Since some of the earliest years of Islam, much of the Middle East, including parts of the Arabian Peninsula, had been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.[1] By the time World War I, a war that is generally thought of as a primarily European affair, had ended and the Ottoman Empire had come to an end, the social and political aspects of the region had changed drastically, posting World War I as one of the most significant events in shaping the Middle East, as it “brought about the creation of the current state system.”[2] The war had many effects on the Middle East in addition to new boundaries and political changes, including the rise of various nationalist movements and independence as well as neocolonialism.
The Ottoman Empire joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers, the side opposite of its rival, Russia.[3] Even as the long, gruesome war was far from over, the Allied Powers were looking toward carving up the Ottoman Empire after the war, ambitions that would change the political identity of the Middle East should it come under European colonialism. Russia wanted a port in the Turkish straits, as many Russian ports are ice-covered through winter, and Russia also had interests in Palestine for, not surprisingly, religious reasons.[4] France wanted claims in Syria and Lebanon,[5] and Great Britain practiced its diplomacy based on wanting to protect the “crown jewel,” India.[6] Protecting India also meant being active politically in Persia and later Iran, because of its proximity to India, and Egypt because of the Suez Canal.
The Constantinople Agreement confirmed these Allied ambitions, with Russian claims to the Turkish Straits being recognized by Great Britain and France, France was recognized as claiming Syria, and Great Britain would have claims to Persia,[7] a territory close to its crown jewel. Though the ambitions highlighted by the Constantinople Agreement were not fully recognized, it showed the intentions of European colonial powers in the Middle East, and with this secret treaty followed many more, including the Sykes-Picot Agreement.[8] What followed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the mandate period, was a “polite disguise for what a couple of decades earlier had been unabashedly called colonialism.”[9]
After the war France received the mandate over Lebanon and Syria,[10] even though U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s King-Crane Commission to the Middle East found that Syria preferred and American mandate over Syria, and it found that Syria even preferred Great Britain over France.[11] Great Britain, after the war, received mandates for the territories that include modern-day Palestine, Israel, Transjordan, and Iraq.[12] These mandates directly conflicted with Woodrow Wilson’s ideas and the League of Nation’s ideals that included the right to determination, as consultation of the indigenous people were never seriously considered.[13] These mandates were granted to Great Britain and France to prepare the people under their mandate for self-rule.[14] It was under these powers that borders were drawn, resembling the modern Middle East.[15]
The San Remo Conference began to shape the international boundaries in the Middle East., shaped by negotiators from England and France.[16] These European powers were less concerned about the economic and political well-being of the indigenous people but more so about their own agendas. Lebanon was originally a part of the French mandate over Syria before being separated into its own nation, and the borders of Jordan were drawn by Great Britain, but Jordan quickly became a nation that had to rely on other nations, including Great Britain, for revenue because it had no economic resources.[17]
With the borders come some inherit problems that persist even to the present day. Different countries have different problems, whether it is Jordan being drawn into existence with almost no economic resources or Iraq being made up of a population of significant, rigid ethnic and religious distinctions.[18] Problems in Iraq were made worse when the ruling elites were the minority, the Sunni Arabs, ruling the religious majority, the Shi’i Arabs, in Iraq.[19] With the development of new borders and neocolonialism in the Middle East came the rise of nationalist movements and national identities as well as the quest for the true independence those in the Middle East felt was promised to them after World War I.
Nationalism was a powerful drive to many of those in the Middle East, including the shaping of contemporary identities. Nationalist movements that defined modern nations occurred in the 1940s and 1950s, taking place through and after the Second World War, with the characteristics that nations can be identified by being “linguistic, ethnic, religious, or historical traditions that make a nation distinctive,”[20] though many nationalist movements of the Middle East had overlapping or complimenting qualities.
With the end of any sort of Ottoman identity, or osmanlilik,[21] in the early 1920s, the emergence of states was accompanied by the emergence of nationalist movements, whether it was Turkish nationalism replacing osmanlilik Ottomanism[22] or any number of Arab identities that emerged. Zionism was a Jewish national identity that gained notoriety in 1917, when the British issued the Balfour Declaration in favor of a Jewish national homeland.[23] When the Zionist homeland became Israel, encompassing parts of then-Palestine, a Palestinian national identity began to develop in opposition to Zionism.[24] Palestinian nationalism and Zionism would continue to be influenced by one another, because these identities were “largely formulated in the context of denial of the other,”[25] resulting in an abundance of nationalist-inspired violence.
Arab nationalist sentiments began to grow in response to the European colonial. After the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, in which the Arab armies were defeated with relative ease, doubt was cast on the leaders of the Arab nations who were involved in the war, as they were seen as incompetent and corrupt.[26] One after another the governments of Syria, Egypt, and Iraq gave way to coups between 1949 and 1958. Nationalism in Egypt began to develop after the Free Officers took over Egypt, and after Nasser came to power, “the president was to reach the pinnacle of his power and popularity due to the Suez Canal crisis.”[27] He was an advocate of strong nationalism, which included a strong military, as well as the Non-Alignment Movement[28] “at a time of intense military and diplomatic competition between the communist bloc and the West.”[29]
In keeping with his nonalignment mindset and nationalization sentiments, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, then owned by Great Britain,[30] as well as attempting to receive massive economic and military aid from the Soviet Union.[31] Though the ensuing invasion of Egypt ended in disaster, it was, perhaps, “just what an increasingly, dictatorial, charismatic leader like Nasser needed.”[32] Many Egyptians and Arab nationalists outside of Egypt were receptive of the idea that Nasser had “however imaginary… stared down imperialism.”[33] In an attempt to rise above the imperialist influences and borders drawn on their region, Pan-Arabism gained momentum in Nasser’s wake.
With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, the face of the Middle East went through rough and tumultuous changes. Mandates given to Great Britain and France by the League of Nations that drew contemporary borders also drew contemporary problems, such as Jordan’s resource problem, and brought questions of national identities to places such as multi-ethnic Iraq. The quest for independence formulated in different nationalist movements, such as the Zionist and Palestinian nationalist identities that came to grew in opposite of one another, or Nasser’s nationalism for Egypt that took the shape of standing up to imperial powers and growing into more broad Pan-Arabism. World War I was one of the most significant events in the history of the Middle East because of its effects, whether mandated by the League of Nations or otherwise.
[1] James Gelvin, History of the Modern Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2005), 173
[2] Ibid 173
[3] Ibid 176
[4] Ibid 177
[5] Ibid 177
[6] Mehran Kamrava, The Modern Middle East (University of California Press, 2005), 36
[7] Gelvin, 177
[8] Ibid 178
[9] Kamrava, 43
[10] Gelvin, 181
[11] John DeNovo, American Interests and Policies in the Middle East (University of Minnesota Press, 1963), 122
[12] Gelvin, 181
[13] Ibid. 181
[14] Ibid. 182
[15] Ibid 183
[16] Kamraya, 45
[17] Gelvin, 183
[18] Ibid. 183
[19] Ibid 184
[20] Ibid 198
[21] Ibid 28
[22] Ibid 204
[23] Ibid 207
[24] Ibid 210
[25] Kamraya, 105
[26] Ibid 215
[27] Kamraya, 91
[28] Ibid, 94
[29] Ibid, 94
[30] Gelvin, 241
[31] Kamraya, 94
[32] Ibid, 96
[33] Ibid, 96
