A ‘New Deal’ for the Kurds: Britain's Kurdish Policy in Iraq, 1941–45

Abstract

The Mulla Mustafa revolt of 1943–45 threatened to undermine the authority of the already vulnerable Iraqi government. In formulating a response, both the Iraqi prime minister and the British embassy wanted to prevent Kurdish nationalists from appropriating the revolt for their own ends. Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, the British Ambassador to Iraq, called for a ‘New Deal’ for the Kurds, encouraging development and investment in Kurdish areas as a means of drawing them under the control of central government authority. Iraqi Minister Majid Mustafa offered similar suggestions for infrastructure projects. In this instance, British and Iraqi priorities aligned and both hoped that reform would appease the Kurds and strengthen the Iraqi state. Britain's Kurdish policy during the Second World War demonstrates the continuing tension, dating back to the Mandate period, between its commitment to a united Iraq and the paternalistic sense of responsibility for the Kurds felt by many of its officials, in particular, the political advisers posted in the northern provinces. Despite British and Iraqi attempts to dismiss the Mulla Mustafa revolt as an ‘isolated tribal uprising’, it has entered the Kurdish narrative as a transformative moment in the Iraqi Kurdish national movement.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin for funding the early stages of this research. A version of this paper was delivered at the conference ‘Rethinking the Middle East? Values, Interests, and Security Concerns in Western Policies toward Iraq and the Wider Region, 1918–2010’, sponsored by the British Institute for the Study of Iraq and the European Studies Research Institute/University of Salford (Greater Manchester), March 2010.

Notes

For the British and the Kurds of Iraq during the Mandate period, see Sluglett, Britain in Iraq and McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, Chapter 8.

On 1 April 1941, a coup returned Rashid Ali, who was known to have pro-Axis ties, to the post of prime minister. The RAF took military action against the Iraqi army on 2 May after Iraqi troops surrounded the Habbaniyah air base. The Anglo-Iraqi military conflict continued until Rashid Ali and the army officers behind the coup fled the country at the end of the month. The regent was restored to power, and Britain assumed a more influential role in Iraq for the duration of the war. For a detailed account, see Warner, Iraq and Syria 1941; Simon, Iraq Between Two World Wars, 135–54. For the British perspective on the 1941 coup and the Mulla Mustafa revolt, see Longrigg, Iraq, 1900 to 1950.

The British used the term ‘tribe’ indiscriminately in reference to the Shi‘i communities on the Middle Euphrates, the Iraqi Bedouin, and the Kurds of northern Iraq. The terminology of the ‘tribe’ is still used to describe Kurdish social and political organisation in contemporary studies. See Van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State, Chapter 2. Politicians in Baghdad from the mid-1930s attempted, not always successfully, to win the support of ‘the tribes’ as a means of undermining the government in power. See Khadduri, Independent Iraq, Chapters 3–4.

Edmonds to Cornwallis, 7 Sept. 1941, FO 624/24, The National Archives, London (TNA).

Cornwallis to Eden, 11 July 1941, FO 371/27078, TNA.

For a detailed discussion of the economic conditions in Kurdish areas during the war, see al-Barzani, al-Haraka al-Qawmiyya al-Kurdiyya, 64–67. Jwaideh confirms the rumors of famine in Kurdish areas based on his travels to the region in 1943–44. Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, 231, 364 n. 10.

For the revolt itself from the Kurdish perspective, see Massoud Barzani's account of his father's early career, Mustafa Barzani. Given the author's current position as leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, his work is useful for revealing how Mulla Mustafa's revolt has been interpreted by one key strand of the Kurdish nationalist movement and its important position in the nationalist narrative. A different view is offered in the work of the Kurdish nationalist writer Ma‘ruf Jiyawuk in his work, Ma’sat Barzan al-Mazluma. Jiyawuk had personal contact with Mulla Mustafa and served as Mutassarif in Sulaymaniya during this period.

 The Government of Iraq position is reflected in the documents included in al-Hasani, Tarikh al-Wizarat al-‘Iraqiyya, vol. 6, 272–82. For the Mulla Mustafa revolt within its wartime context, see McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, 290–93; Silverfarb, The Twilight of British Ascendancy in the Middle East, Chapter 4; Eppel, Iraq from Monarchy to Tyranny, 53–55; and Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, Chapter 14. Jwaideh's account is of particular interest as he travelled through the Kurdish regions of Iraq during the war through his position as an inspector of supply for the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior.

General Renton observed that the British supported Nuri's policy of keeping the Iraqi army weak following the 1941 coup: ‘Rations were cut down by 1,000 calories a day below what was considered necessary by the medical authorities for Eastern troops, no clothing or equipment were purchased and by the Spring of 1944 the Army was in rags, with no equipment and no morale.’ Quoted in Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 324.

McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, 178–80. For the first Barzani revolt against the Government of Iraq, see also Wallace Lyon’s firsthand account in Fieldhouse, ed., Kurds, Arabs and Britons, 189–92; Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, 219–29; and Barzani, Mustaf a Barzani, Chapters 3–4.

Cornwallis to FO, 13 Dec. 1943, FO 371/35013, TNA.

Edmonds diaries, 4 and 14 Oct. 1941. Middle East Centre Archive at St. Antony's College, Oxford (MECA) and Edmonds to Embassy, 8 June 1942, FO 624/25, TNA.

Kinch to Thompson, 28 July 1944 and Edmonds to Cornwallis, 23 Dec. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA. For Soviet interests in the Kurdish movement, see Chapter 6 of Yassin, Vision or Reality?

Malcolm Walker to Perowne, 16 Nov. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Edmonds, ‘Kurdish Nationalism’, 95.

Col. Wood (CICI) ‘Kurdish Nationalism and the Iraqi Government January-October 1944’, 23 Oct. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA. For Majid Mustafa's actions in 1941, see Perowne to Wing Commander H. K. Dawson Shepherd, 18 June 1945, FO 624/71, TNA.

Cornwallis to Eden, 15 April 1944, FO 371/40038, and Col. Wood, ‘Kurdish Nationalism’, 23 Oct. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Cornwallis to Eden, Annual Review for 1943, 8 Feb. 1944, FO 371/40041, TNA.

For a list of Mulla Mustafa's demands, and the agreement negotiated with Majid Mustafa, see Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, 232–33.

Translation of letter from Majid Mustafa, Minister without Portfolio, to the Council of Ministers, 18 Jan. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Ibid.

Report by Nuri, ‘The Kurdish Question’, 30 May 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Ibid.

This term is used in Thompson to Consul Mosul, 22 July 1944; Edmonds to Cornwallis, 6 Oct. 1944; Cornwallis to Eden, 10 Dec. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA. The term also gained wider usage through the media: ‘Unrest in Kurdistan, Iraqi Fears of a Separatist Movement, Government's Efforts at Conciliation’, London Times, 11 April 1946.

Stonehewer Bird to Eden, 3 May 1945, FO 371/45346, TNA.

Stonehewer Bird to Eden, 5 July 1945, FO 371/45303, TNA.

This was a long-standing stereotype, predating Britain's presence in the region. McDowall notes that ‘From the eleventh century onwards many travelers and historians treated the term “Kurd” as synonymous with brigandage, a view echoed by nineteenth-century European travelers.’ McDowall, Modern History of the Kurds, 13.

‘Unrest in Kurdistan’, London Times, 11 April 1946.

Unsigned, undated Embassy report presented to the Regent by Cornwallis on 30 May 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Edmonds diaries, 10 June 1944, MECA.

Unsigned, undated Embassy report presented to the Regent by Cornwallis on 30 May 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Minute by Perowne, 19 March 1945, FO 624/71, TNA.

Thompson to Eden, 14 Aug. 1944, FO 371/40042, TNA.

Edmonds diaries, 8 May 1944, MECA.

Edmonds to Cornwallis, 27 June 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Cornwallis to FO, 23 April 1944, FO 371/40038, TNA.

Baxter (for Bevin) to Bowker, 18 Oct. 1945, FO141/1059, TNA.

For the Labour government's development debates, see Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 15–21; Kingston, Britain and the Politics of Modernization; Franzén, ‘Development vs. Reform’.

Thompson to Bevin, 26 Sept. 1945, FO371/45295, TNA.

Stonehewer Bird to Eden, 3 May 1945, FO 371/45346, TNA.

Both Lyon and Kinch wrote memoirs of their experiences in Iraq. Wallace Lyon's account has been edited by David Fieldhouse and published as Kurds, Arabs and Britons. Kinch's unpublished manuscript is available in the Kinch Papers, MECA. Lyon's memoir is particularly valuable for demonstrating how the attitudes of the political advisers during the Second World War were shaped by their experiences in Iraq during the 1920s and 1930s.

Kinch, unpublished manuscript memoirs, Kinch papers, MECA.

Wood, CICI, ‘Kurdish Nationalism’, 23 Oct. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Minute by Thompson, 12 July 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Translation of letter from Majid Mustafa, Minister without Portfolio, to the Council of Ministers, 18 Jan. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA; Jiyawuk, Ma’sat Barzan al-Mazluma, 120.

Barzani, Mustafa Barzani, 67–68.

Edmonds, ‘Kurdish Nationalism’, 95. See also Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, 231 and 239–40.

