Troubles in Syria Spawned by Divide and Rule

Crabtownboy · Sep 10, 2015

The numerous and continuing problems the West is having in Syria, indeed in all of the Mid-East, come from the English and French decisions at the end of WW I. Reneging on promises made to the Arabs are the beginning of these problems and of the Arabs distrust of any statement or promise made by a Western government.

Soon after the Allied Powers' occupation, the settlement began to take final form: a boundary was drawn roughly halfway across Syria from east to west, dividing the Syrian rectangle into two parts. The southern part, called Palestine, was assigned to Great Britain; the northern part, called Syria and Lebanon, was assigned to France. The southern part was further subdivided into Palestine, to the west, and Transjordan — an entirely new name — to the east of the River Jordan. Syria was subdivided into five parts: Lebanon, including as its principal towns Tripoli, Beirut, Sidon and Tyre; the state of Syria, with the main towns of Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus; the mountainous region of the Jabal al-Druze, with Suaida as the principal town; the Sanjak of Latakia, with Latakia as its principal town; and the Sanjak of Alexandretta, in theory part of Syria, but in practice separate and subject to a special autonomous form of government.1

The formulation of a postwar settlement for the Middle East was agreed upon at the San Remo Conference in April 1920. The former Ottoman provinces were divided into entities called mandates. The new mandates were awarded conditionally and under the supervision of an outside authority, the League of Nations. Over the next decade, the populations of these territories were arbitrarily and artificially divided. The mandatory powers, Britain and France, delineated new desert frontiers and communal boundaries. In Syria, the French went further, creating semi-autonomous local states within a national polity.

While the Allied Powers gathered in Paris to sort out their conflicting interests, Amir Faysal Ibn Husayni, field commander of the Arab revolt, was forming an independent Arab government in Damascus. General Sir Edmund Allenby, supreme commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, had allowed Faysal to administer Syrian affairs from Damascus. On October 5, 1918, Amir Faysal claimed an "independent Arab constitutional government with authority over all Syria" and a Syrian Congress in Damascus, which sealed Faysal's fate as king of a united Syria.2 For France, the Faysal government would have to either be brought under French control or be broken militarily. Since the Syrian Congress asserted Faysal's claims to Palestine as well as Lebanon and soon demanded independence for Mesopotamia, British interests, too, were threatened by the proclamation of Faysal as king. Britain would not allow Syrian nationalism to disrupt British control over Mesopotamia and Palestine. As a consequence, British Foreign Secretary Lord George Nathaniel Curzon and Secretary General of the Quai d'Orsay, Philippe Berthelot, had no difficulty agreeing on the terms of a joint declaration condemning the emir's foolhardy action.3

http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-...troubles-syria-spawned-french-divide-and-rule
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Troubles in Syria Spawned by Divide and Rule

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