Latest news with #Sykes-PicotAgreement
NDTV
16 hours ago
- Politics
- NDTV
How Did The Muslim World Go So Wrong?
You often run into people who look down upon the Muslim world, pointing at the chaos, armed terror groups, militia rule and dictatorship to conclude that there is something fundamentally wrong with Muslims and their religion. Others take the opposite view, arguing that the Muslim world's present-day turmoil owes much to the West's repeated interventions and historical injustices. Both arguments offer partial truths, but they miss the broader reality: much of the Muslim world, especially in West Asia, lies in ruins. The causes are complex and layered, but the evidence is undeniable. From the shattered boulevards of Tripoli to the bombed-out alleys of Aleppo, from Baghdad's sectarian heartlands to Gaza's crumbled skyline, a common image emerges - of nations torn apart, societies hollowed and futures stolen. This devastation is neither natural nor inevitable. It is the cumulative result of decades of war, opportunistic foreign interventions, proxy conflicts, repressive regimes and colonial legacies. And in all of this, ordinary people, displaced, disillusioned and discarded, are the ones who suffer the most. Aftershocks Of Empire This is not about defending despots or absolving extremists. It is a plea for consistency, justice and memory. It is a call to understand how historical interference, political hypocrisy and selective moral outrage have turned one of the world's richest cultural regions into a perpetual battleground. The story of the Muslim world's chaos is not just about religion or governance. It is about the aftershocks of empire, the exploitation of oil and ideology, and a world order that has failed millions. In the 1920s, Winston Churchill famously quipped that he was not in favour of allowing 'the Arab tribes' to control their own affairs in Palestine. This imperial disdain wasn't just personal opinion; it was policy. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France carved up West Asia through the Sykes-Picot Agreement, drawing arbitrary borders and installing loyalist rulers. These new 'nation-states' were not crafted with local realities in mind but were designed to serve European interests - strategic positioning, oil pipelines and control of trade routes. This era of manufactured states and manipulated societies set the stage for future instability. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, each is a product of imperial drawing boards rather than organic nation-building. As regimes collapsed and identities clashed, these fissures widened. The West may have formally exited the region in the mid-20th century, but its legacy never left. Instead, West Asia continued to be haunted by postcolonial trauma, Cold War alignments and economic dependency. Sea Of Ruin Take Libya. Muammar Gaddafi ruled it for over four decades with an iron grip. He was a tyrant, but he also provided free education, healthcare and relative stability. NATO's intervention in 2011, under the guise of humanitarian protection, toppled him but offered no plan for what came next. Libya descended into chaos, with rival militias carving up the country. Weapons looted from Libyan arsenals flooded Mali and Syria, fueling other wars. Gaddafi's fall wasn't the birth of democracy; it was the opening act of a long, bloody disintegration. Iraq offers an even starker example. The 2003 US-led invasion, based on false claims of weapons of mass destruction, dismantled not only Saddam Hussein's regime but also the entire Ba'athist (party) state structure. The de-Ba'athification programme purged thousands of civil servants and military officers, creating a vacuum that was quickly filled by sectarian militias and, eventually, the dreaded and bloodthirsty Islamic State. Iraq went from dictatorship to a failed democracy haunted by car bombs and assassinations. Once a cradle of civilisation, it now struggles to keep the lights on. Syria, too, became a battlefield of global ambition. What began as peaceful protests in 2011 soon morphed into a full-scale civil war, drawing in Russia, the United States, Iran, Turkey, Israel and countless non-state actors. While Assad's brutality is undeniable, so too is the damage inflicted by competing foreign agendas. More than half of Syria's population has been displaced. Cities like Aleppo and Raqqa have become modern ruins. Afghanistan was a theatre of invasion and war, resulting in total collapse of the existing system. First it was the Communist USSR that invaded the country in the late '70s. It was ultimately ousted with the American money, muscle and machine guns after a decade of misrule. Then, the US-led allied forces invaded it in 2001, claiming to install stability and democracy. The experiment failed miserably. The ousted Taliban made a dramatic comeback in 2021, with Western forces making an inglorious retreat. They have left the local population, women and children, at the mercy of the extremist Taliban. Iran's Turn Now? And now it is Iran, dangerously poised to be on the road to ruin. It has been subjected to cycles of isolation, sanctions sabotage, and now, open threats of regime change. Its current hardline government owes its survival not just to repression but also to an embattled nationalism born from decades of foreign pressure. From the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-backed 1953 coup that ousted Prime Minister Mossadegh to present-day nuclear tensions, Iran's story is as much of external meddling as of internal strife. Meanwhile, regimes like those in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar continue to enjoy Western patronage. These nations are no less autocratic, no more democratic. Yet, their wealth and alignment with Western strategic interests insulate them from criticism. Human rights violations, censorship and state-sponsored religious extremism are quietly tolerated. The West does not oppose dictatorship, it opposes defiant dictators. This selective morality has real consequences. When Western powers punish some regimes while