As British pull back from Basra, an eye is cast on past occupations

With the growing global importance of oil, Iraq looked to be a plum possession. But though Britain held on until 1932, its steps were dogged by violence and opposition from almost the very first day, largely based in the tribes of the mid-Euphrates, many of whose descendents have attacked British and American forces in the current war, but also from the politically ambitious Shiite political class.

Many political commentators and historians have blamed Britain's efforts at controlling Iraq in those years as having sowed many of the seeds of the country's current sectarian fighting, as Gareth Stansfield argued in Britain's Prospect magazine last year.

The logic behind Iraq's new centralized structure made sense only from the perspective of the British. Chairing the Cairo conference in March 1921, Winston Churchill headed a "who's who" gathering including TE Lawrence, Percy Cox, Gertrude Bell, and the Emir Faisal, son of the Sharif of Mecca and leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks. Churchill's main concern was to secure Mesopotamia from any threat from Turkey or Russia. For Bell, Cox and Lawrence, the objective was to ensure the accession of Faisal, their wartime ally. These priorities helped to implant the two main pathologies of the modern Iraqi state.

The Cairo conference saw to it that the non-Arab Mosul province (Kurdistan) remained within the newly named and centralised state of Iraq because of its oil, because its inhabitants were Sunnis (from the British perspective, more trustworthy than Shias), and because its mountainous terrain provided the new state with natural defences. The conference also nominated Faisal as king, thus ensuring that Sunni Arabs continued to dominate the predominately Shia population, as they had in Ottoman times. Iraq was therefore constructed with a non-Arab minority, the Kurds, who objected to their inclusion in Iraq and ... a majority Shia population that remained unimpressed with their Arab Sunni monarch and his British backers.

The dynamics of Shiite anger against the central government has also been a key challenge for modern British soldiers in Iraq, with most of their casualties generated by Shiite attackers. Now, analysts are speculating that local forces trained by the British risk being overrun – just as the British-trained forces loyal to the Iraqi monarch were eventually overrun, reports Reuters.

As British forces prepare to pull out of their last base inside Basra, Iraq's security forces face their biggest test yet – stopping the country's oil centre from becoming a battleground for rival Shi'ite militias.

In a possible sign of things to come, Shi'ite militiamen tried on Sunday to occupy a police station in Basra which a small contingent of British troops had vacated only hours earlier. Iraqi police said they thwarted the attempt.

Many residents say they are happy to see the back of the British, who now number about 5,500 down from 7,200 a year ago. However, some fear that once they withdraw to a desert airbase outside the city there will be no restraints on the militias.

"I think the situation will get worse if the British forces leave. There are hidden struggles between the different parties and militants. The presence of the British is a safety valve," said unemployed Basra resident Abu Ali, 39.

Page: 1 | 2