political context and historical political context. 359 00:41:55,030 --> 00:41:59,320 So I think some institutions are better at doing that than others. 360 00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:06,550 And certainly one might argue that in the last 10 or 15 years, the awareness of the need to do that has been far more sharp. 361 00:42:06,550 --> 00:42:10,420 And I think well taken in many institutions in this country and elsewhere. 362 00:42:10,420 --> 00:42:14,680 So I think that it's certainly an important part of the story. 363 00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:23,320 You don't just present things as if they were miraculously arrived without human agency by explaining human agency. 364 00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:32,950 You explain how they got there and who did it, but also where they came from and what they meant to the communities in the country itself. 365 00:42:32,950 --> 00:42:39,500 You know, I've got the next question for you. This is coming from Dr. Phil Cheney and Western Sydney University. 366 00:42:39,500 --> 00:42:47,780 He wants to know, can Britain do anything about Iraq without the consent of the United States of America? 367 00:42:47,780 --> 00:42:57,440 That's a good question to ask. My, my, my, my response would be exactly the. 368 00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:08,840 It depends what that anything is. If the question is a question of military action, I think neither British the British government, 369 00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:13,790 as I'm assuming the British government is not interested in anything of that sort. 370 00:43:13,790 --> 00:43:26,920 But in terms of other forms of relationship, whether we're talking about trade relations, sort of aid or any other or culture, this this it can do. 371 00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:33,560 I think he is doing. So that's, I think, my answer to you, too. 372 00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:35,510 But it's certainly military action. 373 00:43:35,510 --> 00:43:44,980 I don't think the British government is interested in it at the moment or could have done anything without Dalkey of the U.S. government. 374 00:43:44,980 --> 00:43:52,460 And here, I'd like to follow up with a question from ominous and full. And this I'd like to put to Charles first and then Dina, weigh in after. 375 00:43:52,460 --> 00:43:59,420 Really, what emerges from our discussions today is about the will to dominate Iraq, British and American. 376 00:43:59,420 --> 00:44:06,320 So what is the tone? Asks Could the lecturers give us a brief comparison between British and American policy in Iraq? 377 00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:11,150 And who wants to build a real state who really is a four state building, or is it all about domination? 378 00:44:11,150 --> 00:44:15,540 Charles, take a first stab at that one and then I'll come back to you, Diana. 379 00:44:15,540 --> 00:44:19,500 Well, certainly in the period that I was talking about under the mandate and beyond. 380 00:44:19,500 --> 00:44:23,100 But one could argue more recently, the two projects are connected. 381 00:44:23,100 --> 00:44:30,150 But the British certainly believe that the state was the best way of securing their interests, 382 00:44:30,150 --> 00:44:35,220 a state that was friendly, allied and producing the kinds of things that they wanted it to do. 383 00:44:35,220 --> 00:44:38,520 So I think the two projects are not separate. 384 00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:47,970 There is a sense in which the domination was be through a recognised form of institution, which was the state form in building the state. 385 00:44:47,970 --> 00:44:56,010 As I argued, they built all kinds of aspects into it, which were to have some pretty dire consequences for the Iraqis themselves. 386 00:44:56,010 --> 00:45:04,230 But by then, the British had left. And that clearly there's a similar parallel with what happened after 2003. 387 00:45:04,230 --> 00:45:10,220 Dana, I would actually say that since the you know, 388 00:45:10,220 --> 00:45:17,340 the create in the expansion of empires in the late 19th and early 20th century and certainly with the League of Nations, 389 00:45:17,340 --> 00:45:23,790 the question of occupation was always built around the concept of state building as well. 390 00:45:23,790 --> 00:45:29,370 So as Charles has said, they're feeling inseparable in the American case. 391 00:45:29,370 --> 00:45:39,390 What was very distinctive about the American attempt to build a state in Iraq was the newness of the enterprise for them, i.e., 392 00:45:39,390 --> 00:45:50,430 they did not come to the enterprise with the the long imperial experience of Britain in building states of a certain kind. 393 00:45:50,430 --> 00:45:56,550 And so they came to a head, at least in in 2003. 