The growing state

In 1936 King Ghazi I formed an alliance with other Arab nations, known as the Pan-Arab movement. This was, in effect, a non-aggression treaty, and promising kinship between Arab countries. Three years later, Ghazi was killed in a road accident and was succeeded by his three-year-old son, Faisal II, under a regency. Faisal, the cousin of Jordan's present King Hussein, did not assume the throne formally until his eighteenth birthday, in May 1953.

During the earlier part of World War II, Iraq's government was strongly pro-British, but a military revolt in 1941 resulted in British troops landing at Basra in 1941. The ensuing war between Britain and Iraq lasted less than a month, before Iraq conceded defeat, and a new, pro-British government was established. In the following year Iraq became an important Middle Eastern supply centre for American and British forces, particularly with regard to the transshipment of arms to the USSR.