shielding others, they lose credibility. Worse, they stoke cynicism and anger across the Muslim world. Young people see the hypocrisy. They see the bombs dropped in the name of freedom and the silence that follows when friendly monarchs crush dissent. In that silence, extremist narratives take root; terror groups do not emerge from cultural voids, they are born in environments of injustice, humiliation and betrayal. Even Sudan, often omitted from this conversation, has a familiar story. Its colonial past, where the British pitted ethnic groups against each other, laid the groundwork for later divisions. Post-independence governments, often backed or sanctioned by foreign powers, struggled to hold a fractured society together. The current infighting isn't just a power struggle, it is the delayed detonation of a colonial time bomb, exacerbated by modern meddling from Gulf rivals, the West, and even Russia. Gift Of Nostalgia Amid all this, it is the ordinary people who pay the highest price. Families displaced across generations. Children growing up without schools or safe drinking water. Doctors operating by flashlight in makeshift clinics. Artists silenced. Intellectuals exiled. Hope becomes a rare commodity. In Gaza, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, to name just a few, the future has become just a concept. In such an environment, the past - even a past ruled by dictators - can seem strangely preferable. Say what you will about Saddam or Gaddafi, many in their countries recall the order, security and predictability of life under their rule. That nostalgia isn't about love for tyranny but about despair at what followed. What the Muslim world needs isn't more interventions, more bombs, or more regime-change fantasies. It needs principled action from the global community. It needs investment in peacebuilding, infrastructure and local civil society. It needs space to breathe, heal and rebuild. The West Learns No Lessons This is not an ode to the past. It's a warning. If history continues to repeat itself, it won't just be West Asia that suffers. Instability radiates. Refugees flee. Radical ideologies spread. And global trust erodes. The price of selective intervention is paid not just in Baghdad or Tripoli, but in Paris, London and New York, too - mostly in boats full of refugees and immigrants. It's time to move beyond the tired binaries: West vs. East, Islam vs. modernity, stability vs. chaos. The real battle is between integrity and hypocrisy, between memory and amnesia. Only when Western powers hold themselves to the same standards they demand of others can we begin to imagine a different future for the Muslim world. Let that future be written not in the language of conquest or control but in the vernacular of justice, sovereignty and dignity - and hope for a better future for the Muslim world. Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
NDTV
26-05-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
"Era Of Western Interference Over. Future Belongs To...": US Envoy To Syria
Washington: Tom Barrack, US ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy to Syria, on Sunday slammed the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement that divided the Turkish empire for "imperial gain-not peace." He said the division of Syria was a historic mistake, as he stressed that the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in the country would open the door for prosperity and security. "A century ago, the West imposed maps, mandates, penciled borders, and foreign rule. Sykes-Picot divided Syria and the broader region for imperial gain-not peace. That mistake cost generations. We will not make it again," Barrack wrote on X, criticising the past Western policies. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from Russia and Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire following World War I. The pact is widely seen as the foundation for the imposition of Western influence and arbitrary borders in the Arab areas of the region, particularly in oil-rich areas. Echoing US President Donald Trump's May 13 remarks in Riyadh, Barrack said the future of the Middle East depends on regional solutions and cooperation. "The era of Western interference is over. The future belongs to regional solutions, but partnerships, and a diplomacy grounded in respect. As President Trump emphasized in his May 13th address in Riyadh, "Gone are the days when Western interventionalists would fly to the Middle East to give lectures on how to live, and how to govern your own affairs," he wrote. Barrack noted that Syria's tragedy "was born from division," saying its "rebirth must come through dignity, unity, and investment in its people." "That starts with truth, accountability-and working with the region, not around it," he said. The statement follows a significant change in US policy over Syria following Trump's meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh earlier this month-- the first direct encounter between US and Syrian leaders in 25 years. Before the meeting, Trump ordered the removal of "brutal and crippling" sanctions on Syria, following which US has issued general license sanctions relief. The EU has also lifted economic sanctions on Syria on Tuesday to support reconstruction efforts. Barrack stressed that the US stands with Turkiye, the Gulf, and Europe - but "not with troops and lectures, or imaginary boundaries," but "shoulder-to-shoulder with the Syrian people themselves." "With the fall of the Assad regime, the door is open to peace - by eliminating sanctions, we are enabling the Syrian people to finally open that door and discover a path to renewed prosperity and security," he said. The US ambassador's statement came after he met Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa on May 24 in Istanbul to discuss the recent US decision to lift sanctions on Syria. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said that Washington supports efforts to help Syria's new government succeed, warning that failure could trigger renewed conflict and regional instability.
Arab Times
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab Times
Indeed, for Arabs, it is all ‘soap'
THE Sykes-Picot Agreement was the final nail in the coffin of the Ottoman Empire. The Balfour Declaration then marked the next phase in the division of influence between Britain and France, leading to a significant increase in Jewish immigration to Palestine. Even before that fateful declaration was issued, when Jewish settlements began to be established in Palestine in 1908, Palestinian landowners were wary of this development. However, they did not actively prevent the new settlements. As events accelerated after World War I, the Arabs lacked the military power needed to halt the process of Judaization. Meanwhile, Europe provided financial support to the new settlers, who succeeded in establishing a network of settlements and forming a self-defense force. After World War II, Europe and Germany, seeking to atone for the atrocities committed by Hitler against the Jews, facilitated the increased Jewish immigration to Palestine. This historical context is crucial in countering attempts to displace Palestinians from their land, particularly in light of the Israeli Finance Minister's statement about relocating Gaza's population to a third country. For nearly two decades, several Arab countries have witnessed civil wars and internal divisions. Yet, despite this, the slogan 'Free Palestine' continues to be raised, while actions often move in the opposite direction, or as we say in Kuwaiti slang, 'praying towards the east.' Since 1948, false accusations have been leveled against the late Egyptian King Farouk, claiming his involvement in the use of defective weapons during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. He was also accused of being reactionary and of collaborating with the West and the Zionist movement. These accusations were used to justify Major Jamal Abdel Nasser's coup against the king in 1952 and the secession of Sudan from Egypt. Such claims were also exploited by power-seekers in different Arab countries. This period marked the beginning of a wave of revolutions (coups) that swept through the Arab world, starting with Iraq and Syria, followed by a failed coup attempt in Lebanon, Yemen, and Libya. In 1969, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi led a coup that ousted King Idris Al-Senussi in Libya. I still remember the chants of the demonstrators in Tripoli that day, shouting, 'The Devil is better than Idris.' It is said that when King Idris Al- Senussi heard those chants, he prayed to God that Libya be ruled by the Devil. We all know the history of Gaddafi after the success of his coup and how he adopted the liberation of Palestine as his slogan. However, Gaddafi went too far in threatening Arab rulers, intervening in the Lebanese civil war, and attempting to invade Chad, instead of directing his army to liberate Palestine. In 2011, Muammar Gaddafi's regime collapsed, and he was killed in one of the most brutal ways. Following his death, militia leaders took control of various regions in Libya. Despite being a country rich in natural resources, with beautiful coastlines and fertile land, Libya has been reduced to ruins since 1969. This is similar to what the Ba'ath Party regime did in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, who also raised the slogan of liberating Palestine. Saddam even went so far as to declare the formation of the 'Jerusalem Army.' However, instead of marching into Palestine, he invaded Kuwait. What has recently transpired in Libya, with Abdul Ghani al-Kikli, also known as 'Ghaniwa al-Kikli,' attempting to seize control of the country's resources and loot the central bank, mirrors what gangs in Somalia and Iraq have done. It has become evident that the slogan of liberating Palestine is often nothing more than a justification or pretext for theft and the illegal assumption of power. Even Palestinian factions, who are supposed to be the most dedicated to their cause, are not exempt from this behavior. This is why the proverb 'It is all soap to the Arabs,' which has been a hallmark of Arab culture since the year 800, when Ibn Khaldun referenced it in his book 'Ibn Khaldun and the Arabs', seems especially relevant today. What is happening in the Middle East is the result of a long history of division and discord, often at the expense of peoples and nations. In the end, as the saying goes, for Arabs, it is all 'soap'.
