Talk:Mandatory Iraq

the map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LocationIraq.svg is wrong, considering its a 2007 map for a country 70 years before that--Jakezing (talk) 01:44, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Misleading article

This article is highly confusing - it implies there was a state named the British Mandate for Mesopotamia between 1920 and 1932. This is not correct. What actually happened was:

• Following the end of the war in 1918, Arnold Wilson was made civil commissioner (Percy Cox had been moved to Persia, although returned to replace Wilson in 1920)
• Following discussions at the 1919 Paris Peace conference, there were British plans to change the name to Iraq
• Following assignment of a mandate in April 1920 at San Remo, a DRAFT mandate for Mesopotamia was produced in late 1920 but it did not come in to force
• The May 1920 Iraqi revolt against the British knocked the plans off course, and the mandate idea was dropped
• Following the March 1921 Cairo Conference, the Kingdom of Iraq under Faisal I of Iraq began in 1921 as a British protectorate (not a mandate)

So the British mandate never existed in law, because the mandate document was dropped before being accepted by any authority. However, it can be argued that the mandate existed de facto, but if so that was for less than a year, between April 1920 and Mar 1921.

I am not an expert on this, but have noticed the mistake above whilst doing work on British Mandate for Palestine (legal instrument). I hope this is helpful and that someone with more knowledge than me can fix it. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:27, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Having read Kingdom of Iraq, that article is also confused - parts say it began in 1932 and others in 1921. I suggest that same structure as for Palestine is used:

• This article becomes an article about the document and negotiations (so, for example the countrybox on the right should be removed)
• The Kindom of Iraq article becomes the article about the country from 1921 onwards.

Oncenawhile (talk) 09:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I have spent some time on both these articles - not perfect but at least now not totally wrong! I will remove the tag. Oncenawhile (talk) 01:17, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I shall revert most of your edits - the Kingdom of Iraq was not declared until 1932 (preceded by Mandate Mesopotamia 1920-1932); Same as the Kingdom of Transjordan was not announced until 1946 (preceded by Emirate of Transjordan 1928-1946; Mandatory Palestine 1920/1923-1928).Greyshark09 (talk) 04:41, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Greyshark, right - how would you like to go about this? Do you want to give me a list of the statements you are disputing? I can then provide the sources. Otherwise, of you give me more detail on your understanding with sources, that would help too. For starters, here's a large number of sources which show that the kingdom of Iraq was declared in 1921 [1], disproving your statement above. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:52, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I think I know why this will suprise you - because technically the Kingdom of Iraq operated as a League of Nations mandate between 1921-32. But another subtle point you should be aware of is that it did NOT operate under the "Mandate for Mesopotamia" - that plan was dropped. What happened legally was that a number of Anglo-Iraqi Treaties were signed and then ratified by the LoN. See for example here [2]. Oncenawhile (talk) 10:44, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

This could well be true, i will check your sources. Anyway, everywhere i read - i see Iraq/Mesopotamia mentioned as part of the British Empire or a mandated tarritory until 1932. Indeed, if you are right, we might solve our dispute by simply renaming "Mandatory Mesopotamia" (1920-1932) into "Mandatory Iraq" (1921-1932). Give me a couple of days to read through the material.Greyshark09 (talk) 20:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok, i will wait for a couple of days - if i haven't heard otherwise i will then revert. For the avoidance of doubt, I do not accept your proposal. The way it was structured before you reverted was much more appropriate - an article on Kingdom of Iraq from 1921-58, split into sections pre and post independence. Your proposal "Mandatory Iraq" is a fringe term with less than 200 hits in google books, and only serves to confuse the issue. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Returning to your original point for a moment, here's another source for you from the League of Nations - notice how there isn't a Mandate for Mesopotamia or Mandate for Iraq. To my knowledge, the Kingdom of Iraq was treated by the League of Nations as a "mandated territory" from its establishment in 1921 until independence in 1932. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Well i will start relating to your points:

• First of all let me agree that indeed there are very little references to "Mandatory Mesopotamia", thus there is no question we should rename this page to some other title.
• On the other hand, there is also no question that there indeed was such an entity as Iraq under British Mandate, which existed from 1920/1921 until 1932 (see [3]), and it is a common practice to have separate articles on dependencies, which are not fully sovereign (see Coalition Provisional Authority; Protectorate of South Arabia; Sultanate of Egypt etc.).
• Third, please notice that i have created an article named British Mandate for Mesopotamia (legal instrument), which includes your latest version. In my opinion your edits had completely changed the intention of this article about British protectorate entity in Iraq/Mesopotamia, thus i did split it into a separate one.

