The Bullshistory of “Sykes-Picot”

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The American Interest:

The Bullshistory of “Sykes-Picot”

 

ADAM GARFINKLE Published on: May 16, 2016

 

History lesson: Sykes-Picot did not—repeat, did not—establish the borders of the modern Middle East.

 

Today, May 16, is the 100^thanniversary of Sykes-Picot, and inanities and assorted stupidities about it are pouring out of the media woodwork faster than I can keep up with them. Let me get right to the point: Sykes-Picot did not—repeat, did not—establish the borders of the modern Middle East. That ought to make it hard to blame Sykes-Picot for anything, since it never came into effect. And what is falling apart today is not the Sykes-Picot interstate system but increasingly the units themelves; the bloody interstate clatter we see is not the source of the core problem in the region but a symptom of it. This is a lot to get wrong, and certainly it is foul fare to pass around to the uneducated like so many weird-tasting cocktail hour hors-d’oeuvres.

 

OK, so then why do Robin Wright in The Atlantic, David Ignatius the other day in the Washington Post, Daniel Pipes in his recent blog, and at last count about six dozen recently published others insist that Sykes-Picot did what it most assuredly did not?