@LaFeminista It is of course the last paragraph, which summarizes the long text preceding it:

As the High Commissioner had realised, the British authorities were now in an extremely embarrassing position. Nothing in their previous reports to the League had given the slightest sign that all was not well in Kurdistan, but they were now faced not only with evident and widespread dissatisfaction in the area but even the strong possibility of an armed uprising. The Iraq Government claimed that this was the result of pandering to the Kurds, while the British authorities claimed that, on the contrary, it was the result of not taking Kurdish demands seriously enough. For its part the Iraq Government seems to have realised by the end of 1930 that Britain was not only anxious to be able to leave Iraq in 1932, but that failure to do so because the League judged Iraq incompetent would reflect highly unfavourably on British integrity at Geneva. Thus of all the parties the Iraq Government was in fact in the strongest position: provided the threat posed by Shaikh Mahmud could be satisfactorily dealt with, and that any suggestion of a League Commissioner could be headed off, it was difficult to see how Iraq ran the risk of much more than a rebuke from the League if the Kurds were not satisfied after the end of the Mandate. They also know that H.M. Government was extremely sensitive, because of relations with Turkey and Persia, to any insinuation that Britain was attempting to return to the conditions of the Treaty of Sevres. Provided the Government could make paper concessions, and continue to procrastinate, no serious attempt to resolve the Kurdish problem seemed necessary.

British integrity, huh? Cut and run, they did. Did they care about the poor bastards they were dooming to nationlessness? (Do we now?) They still hoped for the sun never setting on the empire, a feat which Germany managed to do in two world wars, though at considerable cost to millions.

British arrogance, now supplanted only by U.S. arrogance, led to the dismissal of any compromise. The Brits worried about saving face and attending more to India etc than they did to the Kurds--maybe they didn't know about the oil. This is a lesson for the world: Britain united what should have been separated and we obliterate anything which is united.

#1 https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/169/36382.html