Mandatory Iraq

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Kingdom of Iraq under British administration الانتداب البريطاني على العراق (Arabic)
1920–1932
Top: Flag (1921–1924) Bottom: Flag (1924–1932) Coat of arms (1931–1932)
Anthem: (1924–1932) السلام الملكي As-Salam al-Malaki "The Royal Salute"
Union Flag
Status	League of Nations mandate
Capital and largest city	Baghdad
Common languages	Arabic · Kurdish Neo-Aramaic
Religion	Islam · Christianity Judaism · Yazidism Mandaeism
Demonym(s)	Iraqi
High Commissioner
• 1921–1923	Percy Cox
• 1923–1929	Henry Dobbs
• 1929–1932	Francis Humphrys
King
• 1921–1932	Faisal I
Prime Minister
• 1920–1922 (first)	Abd Al-Rahman Al-Gillani
• 1930–1932 (last)	Nuri al-Said
Legislature	Parliament
• Upper Chamber	Senate
• Lower Chamber	Chamber of Deputies
Historical era	Interwar period
• San Remo conference	25 April 1920
• Treaty of Sèvres	10 August 1920
• Coronation of Faisal I	23 August 1921
• Treaty of Lausanne	24 July 1923
• Treaty of Ankara	5 June 1926
• Anglo-Iraqi Treaty	30 June 1930
• Independence	3 October 1932
Currency	Indian rupee
Preceded by Succeeded by Ottoman Iraq Kingdom of Iraq
Today part of	Iraq Saudi Arabia

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The Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration, or Mandatory Iraq (Arabic: الانتداب البريطاني على العراق, romanized: al-Intidāb al-Brīṭānī ʿalā l-ʿIrāq), was created in 1921, following the 1920 Iraqi Revolution against the proposed British Mandate of Mesopotamia, and enacted via the 1922 Anglo-Iraqi Treaty and a 1924 undertaking by the United Kingdom to the League of Nations to fulfil the role as Mandatory Power.^[1][2]

Faisal ibn Husayn, who had been proclaimed King of Syria by a Syrian National Congress in Damascus in March 1920, was ejected by the French in July of the same year. Faisal was then granted by the British the territory of Iraq, to rule it as a kingdom, with the British Royal Air Force (RAF) retaining certain military control, but de facto, the territory remained under British administration until 1932.^[3]

The civil government of postwar Iraq was headed originally by the High Commissioner, Sir Percy Cox, and his deputy, Colonel Arnold Wilson. British reprisals after the capture and killing of a British officer in Najaf failed to restore order. The British occupiers faced the growing strength of the nationalists, who continued to resist against the British authority. British administration had yet to be established in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Contrary to the common belief that Iraq was invented by the British following World War I, the region had long existed as a coherent administrative entity under the Ottoman Empire. As early as the 16th century, the Baghdad Eyalet encompassed districts such as Kerne in the south, Kasr-ı Şirin in the east, İmadiye and Zâho in the north, and Ane and Deyrü Rahbe in the west, forming a territorial configuration that closely resembles the later borders of Mandatory Iraq.^[4] By the 17th century, the territory was reorganized into four Ottoman eyalets, Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, and Shahrizor.^[5] By the mid-19th century, Ottoman Iraq was divided into the three vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, which were frequently treated collectively in official Ottoman documents as the Iraq Region (Hıtta-i Irakiyye).^[6] In 1850, a request to establish a provincial council (meclis-i kebîr) in Shahrizor was denied by the Sublime Porte, which noted that Shahrizor, although a separate province, was considered part of the Iraq Region and could therefore not establish a provincial council before the capital, Baghdad.^[7] In 1879, Mosul governor Feyzi Pasha referred to the Mosul Vilayet’s inclusion in the Hıtta-i Irakiyye in a telegram^[8] seeking tax relief, further showing how the term was used in practice to describe a unified administrative space. This sense of territorial cohesion extended into imperial economic planning: a 1902 Ottoman railway concession contract described the project as intended “for the purpose of increasing the prosperity, development, wealth, and trade of Imperial Anatolia and of Iraq” (Turkish: Anadolu-yı Şâhâne ile hatta: Irak’ın tezyîd-i ma‘mûriyet ve terakkî-i servet ve ticâreti zımnında). The document listed Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra among the Iraqi cities through which the railway would pass, reflecting Iraq's intended integration into the Ottoman imperial economy.^[9] Taken together, the evidence suggests that the territory comprising modern Iraq was already treated as a coherent administrative and economic region under Ottoman rule, prior to the onset of the British Mandate.