Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-03
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

1t is sometimes more difficult to let
go of bear than to catch hold. That
is the problem today confronting Great
Britain with her mandates in the Near
East and Middle East. Palestine, Egypt
and Iraq are giving her trouble.
What shall she do with Iraq, over
which she accepted a mandate soon
after the World War? She accepted
the responsibility against the opposition
Of the Labor party. led by the present
prime minister, Mr.. Macdonald, and
is today facing that responsibility with
great reluctance, yet with natural hest
tation as to how to let 1t go.
There was always the proviso that
whenever Iraq should be admitted into
full membership in the League of Ma
tions the mandate would cease. and that
independent country would stand with
her equals Italy, Germany
and potentially the United States. The
joker in that is that nobody on earth
expected the possibility of such an in
Significant nations admittance.
Every schoolboy" knows about Iraq,
and can locate and bound 1t, though
1t is doubtful II one in 10 adults can
do as we'll.
1t is located in the Garden of Eden.
Noah was its first admiral and the
Tower of Babel its greatest skyscraper.
Babylon is fallen, is fallen" but before
Babylon fell it was a great capital-me-
tropolis Of the present country of Iraq-
noted for It's hanging gardens and
luxuries Of all kinds.
There was King Nebuchadnezzar
with his appetite for spinach, so that
he ate grass like an OK. He put Daniel
into lions den, but the lions refused
to eat him. who's looney now, o
King?" tainted Daniel.
King NebuchadneZzar gave a banquet
and got as drunk as lord, so that he
began seeing things-saw a hand en-
crossing his fate on the wall, without
anybody attached to the hand. 1t
scared him. and shortly thereafter came
the news. Babylon is fallen, is fallen"
The tabloids got out extras with scare
heads.
Before. Babylon was fallen the Jews
were carried out of Palestine and taken
nrtSonerS to Babylon, where they hung
their harps on the willows and refused
to sing their home songs
IraQ contains the City of BaRhdad,
where Haroun ell Raschid lived, and
where all the Arabian Nights" were
related by ancient writer's of short
stories. Copyright now expired) So
that was where aviation was invented
before the Wright Brothers of Dayton
learned to n.y.. The Iraqians few on
carpets as easily as modern Lindberghs
fly in planes. Any skeptic who
doubts the aviation of an Iraqian rug
should ask the price of one today-it
is still above the clouds.
y
Iraq has an area of 100000 square
miles-about three times the area OF
Pennsylvania. Its population is 1884,
600, of which there are $500, 900
Mohammedans, nearly equally divided
between the two branches of Moslems
the Sunni and the Shah Moham-
medans: also $1,000 Jews, $4,000
It is bounded on the north by
Turkey, west by Syria and Trans
jordania. southwest and south by Nejd
and Kuweit, and on the east by Persia
Prior to the World War, it belonged to
Turkey, which domineered over the
natives, and was hated by them, so
that when Great Britain. fighting
Turkey, promised the Iraqians their
freedom from Turkey, they readily got
their good will and cooperation. Later,
when the natives-the nomads-dis-
freedom differed from that of the
desert sheiks, forbidding raids and loot
ing Of rival tribes, they revolted, and
there has scarcely been a happy day for
either Great Britain or Iraq, from that
day to this.
Yet Iraq lies at the very gateway into
India. and is closely in touch with all
the rest of Arabia, which links with
Egypt, and so the problem Of what to
do about 1t Is not a simple one. Some
how, the delicacy of the situation, in
volving the Moslems .of Arabia, Egypt
and India, seems to throw some light
upon the policies of Great Britain in
disarming the few Jews of Palestine,
instead of being too harsh with the
millions Of Arabs, and arousing the open
antagonism of the Moslems already on
hair-trigger touch throughout Great
Britain's Asiatic holdings. Mandates
over Palestine and Iraq are as danger
GUS as TINT. The United States
escaped the proposed mandate over