I truly believe the turmoil we are currently experiencing in the Muslim World can be directly linked to the mishandling of the division of the former Ottoman Empire. Without a doubt the European victors of WWI looked at the Middle Eastern region as “spoils of war”, with little or no regard for the desires of the population.
The 18th century mindset that prevailed, that of colonization and assimilation, permeated all diplomatic solutions that were implemented. The complete dismissal of the King-Crane commission findings, as well as the secret arraignments of San Remo and Sevres initiated the distrust of Western Powers that we see today.
Britain should take full responsibility for it’s duplicity in promising the Arabs control of the region, in exchange for their revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Surely the Husayn – McMahon correspondence documents the rights and claims of Arabs that were later ignored in final treaties. The final straw for the Hashemite clan would have to be the lack of support they received from the British when the family Saud drove them out of Mecca.
The French are no less culpable in their deceit, partitioning Greater Syria, into what is now Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine/Israel, and Syria. The French even attacked the Hashimites and drove them out of Damascus, where they had set up a provisional government after WWI. This, as the French attempted to insulate the Christian Maronites, who would form Lebanon.
In my studies I am pleasantly surprised to discover that the Arabs were willing, at the time, to be subject to American mandates. The ideas of liberty, democracy, and individual freedom appealed to the Arab Leaders, and America had not, yet, been found to be untrustworthy in its diplomacy. I understand that President Wilson endorsed the formation of a League of Nations, and his attention to the region was severely limited by his stroke. I wonder if he had the ability to concentrate on the region, as he initially intended, if our current world situation would look the same?
That’s certainly a question for the ultimate after action report. One could imagine if the region had been allowed to pursue Arab Nationalism, particularly along the same secular designs of Attaturk, we would see a vastly different socio-economic political environment than we do today. One could conceivably picture an entire region poised to join the EU ( or perhaps Europe poised to join the Middle Eastern Union ), democratic ideals would have spurred massive industrialization, capitalism, and, with Muslim social proclivities taken into consideration, a workable solution for economic stratification. Perhaps this WAS foreseen by the Europeans, and their occupations were an act to preclude a rise in the Middle East, and an attempt to stifle America’s rise in global stature.
So what we get is the British appeasing the French, America being ignored as that upstart colony, Russians, Italians, and Greeks get their little chunks of Persia, and the Arabs are left with little more than desert. Oh, almost forgot the Zionist get Palestine.
Before my studies of the Middle East, I thought the formation of Israel was the root cause of all Arab angst. I have since discovered that it was nothing more than the final straw upon the back of the proverbial camel. In fact, it became a rally cry only after Arab nationalist exhausted all other efforts of independence. Solidarity of the Arab people, or at least the public support of those people, could only be unified under the banner of Islam. Casting a struggle in religious terms seems to be history’s final refuge for desperation.
What we are left to reap, some 80 years later, is not much better than what we found after WWI; Radical Theocracies such as Iran, fomenting the hate germinated by broken promises, Dictatorships in decline ( Syria and Iraq), potential examples of democracy in Lebanon, Israel and Turkey, and functional Monarchies in Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.