394 00:45:56,550 --> 00:46:08,820 First of all, from a totally ideological perspective, based on the idea of American exceptionalism, i.e. this is an American vision here. 395 00:46:08,820 --> 00:46:17,040 It is a good vision. It is for the dead and best of luck and interest of Iraqis and so on. 396 00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:29,160 So in part is packed. The ideological bases undergirding the state building enterprise in Iraq came out of less experience, 397 00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:40,110 but a real ideological belief in the exceptional abilities of the state and the vision of the United States. 398 00:46:40,110 --> 00:46:45,750 Thank you, Dana. Thank you very much. I'm going to combine two questions here because they are touching on similar points. 399 00:46:45,750 --> 00:46:52,050 So the higher left wants to bring us up to current affairs and wants to know if there's any political, 400 00:46:52,050 --> 00:46:58,740 diplomatic way to give assistance to the young people protesting against corruption and armed groups as they're 401 00:46:58,740 --> 00:47:03,370 being targeted by different armed groups on a daily basis in front of the British and American embassy. 402 00:47:03,370 --> 00:47:11,460 So I guess by extension, is there anything Britain or America could be doing to assist demonstrators in their legitimate demands? 403 00:47:11,460 --> 00:47:18,420 And Elaine Giles on top of that, wants to know what would it take to rebuild trust between Iraq and the U.K.? 404 00:47:18,420 --> 00:47:24,790 And perhaps there's a link between those two. So, Charles, if you get us started there. 405 00:47:24,790 --> 00:47:29,310 Well, rather disappointing reply to the first part, which is not a lot. 406 00:47:29,310 --> 00:47:39,570 In other words, that the kind of state that has allowed the emergence of the have to chabi the popular mobilisation forces to become 407 00:47:39,570 --> 00:47:47,190 effectively instruments of those in power is the kind of state that the British and the Americans helped to establish in 2003. 408 00:47:47,190 --> 00:47:51,510 And for the British or the Americans now to say, no, no, we don't want that kind of state. 409 00:47:51,510 --> 00:47:56,280 We want another time state altogether. There's no way they have no purchase. 410 00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:01,080 There are too many now entrenched interests to prevent that from happening. And so, unfortunately, 411 00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:10,160 the young people that very bravely protesting and who are being attacked often by the very instruments of that state are helpless, 412 00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:16,980 as in in terms of what the British can do. The British can wring their hands, but I don't think they can provide much material assistance. 413 00:48:16,980 --> 00:48:21,870 And ironically, they might even have a word or two with the prime minister of Iraq. 414 00:48:21,870 --> 00:48:27,270 But he himself gets very fed up with the power of some of these organisations. 415 00:48:27,270 --> 00:48:32,700 But, of course, is unable to even if I'm willing to suppress them. 416 00:48:32,700 --> 00:48:37,440 So he might agree with the British or the Americans that, yes, yes, it's terrible that the force is being used, 417 00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:40,530 but frankly, they have very little power to do anything about them. 418 00:48:40,530 --> 00:48:51,990 So you could argue that as with the state set up under the mandate, the unforeseen consequences of that live with the Iraqis for a long time to come. 419 00:48:51,990 --> 00:48:58,140 So, sadly, the state set up in 2003 with exactly the point that Dana was making before, 420 00:48:58,140 --> 00:49:09,570 with very little sense of the texture and the dynamics of Iraqi society itself, has created its own dynamics and its own interests and its own logic. 421 00:49:09,570 --> 00:49:14,760 And that is now playing out quite violently in many parts of Iraq. 422 00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:23,740 Dina, any reflections? The only thing I would add to this is that the United States government could exert pressure. 