The Government of Iraq

Those who set up a new government usually have to compromise between the ideas current at the time, their own traditions, and the conditions of the territory and people to be governed. Ideas are likely to have more influence on the form than the substance, and imported traditions soon disappear unless control remains external. For a time, a system of government may be affected by such ideas and traditions, but if it lasts it is because it has become adapted to the physical, social, and psychological conditions of the region where it operates. These conditions, it is true, may be gradually modified by a government guided by philosophical ideas or foreign traditions. Such influences are, indeed, the cause of progress, but a government can safely follow them only if it makes large concessions to local conditions. The government of Iraq well illustrates the interplay of these three influences. It is a compromise of Wilsonian ideas, British traditions, and Iraq conditions. The theoretical basis of the Peace Conference of 1919 was expressed in President Wilson's fourteen points and subsequent addresses. This basis had been formally accepted by the Allies and Germany in the agreement of November 5, 1918, before the armistice, and so legally superseded all conflicting agreements, secret or otherwise, with respect to Germany. The Turkish and Austrian armistices, however, had been made earlier, and these states were not parties to the agreement of November 5. Thus, legally, the conference was not bound to apply these principles to them.