That omission in the story of his life may help to explain much about his behaviour as he grew to manhood and afterwards. It had been his ambition to train as an officer at the Iraq Military Academy in Baghdad but he lacked the education even to attempt the entrance exam. He resented his exclusion and conceived what was to prove a lasting jealousy of contemporaries who did secure commissions. He believed that they were unfairly privileged and probably with reason. As was not the case in many developing countries, the composition of the officer corps in Iraq was class-based. The military profession was a middle-class occupation, dominated by families which had often supplied officers to the old Ottoman army. Indeed, many of the leading figures in mandate and post-mandate Iraq, such as Nuri al-Sa’id, Prime Minister at the time of the overthrow of the monarchy, had been Ottoman officers. They were favoured by the British and often Anglophile in consequence. There was an alternative, nationalist tradition in the army, represented by such officers as Rashid Ali, who led the attempt in 1941 to form an alliance with Nazi Germany and the brief military action against the British army and RAF garrison.
