ABSTRACT
The two statesmen who most influenced the foreign policy and internal politics of Hashemite Iraq from the 1930s until the fall of the monarchy in 1958 were 'Abd al-Ilah and Nuri al-sa'id.
Despite the fact that for some 30 years Nuri was one of the most prominent personalities in Iraq and in the Middle East as a whole, his verbosity, irascibility and restlessness, coupled with the inner conflict and chaos that characterized his statements and actions make it difficult to draw a coherent political portrait of him.1 One facet of his political outlook, formed during the latter years of the Ottoman Empire is, however, abundantly clear. Nuri envisioned the future of the Fertile Crescent in terms of a union or federation of autonomous units under Iraqi domination.
