In response to Charlie

In response to this post by Charlie.  

Charlie’s post on the Peril of Tribes is exactly what made the Sykes-Picot agreement one of the most inflammatory agreements of all-time.  I mentioned it in one of my earlier posts, but European misunderstandings of the Middle East are not more apparent then the land divisions created by the British and the French.  This problem stems from the European arrogance that had driven European imperialism, along with many other things, in Africa and all over the world.  The Europeans go in not accounting for the existing cultures or societal arrangements and impose their will on their victims.  They only had the ability to do this because of their military dominance, which holds true of the post WWI situation in the Middle East.  Britain and France had just proved to the world that they had the ability to defeat the greatest power in the continent, an important fact when it comes to the idea of revolt.  All this goes to your head, and the Europeans basically ignored the actual Middle East when it approached their land divisions.  An interesting point about the Perils of the Tribes is the fact that poorly designed land divisions not only hurt the Europeans in the sense that people were angry at them, but it also opened the Pandora’s box of issues within the Middle East itself.  Tribes were not only looking for a way out from European control, which had been put upon them after false promises, but also took up issues with surrounding Middle Eastern enemies.  This made the Middle East even more of a difficult place to control, and has basically gone unresolved.  

In response to Charlie

This is a response to three of Charlie's posts, here, here, and here.

The rivalry between France and Britain that had a huge impact in the Middle East before WWI had pretty much disappeared after the war.  This is mainly because Britain and France had just fought on the same side in order to defeat the Germans, and now that they had supreme control over the Middle East, thanks to the destroyed Ottomans, there was no reason they couldn’t be happy each accepting half of the territory.  Russia was a noteworthy participant in the rivalry consisting of Britain and France before WWI, and they also had a role in the Sykes-Picot agreement.  Interestingly, the rivalry that had to some degree weakened between Britain and France remained strong with Russia.  The fact that Russia was still at odds with Britain and France meant that the Middle East was only going to act as another battleground for the tension that existed between the two sides.  

In response to Charlie

In response to this post.  

The story of the Russians recounted by Charlie in his post sheds important light on the future of European affair in the Middle East after WWI.  First off, it shows Russia’s early ambitions in the area, which were still present at the time of the Sykes-Picot agreement.  Russians have always been ones to see adjacent territory as their own, and the quest for a simple route between central Asia and Russia was very much alive well after the Khivans took advantage of them.  On another note, this story also shows the consistent misunderstanding with which Europe has approached the Middle East.  After WWI, when the Britain and France divided up the Middle East, the borders that were drawn showed a clear misunderstanding of the Middle East.  The country of Iraq essentially included three different groups of people, Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds (northern Iraq).  This has turned in to a huge problem, because the borders that have been drawn are hard to change and have basically created concrete boundaries for people who don’t necessarily want to live next to each other.  Along with that, there’s the British total miscalculation of Israel.  No one knows how or why Britain thought Israel was going to work without resistance, given the fact that the British made two contradictory agreements.  This is a common trend when it comes to Europeans and the Middle East, misunderstanding.  

In response to Charlie

In response to this post by Charlie.  

I think everything stated in this post is good, except I think Charlie leaves out one extremely important part that becomes extremely apparent after WWI.  Not only did control in the middle east mean control over the silk road, which meant that Britain and her European friends did not have to deal with the siphoning of money by the middle man, but it also gave Europe new markets.  Captialism only works when there are people who want to buy produced goods, and the more people you have the more money you can make.  Viewing the Middle East as simply a connection between two sides of the world that Europeans wanted to control simply for the sake of keeping their trade direct accounts for only half of the European plan with the Middle East.  They wanted control, but they also wanted to use population for their profit.  

More on the Swedish Model

I agree that the purpose of any state is the security of its citizens, but at what price this comes at is determined by the different forms of government. In some cases a state’s security might come from financial burdens shouldered by its citizens. In other cases their might be a body burden (soldiers in the army) that is taken by the citizens. In some governments the citizens give up most of their basic rights in order to be protected. What is consistent in all these though is the fact that a government can’t provide security without asking some of its people. This seems obvious considering it takes resources to do anything (protection or otherwise), and a state’s people is its most important resource. The question is then do the people see what they’re doing as being a legitimate sacrifice, and this question is left in total doubt if there is no transparency within a government. If you enter the armed forces without knowing what you’re fighting for, the weight you shoulder hardly seems worth it. The same is true when it comes to what you’re fighting against. Had the USA, in the wake of 9/11, just launched a war against the Middle East, I think it would have been hard to convince the America people of its legitimacy. But, by targeting a specific person / political group, you put a face on the enemy and show people what exactly their fighting against. All governments should be responsible for protecting their people, and all governments will in turn ask sacrifices of their people. But when governments hide what their people are sacrificing for, or what their fighting against, the government will slowly start to lose the support of the citizens. In Sweden, this wasn’t a problem because people knew what they were sacrificing for.