Now, to our points of dispute:

• Your link on "kingdom of Iraq was declared in 1921" [4] doesn't say that the "Kingdom of Iraq" was created but actually "the 1921 Conference of Cairo created the British-backed Kingdom of Iraq. In 1932, Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations, thus ending the British Mandate". It clearly means there was a British Mandate, the question is only what was the WP:COMMONNAME for the entity.
• "Mandatory Iraq" has 190 hits [5], while "British Mandate over Iraq" has 3,820 hits [6]; "British Mandate Iraq" has 2,030 hits [7]; "Mandated Iraq" has 327 hits [8]. Of course we should use the most common name, in accordance with other similar articles.
• Regarding this primary source [9], i'm not sure we are allowed to rely on primary sources for naming procedures. Wikipedia's guidelines clearly asks to use secondary sources, since we are not real historians to interpretate original documents. Anyway, if you have in mind "Kingdom of Iraq (British Mandate)" to relate to the 1921-1932 entity, i could also live with that.

Hopefully, we can work this out to the benefit of this article and without edit-warring. I must remind our good past experience in civil discussions and eventually consensuses reached.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Greyshark, thanks for your response.

I agree with your analysis - as you say it is a question of commonname. The problem is that while I think that KoI is the common name, it is difficult to disaggregate the googlebooks hits to effectively analyse this name pre-1932.

Although I prefer one article from 1921-58, I can see your point that the entities were not the same pre and post the end of the mandate. So I am ok with your compromise proposal of Kingdom of Iraq (British Mandate). Are you going to make this a subarticle of Kingdom of Iraq, or do you intend to change that title too? If so, Kingdom of Iraq would need to be a disambiguation page.

So in summary even though I was initially annoyed about your reverts this is a good compromise - as you say, we have a good record of civil discussions which lead to good improvements, and I enjoy working with you.

By the way, what do you think of my improvements to the French Mandate of Syria and the Lebanon article? Oncenawhile (talk) 18:48, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "Kingdom of Iraq (British Mandate)" - i'm a little uneasy with your suggestion to disambiguate "Kingdom of Iraq". I think it will make more confusion than improvement. Seems to me better leave the "Kingdom of Iraq" as is, and put a hatnote at both articles, if we decide to stick with "Kingdom of Iraq (British Mandate)".

Yet, first i would like to emphasize that apparently the term "Kingdom of Iraq (British Mandate)" is little implemented to describe Iraq during 1920-1932:

After checking the term "Kingdom of Iraq" in relation to WP:COMMONNAME, i found it has 3,770 hits. Considering that the independent kingdom lasted 1932-1958 (26 years), while dependency lasted just 11-12 years, those results are probably mostly referring to post-1932 entity. Hence, using "Kingdom of Iraq (British Mandate)" (only a portion of 3,770 hits) is probably much inferior to "British Mandate over Iraq" (3,820 hits), "British Mandate Iraq" (2,030 hits), "Iraq (British Mandate)" (2,490 hits), "Iraq Mandate" (1,840 hits). So, perhaps one of those titles could better represent this article per WP:COMMONNAME and avoid the confusion with "Kingdom of Iraq" (1932-1958).Greyshark09 (talk) 20:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Regarding your work on French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon, i saw nothing i disagree with, but i will have a better look next week perhaps, and try to help you there.Greyshark09 (talk) 20:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

That's odd - when i did the search for "Kingdom of Iraq" i got 57,000 hits. Can you show me your link that came up with only 3,770?

Separately, i agree that we should avoid disambiguation. I have spent some time looking at how the serious history books structure the history of iraq - from what i can see (albeit this is not scientific), most consider the 1921-58 period, and subdivide it into 1921-32 and 1932-58. Another interesting point i noted was that if you review scholarly references to the anglo-iraqi treaty of 1930, most scholars note that the 1932 "independence" was basically a sham - i.e. the British domination continued since it had negotiated extensive rights in the 1930 treaty. In other words, the Iraq we are writing about did not change much as a result of its mandate status ending.

Oncenawhile (talk) 23:03, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I have been bold and amended the titles - are you ok with this? If so, one of us will now need to fix the text and redirects to be consistent. Oncenawhile (talk) 15:35, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

@Once, I'm not really ok with this. Apparently, you are not waiting for reply and consensus, but prefer to go per your own POV. First of all, do you have a good source for "Kingdom of Iraq (Mandate administration)"? is it WP:COMMONNAME? And why did you rename "Kingdom of Iraq" into the new title in violation of WP:DASH?Greyshark09 (talk) 06:39, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the search for "Kingdom of Iraq", i did the search in google.books, but for some reason i got 3,770 results. Now, when doing the search i indeed get 57,000 hits. Strange.Greyshark09 (talk) 06:39, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks Greyshark, hope you had a good wikibreak. Was just following wp:bebold, as you did when you didn't hear from me a couple of weeks ago. I strongly believe Kingdom of Iraq is the commonname for the entity created in 1921 - just flick through a handful of the 57,000 hits and you'll see that at least half related to the mandate era. Should we take this to RfC or 3O?

PS - you're right re wp:dash. I'll change it if you're otherwise happy with that title?

