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into a unified country with loyalty to a central government, but the
many diverse groups in Iraq and the political power of the Sunni
Muslim minority would limit success.
The Kurdish people of northern Iraq also opposed the monar-
chy. The 1920 treaty that established Iraq and other countries
initially called for a Kurdish state in the mountainous region
known as Kurdistan, which included parts of Iraq, Turkey, Iran,
Armenia, and Syria. However, the new governments of these areas
decided against establishing a Kurdish state. In Iraq, it was deter-
mined that the Kurds should have some control over the govern-
ment of their northern province. For the Kurds, however, this was
not enough: they revolted against the British-supported monarchy
from 1922 to 1924 and again in 1932. Both times their attempts
to separate were crushed.
As the capital of the monarchy, Baghdad became the center of
power. Land became the reward for those who found favor with the
king. Iraqis who gained influential government positions used their
authority to reward family members or friends. And the monarchy
remained subordinate to Great Britain, which exercised extensive
control over Iraq’s internal affairs as well as its foreign relations.
O
IL AND THE
M
ONARCHY
During the 1920s, oil became an important element in the develop-
ment of Iraq. Before World War I, the Ottoman Turks had agreed to
allow the Turkish Petroleum Company—a group of British, Dutch,
French, and American investors—to search for oil in Mesopotamia.
After the Iraqi monarchy was formed, the Western powers pres-
sured King Faisal to give up Iraq’s right to the country’s oil in
exchange for annual royalty payments.
In 1927 oil was discovered in northeast Iraq near Kirkuk. The
Iraqi government agreed to give the oil company (renamed the Iraq
Petroleum Company) exclusive rights to explore for oil in all of
I
RAQ
’
S
H
ISTORY TO
1990 45