978-1-4222-3442-6

I RAQ ’ S H ISTORY TO 1990 43

ple, more than 50 percent of the people of Iraq were Arab Shiite Muslims, about 20 percent were Arab Sunni Muslims, and about 20 percent were Kurdish Sunni Muslims. There were also Kurdish Shiites and Arab Christians living in the country. In addition to the historic differences between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims, there are important ethnic and cultural differences between Arabs and Kurds, who have their own language and traditions. However, under the centuries of Ottoman rule, the minority Sunni Arabs had gained a great amount of land and power; the Shiites had been sub-

The decisions of the so-called Big Four leaders (from left: Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Great Britain, Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau of France, and President Woodrow Wilson of the United States) during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 shaped the world—often in unforeseen ways—for decades to come. It was at Paris that the nation of Iraq was created.