British military intervention in 1941 abruptly ended the cycle of military coups d' état which had marked Iraqi politics during the preceding few years. It allowed the regent and those politicians who had found themselves increasingly at the beck and call of ambitious army officers to take stock and to reassert the kind of control with which they felt more comfortable. In the restricted circles of Iraqi elite politics, this did not alter the highly personalised relations which determined political alliances and antagonisms. Nor did it have any noticeable effect on the hierarchies which determined the flow of power and favour between the ruling elite and Iraqi society in all its variety. The structures of political power and of economic reward were much as they had ever been and were simply reinforced in the interests of the principal figures of the period, the most prominent of whom was Nuri al-Saʿid.

Nuri dominated the world of postwar Iraqi politics, both in its domestic and in its foreign policies, despite problems with the regent and challenges from within the elite and from the widening political circles of an engaged Iraqi political public. For Nuri, the political world seemed to exist on two levels. The first, deeply personalised world of politics required constant attention and manipulation. It was dominated by the immediate need to cement alliances, to co-opt and cajole potential adversaries and, if necessary, to deter and destroy intransigent opponents by the ruthless use of force.