In the aftermath of the First World War, the former possessions of the Ottoman Empire were divided between France and Britain, with the remainder becoming the present-day country of Turkey.

Nationalists who believed that the expulsion of the Ottomans would lead to greater independence were disappointed at the system of government decided for the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.

Rather than the people of the region gaining a new sense of national identity through self-government, the British imported civil servants from India who had previous knowledge and experience of how to manage the administration of an overseas possession.

During the First World War, the Sykes–Picot Agreement was struck between the foreign ministers of Great Britain and France on behalf of their respective governments on a vision of a post war division of the Ottoman Empire in which the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire (south and west of Anatolia) would be split into spheres of influence for the French and British.

The Anglo-Iraqi Treaty was signed due mostly to the strenuous efforts of the people of the former Ottoman provinces, a coalition of both Sunni and Shia Arabs.

Faisal was seen as a compromise between British interests in the country, and the revolutionary nationalists; he could trace his family lineage back to Muhammad, as well as having participated in the 1916 Arab revolt against the Ottomans.

It was only when Dobbs threatened to wield his authority to scrap the constitution, drafted by the Iraqi constituent assembly, that the treaty was finally ratified.