The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this year welcomed former British colonies, but absent were those Middle Eastern states where Britain had exercised imperial soft power in the twentieth century. From around the time of the First World War protectorates and mandates were used to control these territories. In Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and later Libya, the British set up kings to help their rule.

Back in 1921 two brothers, Faisal and Abdullah (the sons of Hussein ibn Ali who lead the Arab Revolt), were rewarded by the British and made rulers of Mesopotamia and Transjordan respectively. These were territories captured by the British from the Ottoman Empire 1917-1918 (with not inconsiderable help from the Arab Revolt), and were awarded by the League of Nations to Britain as mandates. This territory was supposedly to be held in trust for eventual independence, while the mandatory power built up the administration and infrastructure. To help the British, Faisal became ruler of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq, while Abdullah was Emir and then King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The Hashemite family trace their descent from the Prophet Mohammed and were governors, or Sharifs, of Mecca for hundreds of years. Sharif Hussein ibn Ali launched the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in 1916 in response to British promises of independence. He made himself King of the Hejaz, the strip of Arabia along the Red Sea, but lost it in the mid-1920s to the fundamentalist Saudis. Hussein ibn Ali and his eldest son Ali—who had tried to fight a rear guard action against Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud as King of the Hejaz (1924-1925)—each found ready-made exile in the British sponsored realms of Jordan and Iraq.

Although outsiders to Mesopotamia, the Hashemites arguably developed the administration and infrastructure in a country that had become a backwater in the former Ottoman Empire, and three generations ruled as Kings of Iraq for 37 years. The urbane Faisal I (1921-1933) had been a member of the Ottoman parliament but while participating in his father’s Arab revolt became a friend of T E Lawrence. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1920 he had tried to establish himself as King of Greater Syria in Damascus, but was blocked by the French.

Faisal I was an inspired candidate as King of Iraq, since he was unencumbered by French notions of secular republicanism. His rule meant that the British relinquished their mandate in 1932 and Iraq gained independence, although the British retained military bases. Faisal I died suddenly the next year, aged 48, while having a health check-up in Switzerland. His son Ghazi (1933-1939) was something of a playboy and more antipathetic to the continuing British influence (as well as being sympathetic to the strong nationalism of Nazi Germany). A lover of fast cars, he died in April 1939 at the wheel of his Buick after an evening of drinking. Some have even suggested that British intelligence services engineered the car accident.