In 1922, the year that Iraq became a British mandate, the British High Commissioner to Iraq – Sir Percy Cox – held a tent meeting in the Arabian desert with representatives of regional leaders, including the man who would become King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. At this meeting Cox arbitrarily set out the lines marking the desert boundaries of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Almost seven decades later the lines that Cox drew in the sands of the region were reinforced by the orders of an American President.