140 A Short History of the Middle East
problem of the disposal of the Ottoman Empire. Consequently the
Foreign Office replied to Wilson that it was premature to attempt
constitutional experiments pending the decision of the Peace
Conference on the Mandatory Power for Iraq and the nature of the
Mandate. In these circumstances it is not surprising that Arab
notables who were approached as possible governors of Basra de-
clined to accept the responsibility and commit themselves until the
future of their country became clearer.
Meanwhile there had existed in Damascus since its liberation in
October 1918 an autonomous Arab government under the Amir
Faisal, assisted by British officers who had taken part in the Arab
Rebellion and were sympathetic to the Sharifian form of Arab
nationalism. Among the officers on Faisal's staff were many Iraqis,
members of al-'Ahd, who ardently desired to see their country
similarly placed under Arab rule. In 1919 one of these visited
Baghdad and was offered the post of Assistant Military Governor
of the city. He apparently imagined that he had been invited to
assist in setting up a national government; but on finding that he
was merely to be an Arab unit in the British administration hur-
riedly resigned. 'This incident evidently confirmed in the minds of
the Iraqi officers in Syria the impression that the British military
administration in Iraq was intended to be permanent, and that it
regarded them as active enemies who were trying to undermine
British influence there.'1 The Iraqis in Syria thereupon organized
a rising wave of political feeling in the towns of Iraq, and brought
about a rapprochement between Sunnis and Shi'is. In October
1919 Gertrude Bell remarked in an official Note: 'When we set
up a civil administration in this country, the fact that a responsible
native government has existed for a year in Syria will not be for-
gotten by the Iraqi nationalists; and if we seek to make use of those
Iraqis who have done best in Syria, they will claim great liberty of
action, and will expect to be treated as equals. .. . Local conditions,
the vast potential wealth of the country, the tribal character of the
rural population, the lack of material from which to draw official
personnel, will make the problem harder to solve here than else-
where, I venture to think that the answer to such objections is that
any alternative line of action would create problems whose solu-
tion we are learning to be harder still/ Wilson, however, still did
not fully grasp the strong, intimate, and constant influence exerted
1 Sir Hubert Young, The Independent Arab, 292, 297.