Iraqi army officers celebrate the country's induction into the League of Nations at the Royal Palace in Baghdad. In 1932, Iraq became the first former mandate to join the League after gaining independence. The mandate had gotten off to an inauspicious start in 1920, when the British determined the borders of Iraq based more on geopolitical interests than regional logic, and a bloody rebellion against British occupation followed.
Using language that some have read as a foreshadowing of the U.S. military's quagmire following the 2003 invasion, the British Orientalist T.E. Lawrence described the unrest. "The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap into which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor," he wrote. "Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It's a disgrace to our imperial record and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster."
Library of Congress