Daily News Egypt
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily News Egypt
The Greater Middle East: America and Britain's Hidden Hand in Reshaping Arab Identity
The history of the Middle East has not merely been written in ink, but carved through oil, blood, and fragmented memory. Since the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, when colonial architects divided Arab lands in the aftermath of World War I, the region has been managed not as a cradle of civilisation with the right to self-determination, but as a geopolitical zone that must remain under control. That colonial pact was not the end of the story — it was its beginning. From drawing borders with a pen, the strategy evolved into fragmenting awareness through sound and image, from military occupation to a silent invasion seeping into the marrow of identity. The so-called 'Greater Middle East' project was never a developmental initiative, but rather a carefully branded blueprint for dismantling the Arab world — hollowing out its spirit, dismantling its identity, and eroding its immunity. When Condoleezza Rice proclaimed that what was happening in Lebanon was the 'birth pangs of a New Middle East,' her words were not spontaneous — they were calibrated and cynical, as though the blood spilled was a reasonable price for a long-awaited geopolitical infant dreamed up in the security think tanks of Washington, London, and Tel Aviv. America was no longer pursuing oil alone — it sought to unravel the Arab psyche, to tear social fabrics apart, and to manufacture generations that would see resistance as a burdensome relic, Arabism as a failed myth, and religion as an endless inner conflict. When armies failed to subdue the will of the people, Western intelligence agencies stepped in through subtler channels. Both the CIA and Britain's MI6 played pivotal roles in psychological warfare and covert influence operations across the Arab world. Using soft power and digital penetration, they launched invisible waves of mental conditioning via foreign-funded media, cultural organisations, and social platforms that morphed from spaces of free expression into elaborate laboratories for emotional and ideological manipulation. Public anger was outsourced, protests were scheduled by Greenwich Mean Time, and dreams of revolution were reduced to trending hashtags. In this engineered confusion, identity was fragmented, and legitimate demands were turned into explosions that ripped through the nation's foundations. MI6, in particular, has a long and discreet history of meddling in the region's religious and cultural veins. The agency did not limit itself to espionage in the traditional sense but mastered the art of reprogramming consciousness from within. Through selective support of marginal religious currents, it fuelled ideologies that leaned heavily on mystical narratives, most notably the strategic amplification of messianic ideas such as the imminent arrival of the 'Mahdi'. These narratives were no accident; they were subtly encouraged to promote passive hope over active resistance, turning religion from a liberating force into a mechanism of delay and submission. By nurturing a psychological climate of expectation and detachment, MI6 contributed to the erosion of political agency, where people clung to metaphysical salvation while their tangible world collapsed. The result was a population conditioned to wait for divine intervention instead of forging a national revival. Within this same orchestrated landscape, Islamic movements were weaponised — sometimes with their complicity, other times with calculated infiltration. These groups promoted distorted religious doctrines that suffocated the spirit of resistance under the guise of 'obedience,' dulled awareness in the name of 'avoiding fitna,' and demonised any act of liberation as 'rebellion against the ruler.' Grand ideals were hollowed out: jihad was twisted into civil war, the caliphate into blood-soaked fantasy, and religion into a cloak worn by those plotting to assassinate the homeland rather than defend it. Yet none of this manipulation would have taken root without internal vulnerabilities. A decaying educational system, hollow media rhetoric, and a cultural vacuum devoid of inspiring figures created a fertile ground for chaos and extremism. The Arab youth today can quote the price of their smartphones better than they can name the martyrs of their nation. Cities like Beirut, Baghdad, and Damascus — once radiant beacons of Arab thought — have dimmed. Along with them, the dreams of generations have faded: some chronicled by Naguib Mahfouz, others mourned by Mahmoud Darwish, and many still waiting to be written. Meanwhile, Israel watched, guided, and rejoiced. It was not merely an occupying force but a strategic mastermind — the spearhead of fragmentation lodged deep within the Arab world. Through intelligence alliances and security networks, it fuelled divisions, promoted fragmentation, and marketed the failures of Arab regimes as proof that unity is impossible, resistance is futile, and surrender is pragmatic. Israel's greatest success lay in transforming the Arab-Israeli conflict into an endless series of Arab-Arab conflicts, making its presence feel ordinary in a region drowning in self-inflicted wounds. Today, after decades of psychological, cultural, and political ruin, the Arab citizen is confronted with a question far more complex than any colonial map: Do we still have the capacity to forge a self-defined project? Can we afford to dream? Or have our nations become temporary theatres where Western labs redraw our fate? Can we reclaim our awareness before demanding the return of our land or our sovereignty? And perhaps most painfully: what does it mean to be Arab in an age when borders are illusions and the soul of the region lies scattered? Perhaps we don't need new maps — we need a compass that will help us navigate back to ourselves in a world where every direction has been obscured. Without the restoration of memory, we will continue to live inside stories written by our adversaries, with pens we have handed them ourselves. Dr. Hatem Sadek – Professor at Helwan University
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ukraine isn't invited to its own peace talks. History is full of such examples, with devastating results
