No, the Sykes-Picot Treaty Isn’t the Cause of the Middle East’s Ills

When the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and his British counterpart Mark Sykes met in 1916 to divvy up the soon-to-collapse Ottoman empire, they drew arbitrary borders that severed areas linked for centuries by ties of clan and commerce, and lumped together disparate peoples and sects in unworkable and artificial states. Many of the woes of the Middle East over the past century have their roots in this act of colonialist arrogance. This, at least, is what conventional wisdom would tell us. But this story isn’t supported by the facts—first of all, because the Sykes-Picot agreement was never implemented. But even more accurate accounts of the origins of today’s borders still put too much blame on those who created them, writes Nicholas Danforth: