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The Asia Minor Agreement, popularly known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, defined the post war Middle East to a great extent. It is named after the British and French diplomats, Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, respectively. The “line in the sand” drawn by them stretched from Acre to the second K in Kirkuk, separating the Arabian territories into regions A and B, under British and French control, respectively.
The British zone included Mesopotamia, starting north of Baghdad and extending through Basra all the way down to the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula, encompassing modern-day Transjordan and Palestine. The French zone covered an area extending along the Mediterranean coast from Haifa to southern Turkey and inland to a part of Anatolia, including modern-day Syria and Lebanon.
Britain and France could do what they wanted, putting these areas under direct administration by colonial officials or indirect control through local rulers of their own choosing. Additionally, France and Britain also awarded themselves respective zones of influence where they could set up independent Arab states or a federation of states under their supervision. Finally, the area comprising today’s Israel and Palestine would be declared an international zone controlled jointly by Britain, France, and Russia.
The Arabian Peninsula, with the exception of the east coast claimed by Britain, would be left under Arab control. Simply put, the text of the agreement and British-French correspondence around it makes it clear that the main concern of both France and Britain was to protect their interests against each other—there was much discussion about access to ports and the imposition of tariffs but none about the interests of the very diverse population.
What sow the seeds of sectarianism?
This secret deal—whose secrecy was lost when the Russian Revolution divulged it in 1917, within a year of the negotiations being finished and the signature being registered—remained hidden until 2014 when the jihadist group, Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS or ISIL— Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or the Levant), used a promotional video to announce the changing of its orders. This video was entitled “The End of Sykes-Picot.” The video explains the reasons for their commitment to this goal: “Today we are very happy to participate in destroying the borders placed by the Tawaghit (oppressors) to prevent the Muslims from traveling in their lands. The Tawaghit broke up the Islamic Caliphate and made it countries like Syria and Iraq ruled by man-made laws… Today we begin the final stage after the Ummah was divided; their plot was to divide and conquer. That’s what they had done with us.” I may share some commitments with ISIS at some points in that the present instability—which caused civil wars in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, decades of conflicts between Kurds in Iran, Turkey, Syria, and the central governments in these countries, and the much-discussed Israeli-Palestinian conflict—all have their origins in the imposition of arbitrary borders and the creation of many new states in the region to steward the colonial carve-up of the Ottoman territory between the aforementioned imperialist powers. There is no need for further elaboration when we delve into the secrecy of the deal. The secrecy itself proves the real content and the Arab allies of France and Britain were completely unaware of it. The McMahon-Hussein letters were full of greedy promises to their collaborators and coordinators in rebelling against the great Ottoman Caliphate from the start of the 20th century to the end of World War I, whereas the whole scene was spoiled with the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which didn’t even satisfy the Jews wholly, but inevitably encouraged Arab nationalist reactions. The heavy-handed approach of the colonial powers, assuming that they could resolve every problem by creating states, notably had its critics in the Western camp itself, who remarked on the miserable consequences that followed the agreement. T.E. Lawrence, who knew more about the religious and national differences in the Arab world than Sykes, warned of conflicts within the region. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson also commented that
“people and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as mere chattels and pawns in a game… Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the population concerned.”
For instance, there were debates about Sharia law vs. secularism, traditions and customs vs. modernity in the later years of the rule of the Ottoman Empire. But these debates were interrupted and diverted following the partition of the Caliphate. Both France and Britain did their best to use religious and national differences to divide and rule. In turbulent times, victims of constant colonial and later imperialist interventions, the numerous nationalities and religious groups, formerly under Ottoman rule, reverted to sectarian regional politics.
Likewise, it’s also argued that the contemporary sectarian divisions go back to the capitulations in the Ottoman Empire, as these practices accepted privileges based on religion. To start with, it has no better points to make on the geopolitical ground of the region because those who argue it to be the cause neglect the proportion of the population in this region. Those who back this argument say that foreigners—mainly Christians—secured a lot of privileges, including a law that they couldn’t be tried under local jurisdiction. If any foreign national committed a crime in the Ottoman Empire, they would only face legal proceedings from their own country in the relevant consul or embassy. In addition, foreign firms and individuals were exempt from any form of taxation, which paved the way for more corruption. Considering they were associated with various non-Islamic jurisdictions, they took bribes and maintained a discriminatory tax system. Thus, capitulations became a major source of discontent, and this is what lay the foundation stone of sectarianism according to them. However, this argument has no great impact relatively; it could remain as an argument at least.
Degree of relevance
The degree of relevance of the Sykes-Picot Agreement has always been questioned. In regards to the ISIS statement, “the end of Sykes-Picot,” some argue that it didn’t bring the end, considering historical events that assert it was never (fully) implemented. To illustrate this, they bring several factors that led the agreement to be less noteworthy. First of all, during the war, nationalism in the region upsurged, the Bolshevik Revolution turned Russia from an ally into an enemy of France and Britain, to be contained rather than awarded territory. The two major colonial powers— France and Britain—sank into bankruptcy, which kept them from devoting resources to the region commensurate with their original aspirations. In the wake of war, the situation got even more complex, making it impossible to implement it in the original form. Syria, including Damascus, was supposed to fall in the French zone of influence, but it was the British that entered Damascus and expelled the Turks. The British also expelled the Turks from Palestine and remained there, although it was supposed to be put under international administration.
Ultimately, the Sykes-Picot Agreement itself morphed into the San Remo Conference of the Allied powers (UK, France, Italy, and Japan) and was approved later by the League of Nations, and everything else was different: Mesopotamia stayed in the British zone, but as a mandate that didn’t include the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula but included the former Ottoman province of Mosul that Sykes and Picot had given to France. Palestine, as said before, hadn’t become an international zone but a British mandate, which included Transjordan but not the much larger zone of influence extending well into the Arabian Peninsula. And it was not the one centered on Hijaz that Britain had dangled in front of Sharif Hussein’s eyes, but one dominated by Ibn Saud, who had brought much of the peninsula under his control starting from Najd. Turkey had lost the empire, but it had successfully fought against the dismemberment of its core and had become an independent state, previously nationalistic and secular republic. Egypt, from where Britain had plotted the war effort and directed military operations, had also become independent, although the Suez Canal was still controlled by Britain and France.
Secondly, and most importantly, it’s about the ‘artificiality’ of the borders. The reason to focus on this specific point is that it answers questions that compare the relevance of Sykes-Picot to various other factors, especially the discursive economy in the case of instability in the region A closer look at the highlights offers us vivid contrasting points that ISIS, along with several other critics of the Sykes-Picot order, share some of the same Eurocentric assumptions about the “Middle East” and security governance. To start with, the critics of the order underscore the fact that regional people themselves weren’t sitting at the table when the borders in the region were drawn, and that is what has rendered the border between Syria and Iraq (among others) “artificial.” As a solution, they suggest that it should be redrawn in the presence of superpower resolve,⁵ whereas ISIS wishes to do the same but wishes to do away with “nation-states.” As the former’s solution is a top-down outlook towards the Middle East, it is part of the problem highlighted by ISIS. Both of them share a commitment to the military-focused, state-centric, and statist regime of security governance that characterized the Middle East in the past century. Thus, it weakens the relevance of the Sykes-Picot order by claiming that borders in the Middle East are “artificial,” a Eurocentric notion that asserts the agency of European colonial powers in wreaking havoc in this part of the world while underestimating the amount of agency exercised by regional people. To put it another way, it illustrates that the identity obtained by the Syrians and Iraqis as of now would have to be removed, and the designing of new borders would owe them a new one, which creates a lot of havoc. And incontestably, by realizing that even ISIS shares the same Eurocentric assumption that some borders are “artificial” and others “natural,” it becomes clear that this is a game set by the Europeans behind the scenes. Because all borders are artificial insofar as they are decided by a few men, and seldom women, behind closed doors. For example, Winston Churchill may have drawn the borders between Iraq and Jordan with a pen, but he wasn’t as central in delineating the border between France and Germany when he led the Allies to victory in World War II. Determining whether Alsace and Lorraine would be French or German was never as simple as just sending a commission to find out where the French people stopped and the German people started. Rather, the territory was awarded as a prize following each of Europe’s bloody conflicts.
But, assessing the situation on the ground, not just examining it theoretically, we could know that the colonial powers’ heinous tactic of ‘divide and rule’ was employed in a vast majority of the countries colonized by them, having gloomy and depressing impacts that persist. My nation, India, is a living example that emanates the extent of the destructive consequences this tactic can cause. No, there is no need to mention the carelessness of the colonial powers in the case of the Middle East too. How commensurate to their aspirations the borders had been designed? Without repeating the previously mentioned terrible facts, in my opinion, it’s better to assess this from the point of view that sees the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 and the later negotiations as a single core, considering the similarity of the consequences which may follow the first and followed the next orders. On one hand, it’s because of the circumstances that made the powers of that period rethink the borders, and on the other hand, colonial policies that led to the formation of states with great instability—mentioned in the next heading—were also a result of the situations around that period, which may have followed if Sykes-Picot was implemented in its true form. Also, the genuineness of the Sykes-Picot Agreement should be questioned, because even Syria—which was given back from Britain to France as a result of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference, which set the argument that France is the real owner of the territory according to the Sykes-Picot Agreement.