Ukraine has not been invited to a key meeting between American and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia this week to decide what peace in the country might look like. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine will "never accept" any decisions in talks without its participation to end Russia's three-year war in the country. A decision to negotiate the sovereignty of Ukrainians without them -- as well as U.S. President Donald Trump's blatantly extortionate attempt to claim half of Ukraine's rare mineral wealth as the price for ongoing U.S. support -- reveals a lot about how Trump sees Ukraine and Europe. But this is not the first time large powers have colluded to negotiate new borders or spheres of influence without the input of the people who live there. Such high-handed power politics rarely ends well for those affected, as these seven historical examples show. 1. The Scramble for Africa In the winter of 1884-85, German leader Otto von Bismarck invited the powers of Europe to Berlin for a conference to formalize the division of the entire African continent among them. Not a single African was present at the conference that would come to be known as "The Scramble for Africa." Among other things, the conference led to the creation of the Congo Free State under Belgian control, the site of colonial atrocities that killed millions. Germany also established the colony of German South West Africa (present-day Namibia), where the first genocide of the 20th century was later perpetrated against its colonized peoples. 2. The Tripartite Convention It wasn't just Africa that was divided up this way. In 1899, Germany and the United States held a conference and forced an agreement on the Samoans to split their islands between the two powers. This was despite the Samoans expressing a desire for either self-rule or a confederation of Pacific states with Hawaii. As "compensation" for missing out in Samoa, Britain received uncontested primacy over Tonga. German Samoa came under the rule of New Zealand after the World War I and remained a territory until 1962. American Samoa (in addition to several other Pacific islands) remain U.S. territories to this day. 3. The Sykes-Picot Agreement As World War I was well underway, British and French representatives sat down to agree how they'd divide up the Ottoman Empire after it was over. As an enemy power, the Ottomans were not invited to the talks. Together, England's Mark Sykes and France's François Georges-Picot redrew the Middle East's borders in line with their nations' interests. The Sykes-Picot Agreement ran counter to commitments made in a series of letters known as the Hussein-McMahon correspondence. In these letters, Britain promised to support Arab independence from Turkish rule. The Sykes-Picot Agreement also ran counter to promises Britain made in the Balfour Declaration to back Zionists, who wanted to build a new Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine. The agreement became the wellspring of decades of conflict and colonial misrule in the Middle East, the consequences of which continue to be felt today. 4. The Munich Agreement In September 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier met with Italy's fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, and Germany's Adolf Hitler to sign what became known as the Munich Agreement. The leaders sought to prevent the spread of war throughout Europe after Hitler's Nazis had fomented an uprising and began attacking the German-speaking areas of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. They did this under the pretext of protecting German minorities. No Czechoslovakians were invited to the meeting. The meeting is still seen by many as the "Munich Betrayal" -- a classic example of a failed appeasement of a belligerent power in the false hope of staving off war. 5. The Évian Conference In 1938, 32 countries met in Évian-les-Bains, France, to decide how to deal with Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany. Before the conference started, Britain and the United States agreed not to put pressure on one another to lift the quota of Jews they would accept in either the United States or British Palestine. While Golda Meir (the future Israeli leader) attended the conference as an observer, neither she nor any other representatives of the Jewish people were permitted to take part in the negotiations. The attendees largely failed to come to an agreement on accepting Jewish refugees, with the exception of the Dominican Republic. And most Jews in Germany were unable to leave before Nazism reached its genocidal nadir in the Holocaust. 6. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact As Hitler planned his invasion of Eastern Europe, it became clear his major stumbling block was the Soviet Union. His answer was to sign a disingenuous non-aggression treaty with the USSR. The treaty, named after Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop (the Soviet and German foreign ministers), ensured the Soviet Union would not respond when Hitler invaded Poland. It also carved up Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres. This allowed the Soviets to expand into Romania and the Baltic states, attack Finland and take its own share of Polish territory. Unsurprisingly, some in Eastern Europe view the current U.S.-Russia talks over Ukraine's future as a revival of this kind of secret diplomacy that divided the smaller nations of Europe between large powers in World War II. 7. The Yalta Conference With the defeat of Nazi Germany imminent, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt met in 1945 to decide the fate of postwar Europe. This meeting came to be known as the Yalta Conference. Alongside the Potsdam Conference several months later, Yalta created the political architecture that would lead to the Cold War division of Europe. At Yalta, the "big three" decided on the division of Germany, while Stalin was also offered a sphere of interest in Eastern Europe. This took the form of a series of politically controlled buffer states in Eastern Europe, a model some believe Putin is aiming to emulate today in eastern and southeastern Europe. Matt Fitzpatrick is a professor of international history at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