423 00:49:23,740 --> 00:49:34,780 But the ultimate interests of the government are jets' geo strategic and and not human rights interests. 424 00:49:34,780 --> 00:49:39,910 You know, and I think it's it can do very little beyond, you know, 425 00:49:39,910 --> 00:49:53,900 tell the Iraqi government that they should cut down on this kind of suppression of the protests, given its larger interests in Iraq, in the region. 426 00:49:53,900 --> 00:50:00,310 Charles, here's a question for you. Adrian Petch notes that he was at school with King Faysal. 427 00:50:00,310 --> 00:50:04,150 And asked if he'd been tougher like his cousin Hussein of Jordan, would things have been different? 428 00:50:04,150 --> 00:50:09,510 Did the monarchy have any influence at all? Over to you, Charles. 429 00:50:09,510 --> 00:50:16,990 Yes, it has often been portrayed as rather a tragic figure, which in many ways he was, because by the time he became king, he became king officially. 430 00:50:16,990 --> 00:50:21,670 But by the time he reached his majority, the path of Iraqi politics was already set. 431 00:50:21,670 --> 00:50:33,040 And there was no way in which he could control it. So sadly, although he was respected and in many ways, as I understand it, very much liked figure, 432 00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:41,830 he had far more ruthless members of his family and of the Iraqi political elite who had already pursued their own course. 433 00:50:41,830 --> 00:50:50,950 And that course was what played itself out to 1950s with the suppression of protests, with the hanging of communists, 434 00:50:50,950 --> 00:50:56,330 with the destruction of the Iraqi trade unions, with the politicisation of the armed forces. 435 00:50:56,330 --> 00:51:00,850 However, none of this could the young King Faisal have any control at all. 436 00:51:00,850 --> 00:51:06,490 So he was, in a sense, a tragic figure, a figure who may have had personal qualities, 437 00:51:06,490 --> 00:51:14,280 but was put in a position where he was effectively doomed by those who had built the state around him. 438 00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:18,980 You know, I've got two questions that I'm going to combine for you. The first is from Frank Darmanin, 439 00:51:18,980 --> 00:51:27,430 who wants to know how the Americans managed to invade Iraq in 2003 without understanding there are suddenly and she in the country. 440 00:51:27,430 --> 00:51:28,570 And from Jane's story, 441 00:51:28,570 --> 00:51:39,040 who wants to know how far was the US led invasion in 2003 influenced by Bush Junior's response to his father's failed attempt in 1990 91? 442 00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:46,310 So let's come back to the basics of what drove and what was the ignorance of the 2003 invasion. 443 00:51:46,310 --> 00:51:50,140 I think the second question is, has a quick answer. 444 00:51:50,140 --> 00:52:01,160 Yes. Yes. And and if you've watched Saturday Night Live or any of the shows during the invasion that were on. 445 00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,530 I mean there. I mean, more seriously. 446 00:52:03,530 --> 00:52:19,910 Certainly that it was a clear sense amongst the group of advisers that worked with the younger Bush that the 1991 settlement remained incomplete. 447 00:52:19,910 --> 00:52:26,690 And there is the imperative to complete the project of 1990. 448 00:52:26,690 --> 00:52:36,620 Once the father's project of 1991, because most of their advisors basically around the younger Bush were very, 449 00:52:36,620 --> 00:52:44,210 very important in setting Iraq policy during war, first with the 1991 one war. 450 00:52:44,210 --> 00:52:58,850 For the second question, in fact, the Shia the Sunni Shia divide has had been widely known to be American Americans when they went in and 451 00:52:58,850 --> 00:53:08,960 figures within that Iraqi opposition had highlighted actually these differences encouraged the U.S. 452 00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:17,660 administration to work with Shia opposition groups centred in Iran and encourage as well a belief on 453 00:53:17,660 --> 00:53:25,730 the part of the Americans that chiasm is inherently more open to democratic politics than symbolism. 454 00:53:25,730 --> 00:53:36,890 So the debate, I mean, and the knowledge of the Shia Sunni divide within but within Iraq was I mean, it was common amongst the establishment. 