King Faisal I

Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi is the third son of Hussein ibn Ali al-Hashimi, Sharif of Mecca and the self-styled King of the Arab Countries. He is a direct descendent through the male line from Fatimah bint Muhammad, the daughter of the prophet Muḥammad. Faisal led the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire from 1916-18. During this period, he tried to negotiate an arrangement with the Ottomans where he would defect with his army to them, in exchange for being granted control of Syria and Mosul under the Empire.
When the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of the Great War, Faisal led the Arab delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. In March of 1920, Faisal was proclaimed King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria by the Syrian National Congress. In April, the follow-up to the Paris Peace Conference, known as the San Remo Conference, granted the mandate for Syria to the French. A short war ensued and by the end of July, Faisal was deposed.
In March of 1921, the British decided that Faisal would make a good choice as a puppet ruler for their mandate of Iraq. This was largely a result of T.E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell, who lobbied heavily for him. Faisal took the throne as King Faisal I of Iraq, despite very few Iraqis ever having heard of him. His power base is the Sunni minority in the Baghdad region and he relies upon the British to support him in the Kurdish region of Mosul and the Shite region of Basra.