The Middle East has
always been a hotbed of contention and strife throughout the millennia, with
one group or another trying to gain dominance of the region. The Ottoman Empire
had been that domineering force for generations, but when they threw in their
lot with Germany
and their allies during World War I, it was the proverbial straw that broke the
camel's back. After the Triple Entente won the war, and the League
of Nations was formed shortly thereafter, the groundwork was laid
for the decadent and plagued nations we recognize today through the
"Mandate System".
Before World War I, the Middle East
was comprised of small pockets of like-minded people, living in semi-autonomous
regions. Granted, they were most likely part of the Ottoman
Empire, but they were – for the most part – left to govern
themselves. After the fall of the Ottomans, however, the League
of Nations was suddenly thrust upon the region. Article 22 of the
Covenant of the League of Nations granted the
authority to the mandate powers, claiming it was to prepare the natives of each
region for autonomous self-government. Both the British and French were granted
mandates, even though both had been involved in the region long before the
Great War, but their victory gave them the much needed opportunity to increase
their reach. ("The League of Nations
Mandate Provision", n.d.) Using both platforms of the Zionists and Arabs,
the British asserted their dominance in the region, despite French protests.
Between the Zionist support and the fact that the Her Majesty's Royal Army
occupied the entire Fertile Crescent and through to Egypt,
English forces merely strong-armed the various other national units in the
region, and the main threat to the British – the Russians – had imploded and
the Bolsheviks renounced the Russian claim on Constantinople.
With the Soviet threat in the region eliminated, the Crown was able to shape
the fledgling nation as they thought best.
Their sheer military might in the region gave them the
ability to crush any local indigenous resistance, often mixing the iron fist of
military might with the silver tongue of diplomacy. The French were more of an
irritant than an actual threat, so the British begrudgingly forfeited the
Syrian and Lebanese Mandates to their former ally. When France unceremoniously ousted Faisal ibn Abd al
Aziz, whom the people had proclaimed as the King of Syra, the British
government welcomed him and his entourage fled to British controlled Palestine. However, the
local British governor grumbled about the swarm of people that had come along,
stating that "they cannot stay here indefinitely." ("Middle East (region, Asia)",
n.d.) They couldn't just oust him as the French did though, so the British
elites used their considerable influence to arrange for Faisal's 'election' as
king of the newly formed Iraqi state. The British also successfully staved
off the French expansion in the area as
well, with the British keeping a hold of the oil rich regions of northern Iraq, along with the historically significant region
of Palestine. But
when Faisal's brother, Abdullah I ibn Hussein, took the Middle Eastern world by
storm, seeking to reclaim his brother's throne and attack the French in
Transjordan with his rabble of an army, the British intervened on behalf of the
French. The begrudgingly sent a number of officers to the region, to stave off a
decline back into sheer anarchy. ("The Middle East
After World War One", n.d.)
Once the British firmly established their unquestioned
dominance in the region, and the French were resigned to their two holdings,
they began to withdraw their military presence. It wasn’t truly by choice,
however, as popular support for the overseas military waned drastically. Plagued
by budget cuts and newspapers opposing the massive expenditures being amassed
by the military, the British Army was reduced to small, scattered units, with
the only exception being the standing force guarding the strategically crucial Suez Canal. This was the beginning of the end of English
supremacy in the Middle East, and laid the
groundwork for the formation of the modern Arab states we find there today. By
the early 1920s, a majority of the populace had been agitated to the point of
civil unrest against the British, so much so that even the Sunni and Shia
Muslims in Iraq were banding together to resist, forming the Haras al Istiqlal, or "The
Guardians of Independence". ("Iraq - WORLD WAR I AND THE BRITISH
MANDATE", n.d.) These violent protests, along with the English forces left
in the area arresting many of the leaders, forced the British government to
rethink their stance of essentially keeping the Middle
East as one giant colony or satellite state. However, Egypt was
granted her independence in 1922, and it was there that the British
experimented with essentially a puppet government to keep their superiority in
the region. It was so successful, to an extent, that they later granted Iraq their freedom in 1932 under the same circumstances,
but for each case, Britain
maintained an efficient control over critical tactical and financial interests.
The maintaining of this so-called 'veiled protectorate,' a term coined in the
Egyptian case, merely aggravated nationalist dissatisfactions and hatred, but
these were written off as posing no immediate threat to the British Empire.
However, with the threats of Hitler's Nazi Germany and
Mussolini's Italy upon the
homeland forced Great Britain
to reprioritize her funds and military, and essentially neglected the Middle East upon the outset of WWII, leaving all of her
mandates and protectorates to fend for themselves. This, coupled with the
ruthless crushing of various uprisings helps to explain the current Middle
Easter hatred for all things Western. The greed and inhumanity portrayed by the
British and French poisoned entire generations, something that the Western
Powers of today are still dealing with.
References
Iraq - WORLD WAR I AND THE BRITISH MANDATE. (n.d.). Country
Studies. Retrieved March 5, 2013, from http://countrystudies.us/iraq/19.htm
Middle East (region, Asia).
(n.d.). In Britannica Online Encyclopedia.
Retrieved March 6, 2013, from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/381192/Middle-East
The League of Nations Mandate
Provision. (n.d.). MidEast
Web Historical Documents.
Retrieved March 6, 2013, from http://www.mideastweb.org/leaguemand.htm
The Middle East After World
War One | The Non-Western World | Big Site of History ©. (n.d.). Big
Site of History © | History of Civilization.
Retrieved March 6, 2013, from http://bigsiteofhistory.com/the-middle-east-after-world-war-one-the-non-western-world
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