Coll 17/10(4) 'Internal: political situation; relations with HMG' [‎132r] (263/1031)

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THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT r ^
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December 16, 1942.
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>«* Section 1.
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(No.
Sir,
345.)
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Mr. Eden.—(Received December l§.)
l ^ 'mgiaWTWbvember 25, 1942. ^
THE reformed Cabinet, of which details were given in my despatch No. 2g3
of the 14th October last and with which Nun Said returnea to olhee on the
8th October, was soon found to contain discordant elements. Before a month had
passed a violent quarrel broke out between the Minister of Communications,
Abdul Mahdi, and the Minister of Education, Tahsin Ali. It is doubtful who was
to blame for the insulting language which seems in the end to have been used by
both Ministers in the altercation, but I suspect that it was very much a case oi
the pot calling the kettle black. Peace-making efforts yielded no results, and each
Minister insisted that after what had occurred it was impossible for him to remain
in the Cabinet with the other. Friends and partisans rallied to each side, and, as
one Minister is a Shia and the other a Sunni, the quarrel quickly developed into
something of a sectarian tussle. For a few days it seemed that the Shia Minister
of Finance, Salih Jabr, the most important of the Prime Minister’s collaborators,
would become involved, but he showed good sense and courage enough to put
country before faction and to stick to the task he had undertaken of finding a
solution for Iraq’s economic difficulties. The Regent, too, had a personal interest
in the matter and once again stood by his protege, Tahsin Ah.
2. To me it seemed deplorable that, at a time when there are so many
urgent questions of public interest to be dealt with, a storm in the tea-cup like
this should paralyse the administration, and I lost no opportunity of pressing
the Regent and the Prime Minister (and the Minister of Finance) to have done
with it quickly. Yet over a fortnight passed before all the moves in the tortuous
game were played according to convention and a settlement could be leached.
This was that both Abdul Mahdi and Tahsin Ali should leave the Cabinet, but
that Tahsin Ali’s departure should be deferred until a place could be made for
him at the Palace by sending the head of the Royal Diwan, Abbas Mahdi, to
Tehran as Minister. Abdul Mahdi’s place was taken by Ahmad Mukhtar Baban,
who was succeeded at the Ministry of social Affairs by a Shia, Abdul Razzaq
Uzri, formerly a mutessarif. At the same time it was found necessary on account
of his ill-health to accept the resignation of the aged and infirm Minister of
Economics, Muhsin Shallash, and to appoint in his stead another Shia,
Salman-al-Barrak, who for some years has been Deputy President of the Chamber.
Peace was in this way restored in the Cabinet, but it is now a thing of makeshifts
and patches and cannot be expected to last for more than a few months.
3. Parliament opened, as usual, on the 1st November. This will be the last
session of the present Chamber, which, for the first time in Iraq’s parliamentary
history, is living out its allotted span of four years. The Speech from the Throne
was unduly concerned with Arab national ambitions and was disappointing in
the paucity of its reference to current economic problems.
4. At the third meeting of the Chamber held on the 12th November a group
of Deputies put forward a resolution asking the Government to secure the
accession of Iraq to the Declaration of the United Nations made at Washington
on the 1st January, 1942. The Prime Minister confessed to me afterwards that
he had himself inspired this resolution because he thought that the time had now
come for Iraq to take her place openly on the side of the Allies. He feels, no
doubt, that, as Iraq is already contributing to the war effort of the United
Nations all that is required to qualify her for inclusion in their ranks, she may
as well take her place there properly and thereby gain the rights and privileges
of full membership, including those set out in the Atlantic Charter. Nuri Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders.
is convinced that such action on Iraq’s part would have a profound effect in all
Near and Middle Eastern countries, and, indeed, among Arabs everywhere.
Whether, in the event, Iraq’s belligerency will be greeted with joy by the mass of
the people—whose pleasure over recent Allied victories was based to an
appreciable extent upon the assumption that the danger of war was receding—
remains to be seen. I personally think not. _ __
[36—54] ■ r-~rrrTT ..EPld