It represented an early and explicit manifestation of the efforts by the major Western powers, particularly Britain and France, to divide spheres of influence across the region. Its historical significance was amplified by the duplicity that accompanied it.
While London was negotiating the agreement with Paris, it was simultaneously encouraging the Arabs to revolt against Ottoman rule through the correspondence between Sharif Hussein bin Ali, the ruler of Mecca, and Sir Henry McMahon, the British high commissioner in Egypt, promising Arab independence in return for support against the Ottoman Empire.
At the same time, Britain was also engaged in discussions with Lord Rothschild and Zionist leaders that would culminate in the Balfour Declaration in 1917, through which Britain committed itself to the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
As a result, Sykes-Picot became deeply embedded in Arab political consciousness as a symbol of Western colonial ambitions to fragment the Arab world, partition influence within it, and interfere in its internal affairs.
This article examines the origins and context of the agreement, the broader European, and more generally Western, perception of the region as a “space of minorities”, various projects aimed at partitioning Arab states or redrawing their borders, and the evolution of the concepts of the “New Middle East” and the “remaking” of the Middle East.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT: First, there is the Sykes-Picot Agreement itself and its historical context.
It derives its name from two men. The first was Sir Mark Sykes, the British diplomat and parliamentarian tasked by his government with examining competing visions regarding the future of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire amid expectations of Ottoman collapse after World War I. The second was François Georges-Picot, counsellor at the French Embassy in Beirut, who represented France in negotiations with Britain.
These two men eventually reached a formula for dividing the Ottoman Arab provinces between their respective countries and signed the agreement in secret. Tsarist Russia was the only additional power informed of it, and it too was promised a share of the anticipated spoils.
Under the agreement, Iraq and Greater Syria were divided into five zones distinguished by two colours: blue signified French control, while red denoted British control. The French zone included the Syrian coast stretching from Alexandretta to Ras Al-Naqoura, Mount Lebanon, Cilicia, and part of southeastern Asia Minor. The British zone encompassed most of Iraq from Basra to Baghdad, as well as access to the ports of Haifa and Acre in Palestine.
A third zone, comprising the remainder of Palestine, was to be placed under international administration following consultations with the Sharif of Mecca, Russia, and the Allied powers.
The fourth zone consisted of the Syrian interior and the province of Mosul, while the fifth included the remainder of Iraq. The agreement stipulated that the fourth and fifth zones would form either an Arab state or a confederation of Arab states supported by Britain and France. France would enjoy priority in economic projects, loans, advisers, and experts in the fourth zone, while Britain would hold similar privileges in the fifth.
When news of the arrangement reached Italy, Rome demanded its own share of the anticipated Ottoman inheritance, prompting Britain and France to offer it the Adana region in Anatolia.
The world remained unaware of the secret agreement until October 1917, when the Bolshevik Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Tsarist regime in Russia and denounced its secret treaties. The newspaper Izvestia published the agreement on 24 November 1917. The revelation soon spread internationally, and The Guardian in the UK published the English text on 19 January 1918, from which it was translated into Arabic.
The Ottoman commander Ahmed Cemal Pasha sent a letter on 26 November 1917 to Faisal bin Hussein, one of the leaders of the Arab army stationed in Aqaba, informing him of the agreement as published in Izvestia. Faisal forwarded the letter to his father, Sharif Hussein, who in turn sent it to McMahon in Cairo on 29 December.
The revelation came as a profound shock to Sharif Hussein and the leaders of the Arab Revolt, who suddenly grasped the scale of British deception. Britain had promised Arab independence while secretly arranging an entirely different future for the region. The shock was compounded by the issuance of the Balfour Declaration on 2 November of the same year.
Embarrassed by the disclosure, London and Paris could not deny the existence of the agreement, but they sought to minimise its importance. They claimed it was merely a preliminary and non-binding understanding intended to organise Allied interests during wartime and facilitate coordination between the two powers.
