Mahmud Barzanji - Background

Background

Kurdish people were unfamiliar with the Western system that was set up by the French and British in the Middle East after World War I. After World War I, the British and other western powers controlled the land once held by the Ottoman Empire (later Turkey). Due to plans made with the French in the Sykes–Picot Agreement, Britain was designated as the mandate power. The British were able to form their own borders to their pleasure to gain an advantage in this region. The British had firm control of Baghdad and Basra and the regions around these cities mostly consisted of Shiite and Sunni Arabs.

In 1921, the British appointed Faisal I the King of Iraq. This was an interesting choice because Faisal had no local connections as he was part of the Hashemite family in Western Arabia. As events were unfolding in the southern part of Iraq, the British were also developing new policies in northern Iraq which was primarily inhabited by Kurds. The borders that the British formed had the Kurds between central Iraq (Baghdad) and the Ottoman lands of the north. The Kurdish people of Iraq lived in the mountainous and terrain of the Mosul Vilayet. This was a difficult region to control from the British perspective because of the terrain and tribal loyalties of the Kurds. There was much conflict after the Great War between the Ottoman government and British on how the borders should be established. The Ottomans were unhappy with the outcome of the Treaty of Sèvres. This treaty allowed the Great War victors control over much of the former Ottoman lands. In particular, the Turks felt that the Mosul Vilayet was theirs because the British had illegally conquered it after the Mudros Armistice which had ended hostilities in the war. With the discovery of oil in northern Iraq, the British knew they were unwilling to relinquish the Mosul Vilayet. Also, it was to the British advantage to have the Kurds play a buffer role between themselves and the Ottoman Empire. All of this leads to the importance of Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji.

With the Kurds in the middle of the new Iraqi state and the Ottoman Empire, Britain could gain a protector shield for Iraq. The British made promises to the Kurds during the Great War that they would receive their own land to form a Kurdish state. However the British were not certain they would keep their promise, and ultimately they did not, and this is the first of many instances the British manipulated the Kurds and lied to them. This initial lie formed mistrust on the part of the Kurds and left a bad taste in their mouth. In 1919 uneasiness began to evolve in the Kurdish regions because they were unhappy with the situation the British forced upon them. Thus the British tried to establish a puppet government in the region so they appointed a popular leader of the region, and this was Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji who became governor of southern Kurdistan.