Prayer and Probability

Treasongate: Part 2
20th Century Iraq – to Post WW II

1908 Oil discovered at Masjid-i Suleiman in western Persia (Iran)

1911 Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) founded to look for oil in Mesopotamia (Iraq)

1914 World War I begins

Britain captures Basra from Ottoman Empire

1916 Secret Sykes-Picot agreement signed by Britain, France, and Russia. It details the division of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) after the war. Northern Mesopotamia (Mosul) to go to France and southern Mesopotamia to Britain.

1917 Britain captures Baghdad

Britain issues the Balfour Declaration that calls for a national home for Jews in Palestine.

1918 WW I ends

Britain captures Mosul 2 weeks after Mudros Armistice signed by Turkey and Britain.

1919 Paris Peace Conference meets to dictate terms of peace and begins the awesome task of divvying up the spoils of war

Britain realizing the importance of oil and that possession is nine-tenths of the law reneges on the Sykes-Picot agreement and decides to keep all of
Mesopotamia.They offer France larger concessions in Syria. By virtue of their revolution, the Russians cut themselves out of the deal.

1920 New Trust Territory of Iraq formed as a British mandate. Boundaries are drawn for political-economic reasons rather than societal and cultural

Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds all riot for months. There are thousands of casualties.

1921 Britain set up Emir Faisel as King of Iraq with an Arab government under British mandate

1925 First Iraqi constitution implemented. It called for a constitutional monarchy, a parliamentary government, and a bicameral legislature.

1927 Oil discovered in Iraq

1928 United States, having been left out of the Mid-Eastern oil spoils demands new rules. The Red Line Agreement is drawn up. This gives American oil companies 23.75 percent interest in the TPC, which is renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company(IPC) in 1929.

Muslim Brotherhood started in Egypt

1929 Britain says its Iraq mandate will cease in 1932

1932 Iraq given Independence, but Britain establishes the precedent of maintaining military bases in Iraq.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia established with Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud king

1937 Saddām Hussein born

1938 Oil discovered in Saudi Arabia

1939 Iraq plans to invade British Kuwait but plan is cancelled when King Ghazi is killed in an automobile accident

WW II begins

1941 Japan attacks Pearl Harbor

1943 President Roosevelt declares Saudi Arabia and the Middle-East to be of vital importance to U.S. interests

First American military base in Saudi Arabia built at Dhahran. Coincidently Dhahran was the site of the largest oil field in the world.


Treasongate Part 1

Treasongate Part 3