Through the whole interwar period the Iraqi monarch, centred in Baghdad, had in
effect a social meaning diametrically opposed to that of the tribal shaykhs, who were
then still virtual rulers of much of the countryside. The shaykhs represented the principle
of the fragmented or multiple community (many tribes), the monarch the ideal of an
integral community (one Iraqi people, one Arab nation).1 While the shaykh was the
defender of the divisive tribal tradition, the monarch was the exponent of the unifying
national law. In the view of the presence of large non-Arab minorities in the country, there
was some inherent contradiction between the ideal of one Iraqi people and that of one
Arab nation. By the mid-1930s, several officers of the Iraqi army had become actively
interested in politics and found that the army’s reputation for suppressing the Assyrian
rebellion was a political asset. The most influential officers were true nationalists, that
is, pan-Arabist, who inspired many of the junior officers. They looked to the examples
of neighbouring Turkey and Iran, where military dictatorships were flourishing. Under
the leadership of General Bakr Ṣidqī the army took over the government in the fall of
1936, and opened a period of army’s meddling into politics. Although under the reign
of young and inexperienced King Ġāzī (1933–1939) Iraq fell prey to tribal rebellions
and military coups, there was nevertheless no essential deviation from the prior trend
of royal policy. Except during the short Ḥikmat Sulaymān government, the pan-Arab
character of the state became more pronounced