Both governments insisted that they remained committed to Arab independence and unity. Britain dispatched several envoys to reassure Sharif Hussein that Arab rights would not be compromised and that the agreement did not negate previous British promises. In 1918, Britain and France further issued a declaration of principles affirming that their goal was to assist the peoples formerly under Ottoman rule in establishing national governments deriving legitimacy from the will of the inhabitants.
These reassurances constituted yet another chapter in a prolonged pattern of deception and manoeuvring. The post-war arrangements ultimately confirmed the substance of Sykes-Picot, particularly through the Treaty of Sèvres and the San Remo Conference in 1920, which imposed British mandates over Palestine, Iraq, and Transjordan and a French mandate over Syria and Lebanon, arrangements remarkably similar to those envisioned in the original agreement.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was therefore not merely a political understanding between British and French representatives. It reflected a deeper European perception of the Arabs and the broader region, shaped by generations of travellers, Orientalists, and missionary enterprises.
EUROPEAN THINKING: Second, there is the European conception of the Middle East as a “space of minorities”. From the 19th century onwards, European and broader Western thinking portrayed the region as excessively diverse along tribal, ethnic, religious, sectarian, and linguistic lines: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Persians, and Turks, alongside Muslims of different sects, multiple Christian denominations, Jews, and smaller communities.
This perception was not merely anthropological or sociological. It became a foundational premise shaping European policies and Western understandings of governance, conflict, and alliances in the region. Arab societies were often viewed as organised around sectarian, tribal, clan-based, or religious loyalties rather than modern concepts of nationhood or inclusive citizenship. Consequently, many Western thinkers regarded Middle Eastern societies as less capable of sustaining modern nation-states and more vulnerable to fragmentation and instability.
This outlook appeared in the writings of scholars, travellers, and colonial administrators who viewed the region’s pluralism as inherently fragile. Politically, it justified external intervention under the pretext of protecting minorities, redrawing borders, and establishing sectarian quota systems and communal power-sharing arrangements. The peoples of the region were thus often portrayed not as communities capable of building inclusive political orders, but as competing groups requiring external oversight to maintain stability.
This framework also legitimised Western policies aimed at dividing spheres of influence, creating sectarian or ethnic entities, and supporting local elites seen as best able to preserve order and protect Western interests.
Importantly, this conception survived the colonial era and persisted into the 21st century. Among its most influential proponents was Bernard Lewis, whose work stressed the Middle East’s distinct historical trajectory and argued that sectarian and ethnic loyalties often superseded national identities. In 1992, he published maps proposing the partition of the region along sectarian and ethnic lines.
Another influential figure was Elie Kedourie, who argued that nationalism, popular sovereignty, and liberal democracy were European concepts artificially transplanted into Middle Eastern societies rooted instead in religious, tribal, and familial loyalties.
Samuel Huntington likewise framed post-Cold War politics in civilisational terms and portrayed the Islamic world as marked by persistent internal tensions. Similarly, Henry Kissinger argued in both speeches and writings that Middle Eastern borders often failed to correspond to underlying social realities and in 2013 floated the idea of partitioning Syria along sectarian and ethnic lines.
Even today, this emphasis on “divisive pluralism” continues to shape many Western interpretations of the Middle East, often overshadowing factors such as political economy, authoritarian governance, uneven development, and foreign intervention. The region is therefore frequently reduced to an arena of identity conflict rather than viewed as a collection of modern states confronting broader challenges of development, institution-building, and national integration.
Numerous Western scholars challenged this reductionist perspective, most notably Edward Said and Lisa Anderson, who emphasised colonial legacies, state-building, political economy, and authoritarian governance over communal explanations.
PARTITION: Third, projects emerged advocating the partition of Arab states and the redrawing of their borders. Beyond Orientalist assumptions and Western strategic thinking, numerous intellectual and political proposals questioned the viability of several Arab states within their existing borders and promoted their fragmentation or restructuring.
