Britain and Iraq
It is intelligible that the new Anglo-Iraqi treaty which was signed at Portsmouth last week should have been critically received by the Baghdad public, but very far from intelligible that the Regent, after telegraphing his satisfaction with the treaty to King George and Mr. Bevin, should have suddenly decided to reject the treaty over the head of his Prime Minister, who contracted it and who is still in London. Although the clauses of the 1931 treaty of alliance which implied an inferiority of status for Iraq have been eliminated from the new version, Britain is to retain a special status in Iraq both in peace and war, and nationalist opinion in the capital always sees the substance of "western imperialism" in the shadow of any concession to the former Mandatory Power. The concessions which have been made mainly concern the bases of Habbaniyah and
Shaibah which, though they now become Iraqi property, are still to be staffed by British technicians, and used by R.A.F. operational units at least until all the peace treaties are signed and British troops .withdrawn from former enemy countries. As the new treaty is also a military alliance there are military obligations between the two countries in time of war or under threat of war. But the concessions are not all one-sided. The British military mission is to go, and to be replaced by a Joint Defence Board, with equal numbers of both nationalities on it, and Iraq is allowed greater freedom than before in choosing her foreign advisers. Moreover Britain expressly recognises " the rights and obligations " to which Iraq is committed by her membership of the Arab League and Saadabad pacts, and since in addition both countries agree " not to adopt in foreign countries an attitude which is inconsistent with the alliance or might create diffi- culties for either party " it is obvious that Anglo-Iraqi views on world problems, including Palestine, cannot vary greatly if the treaty is to be effective. There has clearly been reasonable give-and-take on both sides and the treaty promised to be of mutual benefit. What the Regent and his advisers really want is not clear. They have apparently yielded to uninstructed popular clamour. The result of the Prime Minister's return to Baghdad must now be awaited.
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