In negotiating the agreement, Britain and France had ignored not only the question of the rights of the Arabs whose territories they owned, but also their likely answer. Convinced that the Arabs were not willing to govern themselves, the colonial powers also seemed to believe that they would remain passive. Instead, the autocratic approach of the European powers triggered nationalist reactions in the region, where currents of Arab nationalism had long been evident. With the weakening of Ottoman influence, nationalists gained prominence in Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad, among others. The British themselves helped foment Arab nationalism by dangling before Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, the vision of an independent Arab state under his rule as they tried to win his support against the Ottomans and foment the Arab revolt. Finally, Britain`s publication of the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 declaring its support for the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine encouraged the Zionist movement and inevitably an Arab nationalist reaction. Moreover, after the defeat of the Ottomans, Turkish nationalists led by Kemal Atatürk fought fiercely against attempts to dismantle the Turkish core of the Ottoman Empire, forming a strong new Turkish state that had not been part of the Sykes-Picot Plan. In other words, the local actors did not intend to remain passive and allow Britain and France to conceive of a post-Ottoman Levant as they saw fit. The agreement effectively divided the Ottoman provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas under British and French control and influence. The countries controlled by Britain and France were divided by the Sykes-Picot line. [5] The agreement gave Britain control of what is now southern Israel and Palestine, Jordan and southern Iraq, as well as a small additional area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre to allow access to the Mediterranean. [6] [7] [8] The France was to control southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. [8] In his introduction to a 2016 symposium on Sykes-Picot, law professor Anghie notes that much of the agreement is devoted to “trade and trade agreements, access to ports, and railway construction.” [50] When the Ottomans surrendered in October 1918, Sykes-Picot could no longer give an answer on the future of the Arab territories.
Instead, it was not until 1925, repeated rounds of negotiations and several treaties that the map of the Levant took the familiar form commonly identified with the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Little is known about the Sykes-Picot agreement: Syria, including present-day Lebanon, remained in a French zone of influence, but as a league of nations mandate and with borders that bore little resemblance to those envisioned by the two diplomats in 1916. Similarly, Mesopotamia remained in the British zone, but as a mandate that included not the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula, but the former Ottoman province of Mosul, which Sykes and Picot had given to the France. Everything else was different: Palestine had not become an international zone, but a British mandate encompassing Transjordan, but not the much larger area of influence that stretched far into the Arabian Peninsula designed by the two diplomats. And although an Arab state did emerge in the Arabian Peninsula, as envisioned in the original agreement, it was not the one that focused on the Hejaz that Britain was hanging before the eyes of Sharif Hussein, but the one dominated by Ibn Saud, who had taken control of much of the Najd Peninsula. Turkey had lost the empire, but it had successfully fought against the dismemberment of its core and had become an independent, fiercely nationalist and secular republic. And Egypt, from where Britain had planned war in the Levant and directed military operations, had also become independent, although the Suez Canal Zone was still controlled by Britain and France. One of ISIS`s stated goals is to dismantle the agreement. The group`s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, called for the disintegrating nations of the region to be replaced by a transnational regional power, the so-called “caliphate.” The Sykes-Picot Agreement (officially the Asia Minor Agreement of 1916) was a secret agreement made during World War I between the British and French governments on the division of the Ottoman Empire between the Allied powers. Russia was also aware of the discussions. In the Sykes-Picot Agreement, concluded on May 19, 1916, France and Great Britain divided the Arab territories of the former Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence.
In the area it has designated, it has been agreed that each country should be allowed to establish a direct or indirect administration or control that it wishes and that it deems appropriate to agree with the Arab State or the Confederation of Arab States. Under Sykes-Picot, the Syrian coast and much of present-day Lebanon passed to the France; Britain would take direct control of central and southern Mesopotamia, around the provinces of Baghdad and Basra. Palestine would have an international administration, since other Christian powers, namely Russia, had an interest in this region. The rest of the territory in question – a vast area that includes present-day Syria, Mosul in northern Iraq and Jordan – would have local Arab leaders under French supervision in the north and British in the south. In addition, Britain and France would maintain free passage and trade within each other`s sphere of influence. Very little of the Sykes-Picot agreement was implemented, and the borders that were eventually established hardly resemble the lines drawn – exquisitely imperially – by the two diplomats whose main concern was to decide how Britain and France would divide the Arab parts of the Ottoman Empire. Paradoxically, it is the failure of the agreement that makes it relevant to understand the forces that currently threaten the disintegration of the States of the Levant and possibly the reconfiguration of the region. If Britain and France had succeeded in shaping the Levant as they wished, the deal could have been dismissed as a product of a past colonial era with little relevance to the present. .