Among the most notable was the vision advanced in 1982 by Israeli analyst Oded Yinon in “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s.” Yinon argued that Israel’s optimal strategic environment would result from fragmenting major Arab states into smaller sectarian and ethnic entities, including dividing Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia regions and partitioning Syria and Lebanon.
Following the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, several US neoconservative thinkers questioned whether centralised Arab states remained viable. Proposals advocating federalism or broad decentralisation, particularly in Iraq, were presented as mechanisms for managing sectarian divisions among Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, and Kurds.
In 2006, retired US Army officer Ralph Peters argued in “Blood Borders” that many Middle Eastern boundaries were artificial constructs ignoring ethnic and sectarian realities. He proposed redrawing regional borders, including creating a larger Kurdish state.
On 26 September 2007, the US Senate adopted a non-binding resolution proposed by Senators Joe Biden and Sam Brownback advocating the division of Iraq into federal regions along sectarian and ethnic lines.
After IS seized large areas of Iraq in 2014, American diplomat Richard Haass argued that Iraqi unity should no longer be treated as realistic and that fragmentation was becoming inevitable.
Israeli analysts likewise portrayed Arab borders as artificial colonial constructs lacking authentic social foundations and therefore generating chronic instability. This view was articulated by Aluf Benn of Haaretz in 2011, when he argued that uprisings and internal conflicts would produce a new regional political map based on minority rights and new political entities.
Similar assumptions continued influencing US policymakers. In September 2025, Tom Barrack criticised the nation-state model in the Middle East, arguing that post-First World War colonial arrangements had created weak artificial states. Although he did not define an alternative explicitly, his remarks suggested support for federal or power-sharing arrangements.
REMAKING THE REGION: Fourth, there is the “New Middle East” and the remaking of the region.
Today, Israel has become the principal actor, or at least the leading advocate, behind calls to reshape the Middle East and modify existing regional arrangements. In Israeli strategic thinking, such restructuring is justified as essential to Israeli security, whether through economic integration into regional systems or through military dominance.
The concept of the “New Middle East” dates back to the 1990s. Following the end of the Cold War in 1991, the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), a widespread belief emerged that the region was entering a new era of peace and economic cooperation.
In 1995, former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres published his book The New Middle East, arguing that the region should move from conflict towards economic integration through networks of trade, technology, and energy cooperation between Israel and the Arab states, with Israel playing a central role.
This vision was reflected in four Middle East and North Africa economic conferences held in Casablanca in 1994, Amman in 1995, Cairo in 1996, and Qatar in 1997. These gatherings brought together governments and major corporations and represented not merely regional initiatives but broader international projects supported by the US and Western powers.
However, the process stalled as the peace process faltered and violence escalated in Palestine under the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leading to a profound erosion of Arab confidence in the Israeli government.
Over time, the concept acquired new meanings. Following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, debates about structural weakness in the Arab states and the need for federal or sectarian power-sharing arrangements intensified. After the popular uprisings of 2010-2011 in the Arab world, discussions increasingly focused on state collapse, civil wars, militias, and the erosion of central authority.
Consequently, the expression “New Middle East” evolved to signify broader processes of regional reorganisation aimed at addressing the causes of instability. These debates included calls for new security alliances, the containment or confrontation of Iran, the marginalisation of non-state armed actors, and the integration of Israel into a reconfigured regional order. Such ideas laid the groundwork for later arguments justifying American and Israeli military intervention across the region.
In September 2023, Netanyahu explicitly used the phrases “reshaping the Middle East” and “changing the Middle East” during his speech before the United Nations General Assembly while discussing the potential impact of an Israeli-Saudi peace agreement. “Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” he declared, “will truly create a new Middle East.” During the speech, he displayed a map depicting Israel fully integrated into the region.