455 00:53:36,890 --> 00:53:45,500 Less common is the complexity of these divisions within Iraqi society and the layering 456 00:53:45,500 --> 00:53:53,400 of these identities with several other identities and with the complexity between each. 457 00:53:53,400 --> 00:54:01,550 And it was a version of discourse or the view of Iraqi society embraced by 458 00:54:01,550 --> 00:54:09,650 opposition groups outside Iraq that had been active in anti Baathist politics. 459 00:54:09,650 --> 00:54:20,980 And so it it actually was not based on a real knowledge of the complexity of allegiances in Iraq. 460 00:54:20,980 --> 00:54:24,380 Bushin lend to me. Thank you, Dina. 461 00:54:24,380 --> 00:54:29,930 We are coming to the end of our hour and the questions continue to pile in. 462 00:54:29,930 --> 00:54:36,020 We've had a fantastic turnout tonight. And so I'm not surprised that I'm getting more questions that we'll have time to answer. 463 00:54:36,020 --> 00:54:43,520 I would like to give the honour of the last question to what our students, Tom Coyne, who puts the question to Charles Tripp. 464 00:54:43,520 --> 00:54:44,000 He says, 465 00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:52,580 You mentioned that Britain submitted a bogus report to the League of Nations guaranteeing the rights of the Kurds should Iraq become independent. 466 00:54:52,580 --> 00:54:58,910 What were the motivations in doing so? Was this an order to admit Iraq to the league as quickly as possible? 467 00:54:58,910 --> 00:55:05,060 Or were there other factors at play? So putting on your. Professorial historians Hatch. 468 00:55:05,060 --> 00:55:09,000 Charles. You say I have half a minute to which reply to this. 469 00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:10,760 In fact, I did not. 470 00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:19,670 The point is that everyone knew that the proposal that Iraq should become independent was going to be put towards the League of Nations in 1932. 471 00:55:19,670 --> 00:55:27,970 Be done on a regular basis to be considered. And the British were quite happy to contemplate that idea of what they thought of as an independent Iraq. 472 00:55:27,970 --> 00:55:36,400 Also evident to the Kurdish parties and groups was that Iraq was going to be a state dominated by Baghdad and 473 00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:42,250 by basically elites who had no love for the Kurdish people or indeed for the rights of the Kurdish people. 474 00:55:42,250 --> 00:55:50,650 And so they had been petitioning the League of Nations since 1930 to not grant independence to Iraq unless there were 475 00:55:50,650 --> 00:55:59,380 sufficient guarantees of the rights of the Kurdish people to a degree of autonomy within the new independent state of Iraq. 476 00:55:59,380 --> 00:56:07,450 And because the British were aware of this and realised that it might mess up their proposal in Geneva. 477 00:56:07,450 --> 00:56:16,990 And so they concocted with Nouri side a fictitious effectively report on the condition of human rights and rights of the Kurdish people in Iraq, 478 00:56:16,990 --> 00:56:21,460 as well as with lots of pledges of how the new Iraqi government and state would, 479 00:56:21,460 --> 00:56:27,960 of course, guarantee rights of autonomy and self-government in the Kurdish region. 480 00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:39,240 Whether this was sufficient to persuade, but it certainly had an effect in Geneva and the League of Nations then granted independence to Iraq in 1932, 481 00:56:39,240 --> 00:56:45,480 thereafter, nothing more was heard of the pledges made by binary side. 482 00:56:45,480 --> 00:56:49,530 Charles, it couldn't have been done better or more briefly. Thank you very much. 483 00:56:49,530 --> 00:56:56,070 I will now need to bring our session to a close. I've had a number of questions asking whether this session will be posted. 484 00:56:56,070 --> 00:57:00,330 And I assure you we'll get back to everyone who registered if it is. 485 00:57:00,330 --> 00:57:08,510 And I would like to extend warm thanks on behalf of both the Ashmolean Museum and the Middle East centre to our guests tonight. 486 00:57:08,510 --> 00:57:13,950 Dana Hurry joined us from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. 487 00:57:13,950 --> 00:57:23,610 Charles Tripp, who joined us from London in sharing the depth of the knowledge and experience in the study of modern Iraq. 488 00:57:23,610 --> 00:57:27,990 I think you guys have been an amazing audience of the questions of a truly fantastic. 489 00:57:27,990 --> 00:57:32,430 So thank you for weighing in and making the session work as well as you did. 490 00:57:32,430 --> 00:57:49,909 And I wish you all the very good evening from Oxford and bid you good night.