نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
عنوان مقاله English
نویسندگان English
After World War I, Mesopotamia came into being through a state-building project called Iraq. Gertrude Bell, a British diplomat-officer, was a central figure in advancing this project. Although there were numerous obstacles to this project due to the climatic and cultural diversity in this region, the most important obstacle in this path was the entire population that this government was supposed to rule. The Shiites, who were the majority population of the region, were to form the core of the nation that the new government was to rule. Bell's letters show that one of his concerns in advancing this plan was how the residents of the Shiite holy cities in Iraq (Atabat-e-Aliyat) would react to this.
The main issue of the present study is to explain the understanding and perception of this British agent of the situation of the holy cities of Iraq and how he faced the issues related to these cities in relation to the goals of Britain. In this study, using a descriptive-analytical method, while describing the British state-building project in Iraq, we seek to find out what obstacles Gertrude Bell observed to facilitate the advancement of the goals of Britain in this project and what measures she devised to overcome these obstacles.
The results of the study show that the "characteristics of Shiite culture" and "long-standing relations between the inhabitants of this region and the people of Iran" were the main obstacles to advancing Britain's goals, and therefore Gertrude Bell's state-building for the future of this region centered around three main strategies: marginalizing Shiites in the government structure, weakening the position of Shiite mujtahids, and cutting off Iranian influence.
کلیدواژهها English