After the Al-Aqsa Flood operation of 7 October 2023, Netanyahu repeatedly expanded the meaning of the phrase beyond economic cooperation or diplomatic normalisation. It increasingly acquired a confrontational dimension centered on the use of military power to reorder regional balances in favour of Israel through overwhelming military, technological, and intelligence superiority. In multiple speeches, he declared that “we will change the Middle East” and “we are changing the face of the Middle East.”
The strategic objective, therefore, became the reconstruction of the regional security order with Israel positioned at its centre as the dominant military and technological power. This also implied a fundamental transformation of the strategic environment in which Israel had operated for decades and a deliberate downgrading of the Palestinian issue within regional priorities. In practical terms, this meant expanding the Abraham Accords and establishing Arab-Israeli relations without requiring Palestinian statehood as a precondition.
Turning to the US, the first Trump administration adopted several policies closely aligned with the Israeli vision. These included rejecting the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, recognising Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, portraying Iran as the principal regional threat, withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear agreement (the JCPOA) in 2018, and applying direct pressure on several Arab states to join the Abraham Accords.
Such policies contributed to reshaping regional alliances, integrating Israel more deeply into the regional order, and consolidating an anti-Iranian axis.
During Trump’s second administration, military and political cooperation between Washington and Tel Aviv reached unprecedented levels. The two countries openly coordinated the planning and execution of military operations against Iran in June 2025 and again between February and May 2026, an extraordinary development without precedent since Israel’s establishment. While tactical disagreements occasionally surfaced between Washington and Tel Aviv, the depth of their strategic alliance during this period became unmistakable.
Washington also refrained from opposing many Israeli actions in Syria and Lebanon, including the establishment of security buffer zones inside both countries under the pretext of protecting Israeli security.
Although US President Donald Trump himself did not articulate a comprehensive regional blueprint and generally favoured bilateral transactional arrangements, the broader trajectory of his policies strongly suggested acceptance of the Israeli concept of remaking the Middle East, especially given his occasional references to Israel’s small territorial size compared with surrounding Arab states.
The European states, by contrast, approached the Israeli vision with considerable caution. Britain, for example, rejected the notion of reshaping the region through military force, warning that such efforts would expand wars and destabilise the Levant. British policy emphasised that the region’s problems required political and diplomatic solutions rather than military ones and that regional peace ultimately depended on implementing a two-state solution and respecting state sovereignty.
France adopted an even clearer position against attempts to reshape the region by force. Paris argued that weakening or fragmenting states through military means would only deepen instability and create security vacuums exploitable by extremist organisations. France insisted that the future of the region must rest on state sovereignty, political solutions, and a just settlement of the Palestinian issue.
Both Britain and France warned against the violent fragmentation of states in Syria and Lebanon and continued to support long-term political solutions aimed at reforming the regional order rather than dismantling or completely re-engineering it.
China and Russia, meanwhile, have categorically rejected projects aimed at remaking the Middle East through force. Both countries oppose externally imposed regime change or border revisions, viewing such policies as threats to regional and international stability that risk reproducing the chaos witnessed in Iraq and Libya. Moscow and Beijing further regard discussions about “reshaping the Middle East” as extensions of Western hegemonic ambitions designed to reproduce American and Israeli dominance in the region.
While both countries share this basic outlook, China articulates its position in a more restrained and diplomatic manner, emphasising economic development, trade, energy cooperation, and the Belt and Road Initiative.
In conclusion, the Middle East’s strategic order has changed profoundly over the past century. In 1916, Britain and France shaped the Arab East, while by 2026 Israel, backed by the US, had become the central regional actor.
Today, few openly advocate partitioning Arab states. Yet the idea of a “New Middle East” remains highly consequential, seeking Israeli regional dominance through military superiority, security zones, and the continued marginalisation of the Palestinian cause in Gaza and the West Bank.
As Karl Marx wrote, history repeats itself: first as tragedy, then as farce.
* The writer is a professor of political science at Cairo University. This article is published in collaboration with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 21 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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