In response to Cas' response to my Swedish Model post

The argument over whether the Swedish Model is already present in America, I think we can turn to the recent debate over the torture photos as an obvious example of a government doing things wrong.  The only reason that the US would not want the torture photos, let alone the fact that they were (and probably are) torturing people, getting out into the rest of the world is that it would compromise their integrity as a government of the people, and therefore its place as a beacon of hope to the rest of the world.  There was never a ballot measure that involved the approval of relentless torture, and in order for the government to get around this they kept the secret within the government.  Now, it’s true that America has a huge government, but total transparency is not impossible.  The reason it’s currently hard to achieve is the question of security.  The safety of the American people is the priority of the government (just like I mentioned earlier in my first post), and this means that the bad guys can’t know what the US government is up to.  So the task then becomes eliminating the security threats that exist, which means resolving conflicts around the world where people dislike us.  But, we can’t just give into the opposition’s measures and seek a trail of appeasement until everyone’s problems have been dealt with, this would hurt American’s financially.  Hurt Americans don’t vote the president back into the presidency, and so it’s important for the government to not hurt Americans.  So, what does America do?  Total transparency at the price of the American people, or no transparency and Americans don’t pay a price for their security?  We either have to bite the bullet and accept the actions of our government, or take the bull by the horns and have it come out of our own pocket.  I’d be willing to pay for a better government because down the road this will actually pay itself back with increased economical success.  I’m just gonna have to suck it up before down the road is the present.  

Land Divisions in the Sykes-Picot agreement

As seen on this website, the actual allocations of territory in the Sykes-Picot agreement involved Britain getting modern day Jordan, Southern Iraq, and another small area that allowed British access to the Mediterranean Sea. This last territory near Haifa, is evidence of the economical outlook the British took into their negotiations for territory. A port was key for a super power like Britain who had the best Navy in the world. The French took control of southeastern Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and northern Iraq. The Russian’s were to take control over Constantinople, the Turkish Straits, and the Ottoman Armenian vilayets. All these territories were economically prosperous and would allow each of these nations to have a more controlling hand in the world economy.

The Sykes-Picot agreement

The Sykes-Picot agreement detailed in this BBC article, which was accomplished in 1916, involved Britain and France with the knowledge and approval of Russia. The agreement focused on the manner in which the Middle East was going to be divided once the Ottoman Empire fell during World War I. France and Britain viewed the agreement as essentially dividing the Middle East into western spheres of influence revolving around trade and economic prosperity. The fact that this agreement even existed is evidence of the economic and colonial mindset the Europeans had when they thought about the outcome of World War I. They’re talking about how they’re going to divide up the Ottoman Empire before they’ve even won the war, and they show the fact that their promises in the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence to the Arab people that helped them over throw the Ottoman Empire were completely worthless to begin with.

The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence

The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, which is described by a Middle Eastern Website here, was a conversation between the Sharif of Mecca Husayn bin Ali and Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt. The conversation was about the political future of the Arab nations, who at the time were under the control of the Ottoman Empire. The Arab nations were already moving in the direction of the large-scale revolt against the Ottomans, and the British took that sentiment as an opportunity to defeat the Ottomans by strongly encouraging the Arab nations to revolt. The Arab nations had previously offered up the idea of an Ottoman Arab revolt in 1914 in the Damascus Protocol, which basically declared that were the Arabs to revolt, the British would guarantee independence for Arabia. Because the Ottomans had not entered World War I on the side of the Germans yet, the British refused this deal because the British wanted to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. But once the Ottomans entered World War I against the British, the British sought revolt from the Arabs. The Arabs saw their conversation with the British as an agreement, and mobilized a military force that then attacked the Ottomans in 1916.