BAGHDAD: Seventy-five years ago, on Oct 3, 1932, the British were forced to accept that one of their more valuable creations, Iraq, was escaping their clutches to become a nation in its own right.

And yet, admits with grudging admiration the man whose great uncle presided over the birth pangs of the new state after first reigning under British tutelage: “They understood how the game was played.” Sharif Ali bin Hussein, pretender to the throne of King Faisal I who reigned in Iraq from 1921 to 1933, believes the events of the past carry important lessons for the dramatic developments in his homeland since the US-led invasion of 2003.

“Had the Americans ... understood their limitations and also looked at the history of the country, they would have immediately realised that they would not have been able, like the British, to run the country directly,” Sharif Ali told AFP in an interview in Baghdad.

“And, like the British, would have faced an insurrection very rapidly.” Speaking at his villa on the banks of the Tigris river and guarded by an Iraqi army unit, Sharif Ali, 51, mourned the events since the invasion that have again lain waste the country that was born in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

“After 70 years, Iraq has become an occupied country again,” he said. “It is similar and dissimilar ... the social circumstances, the national institutions, the state of the country is not dissimilar to what it was then ... however the players are different.” Sharif Ali’s great uncle was the third son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, then king of Hejaz, what is now western Saudi Arabia.

Allying himself with Britain, Faisal I launched the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans and in 1916 supported the Allied offensive in Palestine. His fighters entered Damascus in 1918.

In 1920, despite promises made to the Arabs of creating a great nation, France and Britain divided up the spoils of war among themselves, with France being given Syria and Britain getting Iraq.

The same year, Faisal I was made king of Syria by the Syrian National Congress but after a brief battle he was expelled by the French and went to live in Britain for a year.

In August 1921, the British, concerned at unrest in their new territory, appointed Faisal king of Iraq.

He received, at least to begin with, the support of the Shia clergy, a powerful religious and political force in Iraq deeply hostile to the British Mandate and agreement was quickly reached on the establishment of a parliamentary monarchy, headed by the Hashemite king.

“The 1920 revolution or rebellion sent a message to the British that they could not institute direct law in Iraq ... and that Iraq ought to be governed by Iraqis,” Sharif Ali said.

His great uncle, he added, having learned his lesson from his experience with the French, “understood the extent and nature of the great powers and their agendas,” when he arrived in Iraq.

“He tried to ... maintain in a constructive way Iraqi consensus to achieve independence as soon as possible and put an end to the British occupation.

“What characterised his rule was his practical nature of dealing with the British and with Iraqi society.” Faisal was instrumental in making his country fully independent on Oct 3, 1932, when Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations.

A treaty which authorised the presence of British bases in Iraq however remained in force, as the “price of independence.” Faisal died of a heart attack in Switzerland on Sept 8, 1933 and his son Ghazi succeeded him.

The British influence in Iraq however remained a point of friction in the political debate in Iraq from independence until the nationalist revolution of 1958 which would sweep the monarchy aside.

“This is the same debate today ... there is no treaty but there is a very heavy-handed relationship (with the Americans) and this political debate continues in Iraq to what extent we are truly independent,” said Sharif Ali, who was forced out of Iraq by the July 14, 1958, coup of Colonel Abdul Karim Qassim, when he was just two years old.

“The obvious point is that we are under occupation — there is a similarity (with the Mandate) and there is a national consensus to end the foreign presence in Iraq.”

He said that regrettably there were no Iraqi politicians today with the experience of the leaders who steered the country through the years leading up to independence.“What is lacking at the moment is the ability to deal with the Americans and the fact that the Americans lack the ability to deal with the Iraqis.” Before independence, he added, “It was easier to reckon what Iraq was meant to be ... because the core issue was Arab nationalism ... In the 1920s it would not matter if you were a Sunni or a Shia. You were an Arab.

“Now we find it difficult to define what is an Iraqi state. We don’t know where we are,” Sharif Ali, who 75 years after independence, would like to see the restoration of the Hashemite monarchy.—AFP