Paul Mason on Sykes-Picot: How an arbitrary set of
borders created the modern Middle East
“One hundred years
ago today, Britain and France drew a line through the Middle East that became
the border between Syria and Iraq, with a kink at the end of it that became
Israel. You get a sense of the breezy confidence behind the so-called
Sykes-Picot agreement from the minutes of the cabinet where the idea was
hatched:
“What sort of
agreement would you like to have with the French?” Arthur Balfour, the Foreign
Secretary, asks Sir Mark Sykes – a brilliant but erratic colonel just back from
a tour of the region. “I should like to draw a line from the ‘e’ in Acre to the
last ‘k’ in Kirkuk,” says Sykes.
Thus the destiny of
millions of people was shaped by the way a printer had arranged some place
names on a map.”
Sykes-Picot Process and the Middle East Mess – Time to
Redraw National Borders?
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-curse-of-sykes-picot-still-haunts-the-middle-east
Book Recommendation –
Lawrence in Arabia:
War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by
Scott Anderson
The Fall of the
Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan