The Open Door and U.S. Policy in Iraq between the World Wars

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Scholarship on U.S. involvement in the Middle East has traditionally maintained that after the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles and refused to participate in the League of Nations mandate system, the United States returned to political isolation and watched events in the Middle East passively from the sidelines. This presentation challenges that narrative by arguing that the United States did have both interests in and a policy concerning Iraq during that time. Despite being non-belligerents with the Ottoman Empire during the First World War and non-members of the League of Nations thereafter, the U.S. government consistently advanced the claim that the American contribution to the Allied victory entitled it to equal political and economic opportunities in the Middle East and to a voice in postwar Middle Eastern affairs. U.S. officials vigilantly intervened in the region throughout the period to ensure not only American access to petroleum resources, but also, as is shown in Iraq, to insist on political relations unmediated by Great Britain. British acceptance of this implies that the foundations had thereby been laid for an independent American role in the Middle East, preceding the later thresholds usually cited by historians. The open door policy the U.S. government set out in the correspondence with Britain in 1920–1921 represents a full and cogent policy on Iraq that was advanced throughout the interwar period to protect American interests and standing in that country.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.