tones
Tones deaf
As I understand it, but I do not claim to be an authority on the subject, the Turkish system was inefficient and very corrupt. In practice a kind of post-feudal system with Turkish governors. From reading the book on Gertrude Bell, it would seem that the Brits did not so much "impose" a (Hashemite) king, but gave their approval and material support to a king and a supporting ruling class which was viable in that context. The purpose being to have a regime which was stable, but also obediently friendly to Britain. The main reason being oil.
Around 1905 - 1915 warship design shifted from coal-fired boilers to fuel oil. I don't think the the discovery of Persian oil prompted this, so much as progress in ship design. Although obviously the availability of oil permitted this. But then there was already a large supply of oil from the United States, and it would make sense for the Royal Navy, on which British national and imperial power rested, not to wish to be totally dependent on America, but to have its own tame sources. And by the 1920s the demand for oil had also grown enormously for other purposes, motor vehicles, merchant ships, aircraft, factories. So oil was a key element in the industrial, military, and political rivalry between Britain, France and Germany. As well as the maintenance of what was still a global empire.
I also do not claim to be any kind of expert on the subject, much of my impressions being gleaned from several books, on Iraq, this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0760792682/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
which details the attempts of Churchill, very much a 19th century imperialist, to remake Mesopotamia in his own image, and as cheaply as possible for a Britain that was essentially broke and in hock to the USA. That meant the formation of a single entity out of something that had not been a single entity since the Caliphs ruled from Baghdad. The Turkish arrangement conveniently separated the potentially warring parties.
The move to oil is captured in this book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0099524023/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
Britain had lots of coal, but then apparently no oil, so the Persian discovery by British geologists in 1908 drove the change and led the British to secure that supply by setting up its own company, free of market dominators Standard Oil and Shell. So far as I know (and I admit that that's not terribly far) oil wasn't discovered in Iraq until long after the establishment of Iraq. But thank you for mentioning Gertrude Bell. I knew she was involved deeply in the whole business, but I clearly must read more.
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