Syrian‐Iraqi relations during the 1948 Palestine War

Abstract

Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the British and French conquest of the Fertile Crescent, the Syrian question began to affect relations between the Arab states and their dynasties due to the formation of separate political entities in the Fertile Crescent and the Arabian Peninsula in the aftermath of the First World War. Efforts toward unity with, or dominance over Syria had been a major component in the policy of the Hashemite states of Iraq and Transjordan since the establishment of the latter states by the British. By contrast, the main aim of the regional policy implemented by King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia was to prevent a Hashemite take-over of Syria and Palestine in order to recapture Hejaz, which he had conquered from the Hashemite dynasty (more precisely, from Sharif Husayn, father of King Faisal of Iraq and Amir later King Abdallah of Transjordan) only in 1924-26. The adoption and fostering of pan-Arab ideology as part of Iraqi foreign policy as from the early 1930s was intended, in addition to its internal Iraqi functions, to promote the cause of Iraqi dominance in Syria and the Fertile Crescent. The question of control over Syria as the key to dominance in the Fertile Crescent and to the centrality in the Arab world was a focal point of the interArab polarization between the Hashemite states on one hand and Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the other; this arose after the end of the Second World War and the establishment of the Arab League in 1944-45. The other central topic closely linked with the struggle for Syria and for dominance in the Fertile Crescent was that of the Palestine question. Amir (and, as from 1946, King) Abdallah sought to exploit the solution of the Palestine question as a lever to attain his own objective control of Syria. Iraq, having realized since 1945 that the dominant element in the Arab League was Egypt and that the organization had become another obstacle in the path of Iraqi ambition for dominance in Syria, became the active and initiating force concerning the Palestine question, in order to undermine Egypt's position in the Arab world and reinforce its own especially regarding Syria. Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli, who had consistently steered his