Oncenawhile (talk) 17:10, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

wp:bebold and wp:snowball don't go for discussed topics - 2 days of wikibreak is quiet rush to loose your patience. Regarding the titles i think i would better keep "Kingdom of Iraq" as is, while changing this one to "Iraq (British Mandate)". Let's do it the easy way - if you give me a couple of good sources relating to Iraq during 1920s as "Kingdom of Iraq" under "British administration" i would be sutisfied, and with small correction of WP:DASH we can close the deal. OK?Greyshark09 (talk) 18:53, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

OK great - i'm pleased to say i've found some sources quoting an official 1922 proclamation using the term Kingdom of Iraq. And another that also refers to British Administration:

• [10]
• [11]
• [12]

OK? Oncenawhile (talk) 21:19, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Checking the sources, i'm tending to close the dispute with those perhaps not the best possible (some concern over WP:COMMONNAME), but still reasonable titles. Let's change the articles accordingly, and perhaps in the future make an official rename request if any of us feels to change the status quo. I will now move to French Mandate topics (i have already begun doing it by editing the Franco-Syrian War and the Arab Kingdom of Syria).Greyshark09 (talk) 07:55, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

OK. Oncenawhile (talk) 08:07, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 2013: Getting back to the title

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 18:00, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Kingdom of Iraq (Mandate administration) → Mandatory Iraq – I propose to change the page title to "Mandatory Iraq" (similar to Mandatory Palestine), but keep "Kingdom of Iraq (Mandate administration)" as a bold title in the lead. The reason is WP:COMMONNAME, as for example Mandatory Iraq has 173 results in google books [13], while the long "Kingdom of Iraq (Mandate administration)" practically has very few sources.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:47, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. The search would be for "Kingdom of Iraq". The parenthetical, "Mandate administration", is just to give us a unique title between the two. A better disambiguation might be to use the dates for both of them. Apteva (talk) 21:02, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support. There's no need to invent a new name with a parenthetical suffix "to give us a unique title between the two", because there's already a real unique name that we can use. bobrayner (talk) 23:50, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support. There should be one page on the Kingdom of Iraq (titled just that) and one sub-article on the British mandate/protectorate (I am okay with the proposed title). Srnec (talk) 23:32, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. This source[14] says the Kingdom of Iraq lasted from August 1921 to 1958 - from 1921 to 1932 the Kingdom was semi-independent, and in 1932 gained full independence. There was a British mandate proposed in 1920, but it was dropped due to the Iraqi revolt of 1920. Calling an article "Mandatory Iraq" would just be wrong, unless it only covered the months from 1920 to August 1921. Apteva (talk) 03:03, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

• First off, the term "Mandatory" is used in reliable sources in just the way proposed: as a sort of synonym for "protectorate-like". After all, Britain did have an informal mandate for its actions. An alternative title could be British protectorate of Iraq. —Srnec (talk) 05:00, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Period

This article is not a "subarticle" of Kingdom of Iraq, the proposal was only for minor change of the article's title, not its scope. If somebody (Srnec) would like to change its scope to become "subarticle of Kingdom of Iraq". Let's make another vote here, else the status quo remains.Greyshark09 (talk) 20:15, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

It is subarticle. The British period is part of the monarchical period. It's a subarticle by default: it covers a period that is a subperiod of the other article's period. Srnec (talk) 00:35, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 2014: Rename back

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. --) BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

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Mandatory Iraq → Kingdom of Iraq (British Administration) – Taking into consideration Once's remark that de-facto Iraq was never under British Mandate, the previous rename procedure was my apparent mistake (though i meant good). I herewith propose to return to the previous title "Kingdom of Iraq (British Administration)", which is historically much more correct GreyShark (dibra) 19:00, 11 February 2014 (UTC).GreyShark (dibra) 19:00, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

• I Support per my own nom.GreyShark (dibra) 19:03, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - @Apteva:, @Srnec:, @Bobrayner:, @Oncenawhile: - note that this is a proposal related to the one you have previously participated it.GreyShark (dibra) 19:03, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. The proposed title is not an improvement, but I am open to suggestions. British occupation of Iraq would describe a longer period. Srnec (talk) 00:35, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 3 March 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Number 57 22:00, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

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Mandatory Iraq → Kingdom of Iraq (British Administration) – Iraq was never under mandate (the proposed mandate was scrapped), so the current title is wrong. Previous discussion is here. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:59, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. The previous discussions make it clear that the current title is well attested in reliable sources. The fact that it is legally inaccurate (if that claim can be properly sourced, remembering that our own opinions don't qualify as reliable sources) is an interesting factoid that can be included in the article lede, but has little bearing on our title choice. Andrewa (talk) 05:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per Andrewa and WP:NATURAL. Mandatory Iraq does sound a bit odd, to be fair (a bit like Compulsory Iraq), but it is used in sources.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:31, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.