The British Legacy in Iraq

As U.S. forces pull back from Iraqi cities, we devote this week’s podcast to the experience of another power that ruled Iraq on and off for decades after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire–Britain. In February 2003 I produced a series on the history of Iraq which began with a look at the British legacy–how Britain and France carved up Ottoman territories in a secret deal during World War One, how British officials debated how best to govern Iraq from afar, through direct or indirect rule ,and the various twists and turns and treaties that determined British-Iraqi relations for nearly half a century.  We’ll return to that radio documentary in this week’s How We Got Here. You’ll hear interviews with historians Margaret MacMillan and Charles Tripp, as well as Saddam biographer Said Aburish, and you’ll hear wonderful crackly old archive tape of various British officials and Mideast monarchs.  It’s hard not to notice that the same issues that proved so difficult long ago–sovereignty, occupation, oil–are the ones Iraqis (and their outside interlocutors) still wrestle with today.   Even as Americans and Iraqis celebrated this week President Obama warned of tough times ahead.