4.0 The Creation of the Middle East State System

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Welcome to lesson four of our course on
the emergence of the modern Middle East.

Today we will talk about the creation of
the Middle East state system.

This Middle East state system was created
in the aftermath of World War I,

after the dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire, and in the period

of ascendance of the Western powers,
Britain and France, in the Middle

East and it is they, who created much of
the new state system.

So we can ask ourselves, what influenced
the decisions of the great

powers when they entered into this

creation of the Middle Eastern state
system?

First of all, we should look the fact that
the British and the

French did not have the same perceptions
of what the Middle East really was.

In the eyes of the French, the

Middle East was the heterogeneous mosaic
of minorities.

Which, clashed with the British view,
which tended to see

the Middle East as a homogeneous, Arab
part of the world.

This was the Arab world, a world populated
by the Arab people.

In the French view, this was not the case.

The Middle East was really a mosaic of
various religious minorities.

And if it's one, if one is to look at the
Middle East, in

retrospect, it would appear that the
French

had a more precise view of the reality.

But at the time, in the aftermath of the
First World

War, the decisions were between Britain
and France, and in making

these decisions the British had to take
into consideration a variety

of different points of view as to policy
in the Middle East.

On the one hand, there was the view from
London, the view from London, we

sought compromise with France, sought
compromise with France

because of France's importance in the
European context.

France was a critical ally of the British
against

Germany, and even though the war was
already over, the

British were still very concerned with the
balance of power

in Europe, and in that respect, France was
very important.

The view in Cairo, however, was very
different.

From Cairo, the French appeared to be a
nuisance, and an irritant.

In a region which the people in Cairo who
believed

in the emergence of Arab nationalism, that
it is with Arab

nationalism that the British should side,
and in that respect, unite

the Middle East under British influence
without necessary deference to France.

But it was the view from London that
emerged victorious, and

in their considerations about how to go
about structuring the Middle East.

The Middle East had to take Arab
nationalism into account, it was a force

after the First World War that had made
its mark in the international community,

and the great powers, therefore, could not
simply establish in the Middle East some

kind of colonial order as if nothing had
happened in the First World War.

And therefore, there was the invention of
the mandate compromise.

That compromise between colonial interests
and the

need to acquiesce in the
self-determination of peoples.

That is, for the Great Powers to have
their influence in

the region, but to lead the peoples of the
region to independence.

Britain's interest had to be balanced
against those of France,

and here the two perceptions tended to
clash once again.

The British, seeing the region as one

strategic theater, that is, the entire
Arab

world as one strategic theater, on the

way to the important imperial position of
India.

In the French view, this was not one
strategic theater.

In fact, the Levant, the area of Syria and
Lebanon,

should be seen as separate from France's
possessions in North Africa.

In fact, France wanted as little influence

as possible of Arab nationalism in Syria
and

Lebanon, which could influence the
position of

France in Algeria, in North Africa in
general.

And therefore, the French were very
suspicious of Arab nationalism,

very suspicious of the British association
with the Arab nationalist movement.

And the Arab nationalist movement, thanks
to the Arab revolt, against the Turks in

the middle of the First World War,

had achieved some form of international
recognition.

The world did recognize that there was an
Arab nationalism, that

there were Arab national rights, and that
these had to be addressed.

So, it was a combination of all these
complex factors,

that eventually determined the state
structure of the Middle East.

Many of the new Arab states that were
established on

the ruins of the Ottoman Empire had never
existed before.

They had not existed as defined political
entities before 1920.