ABSTRACT
Modern Iraq emerged as an independent kingdom in 1932, its boundaries and major institutions defined while it was a League of Nations mandate under British tutelage. In accordance with the 1920 San Remo talks and the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, mandate Iraq incorporated three former Ottoman vilayets—Mosul, Baghdad, and Basrah. With the exception of the western desert and the northeastern mountains, it was coextensive with the traditional geographical region of Mesopotamia. The Arabic name al-Iraq had been applied geographically to lower Mesopotamia; for the first time, it designated a state occupying the basin. Whether traditional Mesopotamia or modern state, Iraq is the land of two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, two of the three great rivers in the Middle East. Only a province of the Damascus-based Umayyad Empire after 661, Mesopotamia supplanted Syria as the Muslim imperial heartland in 750.