McDowall, Modern History of the Kurds, 289–90.

This cross-border exchange was limited until the end of the war but symbolically important for the developing Kurdish nationalist movements. For example, in August 1944, Kurdish representatives from Turkey, Iran, and Iraq met at the meeting point of their respective borders and signed a mutual support pact. Eagleton, The Kurdish Republic of 1946, 36.

Wood, CICI, ‘Kurdish Nationalism’, 23 Oct. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Barzani, Mustafa Barzani, 49.

Capt. F. Stoakes, Deputy Assistant Political Adviser, Erbil to Political Adviser, Northern Area, Kirkuk on ‘The Confederacy of Barzan’, 17 March 1945, FO 624/71, TNA.

As Col. Wood noted, ‘ … it is of course the perpetual aim of urban nationalists to secure for their views the backing of tribal opinion, as also of the military and of foreign powers, for without some such support their voices carry little weight.’ Wood, CICI, ‘Kurdish Nationalism’, 23 Oct. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Letter enclosed in Cornwallis to Eden, 2 July 1944, FO 371/40038, TNA.

Col. Wood to all CICI officers, ‘Policy-Iraq’, undated (received in Embassy 15 June 1944), FO 624/66, TNA.

Edmonds diary, 4 Dec. 1943, MECA.

Minute by Thompson, 4 Sept. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA. The London Times hinted at similar charges against some British officials in Iraq, noting that one contributing factor to the uprising was the fact that ‘they believed … that they could count on British support, a delusion fostered by certain sympathizers’. ‘Unrest in Kurdistan’, 11 April 1946.

Lyon to Oriental Secretary, 29 Aug. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Lyon, Kurds, Arabs and Britons, 227.

Kinch to Cornwallis, 12 May 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Wilson, APA Northern Area to PA Northern Area, 28 April 1945, FO 624/71; Cornwallis to Eden, 10 Dec. 1944 and Edmonds to Cornwallis, 20 Dec. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA. Barzan and another Kurdish territory were transferred from under the administrative authority of Mosul to Erbil, which had a Kurdish Mutassarif, and the Iraqi government hoped that this change would help to calm the situation. Cornwallis to Eden, 15 Jan. 1945, FO 371/45302, TNA.

Wood, CICI, ‘Kurdish Nationalism’, 23 Oct. 1944, FO 624/66; Cornwallis to Eden, 8 June 1944, FO 371/40042, TNA.

Eppel, Iraq from Monarchy to Tyranny, 54.

Lyon to Oriental Secretary, 29 Aug. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Wood, CICI, ‘Kurdish Nationalism’, 23 Oct. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.

Thompson to Foreign Office, 1 Aug. 1945, FO 624/71, TNA.

Stonehewer Bird to Bevin, 10 Oct. 1945, FO 624/71, TNA.

Thompson to Mead, 20 Aug. 1945, FO 624/71, TNA.

Announcement by the Mutasarrif of Arbil, published in al Zaman, 20 Aug. 1945, reprinted in al-Hasani, Tarikh al-Wizarat al-‘Iraqiyya, vol. 6, 278–79.

Thompson to FO, 22 Sept. 1945 and Stonehewer-Bird to FO, 6 Oct. 1945, FO 624/71, TNA; see also Eppel, Iraq from Monarchy to Tyranny, 54. For British accounts of the military action taken against the Barzanis, see FO 624/71, TNA. In contrast to these official reports, Massoud Barzani saw the active hand of the British behind Iraqi operations, noting that the aerial campaigns of the Iraqi Air Force were ‘supported to the end by the RAF’. Barzani, Mustafa Barzani, 88.

Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, 240.

Barzani, Mustafa Barzani, 64.

McDowall, Modern History of the Kurds, 293. Jwaideh makes a similar observation, The Kurdish National Movement, 231.

Yassin notes, ‘A symbiosis thus developed between the urban and politically conscious nationalist elements on the one hand and the traditional elements on the other. Mulla Mustafa did not only make the emergence of this symbiosis possible, but indeed personified and later became a symbol for it.’ Yassin, Vision or Reality?, 222.

See McDowall, Modern History of the Kurds, Chapter 11. The classic account of Mahabad is Eagleton, The Kurdish Republic of 1946. Massoud Barzani discusses Mulla Mustafa's role in the Mahabad Republic in Part III of Mustafa Barzani.

As Edmonds observed, ‘Mulla Mustafa was brought back from exile in the Soviet Union and built up into an all-Iraqi figure, a champion of the struggle against the “imperialists” and their “stooges.”’ Edmonds, ‘Kurdish Nationalism’, 100.

Kinch, unpublished memoir, MECA.

Minute by Cornwallis, 11 Oct. 1944, FO 624/66, TNA.