ABSTRACT
Egyptians and Arabs thought the US government wanted self-determination for all peoples, not only Europeans. After World War I, when the victorious Allies met in Paris to determine the fate of their defeated foes, both the Egyptian people and the Fertile Crescent Arabs expected to become independent. For Egypt, Iraq, and Syria from 1918 until after World War II, the promise of independence was a receding mirage, always on the horizon but not attained. The European powers during the war had drawn up idealistic plans to develop these countries and had repeatedly made promises of independence then and afterward. British control of Iraq was backed by a League of Nations mandate and by a succession of Anglo-Iraqi treaties, even though frequent uprisings showed that the Iraqi people did not want British troops in their midst. In modern times Egypt has usually been the leader of the Arab countries, yet it underwent a long and complicated struggle for independence.
