Iraq’s Sectarian Borders: The Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Treaty of Sèvres As Seen Throughout the 20th Century
While the prospects of democratic governance continue to linger throughout the thoughtful minds of the politically active in the varied countries of the Middle East. A history of foreign colonial influence, monarchical rule, authoritarian regimes, and the threat of Islamist terrorism have plagued the political minds and lands throughout much of the body politic of the modern Middle East. The nation of Iraq is a quintessential example of how European states design and craft a colonial nation-state out of imagined boundaries for economic gain. Where instead of the modern natural manifestations of governance through the self-selected influences of political ideology, culture, ethnic or religious backgrounds. The forced adoption of a new state creates a series of internalized geopolitical issues which result in a cascading range of ethnic tensions, culminating in varied forms of economic, political or violent oppression. Throughout the 20th century, Iraq would be defined by a series of strongmen following the dissolution of the colonial state and a series of internalized tensions that would eventually result in the nation’s occupation, once again, by a foreign western power.
The awkward borders, ethnic tensions, and ethically compromised governments that are found strewed across Western Asia can date their disturbances back to a particular set of agreements between France and England during the final throws of the first World War. The Sykes-Picot agreement, signed March of 1916, was designed under the premise that the Triple Entente would win the war against Germany and the Ottoman Empire. The major focus of the treaty was the terms in which England and France were to divide the original core of the Ottoman empire. The agreement focused on the creation of two zones of direct economic and political control which solely, “sever[ed] the interests of the European (France and England) members.” The lands encompassing the eastern edges of the Mediterranean sea from Greater Syria, up through Lebanon, and into portions of today’s southern Turkey, would come under control of France, while the areas stretching from Palestine to the Persian Gulf, modern day Israel, Jordan, and Iraq, would eventually come under English control. Signed in 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres finalized a series of post-war settlements concluding in the division of the majority of the Ottoman empire into various spheres of influence called mandates. The borders of which, were shaped by the former provinces of the Ottomans.
The Ottoman providences, which often contained contrasting religious, cultural, and ethnic identities, were cautiously held together through a shared sense of Ottamaness. Istanbul, the centerpiece of the Ottoman Empire, was seen as the cultural capital of Islam and the former glory of the Islamic empire. By the mid 1920s, the coming rule of the British over portions of the region would evaporate the shared identity amongst those across the region. Via a League of Nations mandate, Britain would come to form Iraq, a completely new state for the time, out of three former Ottoman provinces; Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul. No longer with a shared Ottoman identity, the British created a border around an assortment distinctly different cultural and religious groups that often self-secluded themselves from one another. To the north, along the Turkish border, rested the Kurds and the major city of Mosul. The Western desert, held the majority of the Sunni Arab Muslims, considered a minority in the Iraq. Within the central and eastern regions of the state, you’d find Baghdad, the vast multi-cultural, ethnic and religious capital whose population is a majority Shia Muslims, the single largest ethnic/religious group in the country The southeastern portion of the state you’d find the country’s connection to the Persian Gulf via the large and influential port city of Basra.
The apparent randomness of the borders can be seen by the shape of the country. Large population centers are found all along the eastern half of the country, stretching from Turkey to the Persian gulf down the Iranian border, which forms the base of a triangular shape that juts out to the west to encapsulate a large relatively unpopulated region of the Syrian desert. The far south-eastern portion of the state, near the city of Basra, is sandwiched in-between Kuwait and Iran with just a mere 15KM of border sitting along the Persian Gulf.
This narrow region visually identifies and typifies Iraq’s usefulness, to the British empire, throughout the 1920’s and 30’s. The southern Gulf region, judging out to the sea, was the physical connection to the British empire. Throughout this time period, Britain would develop the nation’s government and education institutions, sustainable infrastructure like dams and irrigation systems, and most importantly the transportation systems. With the development of a vast network of trains and gas pipelines, the populated eastern half of the state would become connected to Britain’s multi-national trade network. Subsequently, Britain, “enhanced its position in the Persian Gulf, secured the approaches to India, and gained access to petroleum resources.”
Though the time period of British occupation from 1920 to 1958, can be characterized as an economical boom period. With large portions of the population being employed by the new trade sector and civil service work. However, the internalized conflicts associated with the extremely diverse ethnic, religious, and political demographics of Iraq, especially those when comparing the diverse and liberalized cities to the homogenized ethnic enclaves of the rural segments of the country side, must not be overlooked. Instability and a lack of trust in the government were often commonplace amongst those not benefitting directly either from British enterprise, civil work, or those affiliated with the Hashemite kingdom.
Following the coup in 1958 that overthrew the Hashemite monarchy, the July 14th Revolution, Iraq would be launched into a period of “political and social instability.” The succumbing decade would be characterized by intense infighting, ethnic clashes, political instability and three separate leadership coups. A sense of stability would occur in 1968 with a coup by Hasan al-Bakr, bringing about nearly 35 years of single party rule. Throughout the 1970s his younger cousin and protege, Saddam Husayn, would assume powered the dominant role within socialist Ba’th party. Under Saddam’s rule, Iraq found another economic boom with the nationalization of the country’s large oil reserves, but his legacy and administration would become embroiled and defined by a series of internal ethnic conflicts and wars between neighboring nations.
As party lines succumbed to the inclusivity of religious and ethnic identities, Saddam, a Sunni Muslim, began to organize efforts to rush his many political enemies. crush many of his political enemies. Over time the Ba’th party became more inclusively Sunni Muslim, pitting the party and the small minority of Sunni Muslims in the country, against the majority of the populace. Saddam feared rebellion by the organized Kurdish population and used the force to remove the population southward, air bombings against armed groups as well as civilian populations, and chemical weapons within populated areas to pacify the northern ethnic majority. A never ending rivalry with neighboring Iran, representative of a continued clash of Persian versus Arab identities that has raged for a millennium, political instability in Iran due to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and a constant fear of a Shia uprising pitted Iraq against Iran, militarily, multiple times throughout the decades. Iraq would use its large oil revenues and burgeoning alliances with Sunni Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as its broadening embrace of the western powers, in particularly the United States and France against Iran in the eight year war known as the Iran-Iraq War. Eight years of war over borders and power positioning would result in a stalemate with nearly 367,000 dead. In massive debt to its Arabian and Western allies plus in desperate need of rebuilding, Iraq and Saddam found themselves in their weakest position in decades.
In 1991 Iraq started another war, this time with its former ally Kuwait. Claiming the Kuwait government was authorizing slant drilling operations on the border between the two nations. The subsequent invasion was successful until shortly after, Kuwaiti ally the United States in addition to a coalition between 33 other nations including multiple Arabian nations, came to the aid of Kuwait. With five weeks of intense aerial bombing and just 100 hours of ground fighting, Iraq was quickly removed from Kuwait’s soil. Coalition forces would not cross the border into Iraq in 1991 to pursue Saddam, but would so in 2003 during the “Iraq War.” The Bush Administration alleged Saddam had manufactured and possessed weapons of mass destruction and their potential threat to the US and its allies in a post 9/11 world. Though the UN inspections teams assigned to Iraqi facilities were unable to find chemical weapons material and no such evidence of any program existed. The United States and Britain invaded Iraq against the recommendations of the UN Security Council. Almost as quickly as the first Gulf War, the Iraqi military and government fell. Two months later Saddam would be caught hiding in a makeshift underground bunker in the front yard of a Ba’th supporter. The several years of military occupation and nation building that followed suit would be just as disastrous and unkempt as the former leader’s appearance after months on the run from American coalition forces.
The diverse multiethnic, religious, and cultural demographics of Iraq had seen years of conflict between one another due to Ba’th regime. Shia Muslims, a majority in the nation, had been severely economically and politically oppressed by Saddam, the Ba’th party, and their secret police for the better part of half a century, while the Kurds had been systematically pacified through ethnic cleansing and the forceful separation of the population by the state. Failed government unity efforts throughout the late 2000s and the lack of a postwar government plan on the part of George Bush’s neoconservative government to construct a peaceful postwar Iraq, flung the nation into division and chaos. Northern Kurds split from the Sunni west while both distanced themselves from eastern Iraq and Baghdad. Fueled by a lack of employment on the part of former Sunni/Ba’th Iraqi veterans and the rise of political extremism created off vacuum of power throughout the western regions of Iraq. Militant groups such as ISIS rose to power in the absence of stable governments and supportive economic influences. Their violence and organization would spill over and unite with groups fighting Bashar al-Assad in Syria and eventual erase the borders formed by the Sykes-Picot agreement between Iraq and Syria during the summer months of July and August of 2014.
The Iraq of today continues to be gripped by violence and radical Islamic terrorism as never before seen in the nation’s history. The invasion of US forces and the inability of the Iraqi government to create a unified or controlled people, as seen under the violent Saddam region, enabled the splitting of the nation along divisive lines. As sectarian violence grips the nation’s news outlets and streets one must think of the tightened ethnic tensions as seen through the Treaty of Sèvres. The treaty, under the guise of European colonialism, haphazardly created a nation-state without a unified identity nor one of a shared belief. Religious tensions have existed between Shia and Sunni Muslims for a millennia while the Kurds had been fighting for a homeland, as shown by the original push for Kurdistan in the 1920 agreement, for years before the original treaty. While some political scientists and historians pose the idea of a three-state solution, reminiscent of Yugoslavia, it is currently unclear what the end result will be in Iraq. Similar ethnic and religious tensions can be found in neighboring Syria with years of civil war since the Arab Spring. At this point in time it is unclear as to what will happen with Iraq and its government, but what is clear is that the ethnic tensions brought on by the Sykes-Picot agreement, amount others, will continue for quite some time.
Sources:
Batutu, Hanna. “Of the Diversity of Iraqis, the Incohesiveness of their Society, and their Progress in the Monarchic Period toward a Consolidated Political Structure‖ in The Modern Middle East.” The Modern Middle East. London: IB Tauris & Co Ltd (1993).
Cleveland, William L., and Martin Bunton. A History of the Modern Middle East. Westview Press, 2016.
