History
After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1919, Iraq became a League of Nations mandate under temporary British control. Mahmud Barzanji led a Kurdish revolt against the British and in 1922 attempted to establish a state in northern Iraq. In 1924 the British defeated Mahmud, and the Mosul region was incorporated into the Kingdom of Iraq. After the British occupation, Kurdish leaders continued to press for autonomy within Iraq. In 1970 the Iraqi government agreed to create the Kurdish Autonomous Region covering three provinces of northern Iraq.
After the end of the Gulf War in 1991 the Kurdish region rose up against President Saddam Hussein and gained de facto independence under the protection of a no fly zone. After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the short-lived Transitional Administrative Law recognised the existing Kurdish regional government and defined Iraq for the first time as a federal country.
Read more about this topic: Federalism In Iraq
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)