Historical Background

Modern Iraq is composed of the 3 provinces of the former Ottoman Empire – Mosul (Nineveh in the Bible), Baghdad and Basra. The British chose to help overthrow the Ottoman Empire by attacking Mesopotamia (Iraq) from Persia in 1914, and ended up after WW1 with the League of Nations mandate for Mesopotamia.

They chose not to push for the formation of a Kurdish nation after WW1 which would include Mosul for fear of Russian control. They ended up with the nation of Iraq composed of one largely Sunni Kurdish province (Mosul), one largely Sunni Arab province (Baghdad) and one largely Shi’a Arab province (Basra) – an artificial nation with 3 main people groups with the Shi’a being the majority at about 60-65%.

With the formation of Iraq in 1921 the British imposed a Sunni Arab puppet king, Faisal, who did not come from Iraq, but from the Hashemite family of the Hijaz, Western Arabia. Faisal gained the throne and refused to be a puppet of the British, yet to Iraqis he always lacked legitimacy. Britain’s priority was to minimise the costs of colonial rule in Iraq rather than seek the best interests of the Iraqis.

From 1921 to the end of the monarchy in 1958, a period of 37 years, Iraq had 58 different governments! From 1958 Iraq had dictatorships, with Saddam Hussein from the Sunni minority, coming to power in 1979.

For reasons of empire, economics, geography, ethnicity, religion, power, leadership and politics the modern nation state of Iraq was in serious trouble from the start. It could be argued that these factors are still the reasons why Iraq is in such a mess today.

The news…

As of 1st May 2007 the number of civilians killed because of the fighting during and since the invasion in 2003 is estimated at anything from 62,500-68,500 (http://www.iraqbodycount.net) to 100,000-150,000 (Iraqi Health Ministry). Even the lowest figure is a human catastrophe!

Every day the news contains another report of a bombing and hundreds killed. Have we become desensitised to this tragedy? How does God feel about the deaths of those He has created?

Please pray and encourage your church to pray.