The exposure of Arab security to the new Sykes-Picot confrontation – Mustafa Kamel Al-Sayed

The Arabs came at a time when they cursed the Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916, in which France and Britain, with the participation of Tsarist Russia, agreed to divide the territories of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East between the three countries, which which had already been reached after World War I, and I added to it the Balfour Declaration of the Zionist movement that Palestine would be a “national home” for Jews, and in the 1950s and 1960s the Arab National Movement believed that this agreement was a betrayal of the promises made by Britain to Sharif Hussein, the Prince of Mecca, who was supported by a vanguard of Arab intellectuals and military, that the fruit of their revolution against the Ottoman Empire would be Britain’s support for the creation of a kingdom. An Arab in the Arabian Peninsula and in the Levant, led by Sharif Hussein himself, according to the famous correspondence between Hussein and McMahon, the British commissioner in Cairo. The Arab National Movement believed that Britain’s betrayal of these promises was the reason for the fragmentation of much of the Arab world and an obstacle to the realization of the dream of Arab unity. Criticism of this agreement was not limited to Arab nationalists, but a number of Western Middle East experts have joined them, especially after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the establishment of a constitution for it using the logic of quotas, and even after the revolutions of Arab dignity in 2011, so that these experts have proposed the saying to reconsider Sykes: Beko for a greater division of the Arab world on the basis of primary loyalties, so that there will be three countries in Iraq, and possibly two countries in Yemen, and following the same logic in Syria, Lebanon and other Arab countries. Faced with this proposal, I told these Arab experts and my Arab friends that after the failure of the numerous Arab unity projects and the decline of the Arab national project in the wake of the 1967 defeat, the urgent task of the Arab nationalists in those circumstances was to to preserve the division of the Arab world as agreed by Sykes-Picot. But the deterioration of conditions in the Arab world did not stop at this point, as we now face a new division of the Arab world that goes much further than proposed by British and French diplomats, and while the first Sykes- Picot was a betrayal of promises to support the project of an Arab country, Sykes-Picot The second occurs at a time when Arabs hardly feel a single danger threatening them and with the participation of Arab parties in his investigations. What are the new Sykes-Picot milestones and what are the additional risks they pose to the security of Arab countries? Is there any way to deal with it?
New Sykes-Picot milestones
The first of Sykes-Picot’s new features is the regional extension by land, sea and air to Middle Eastern countries and major countries outside the region. Sure, there is the Israeli extension, which includes vast lands in the West Bank, which the Israeli prime minister intends to annex next month, estimated at 30% of its area, plus all of Jerusalem that Israel has declared a united capital, plus the highlands. Golan, which intends to deepen the settlements in it and the farms of Shebaa, and Israel imposes a blockade. On the coast of Gaza, it launches air strikes in the skies of Syria and Lebanon whenever its political or military leaders wish. There is Turkey, which imposes its control over important areas north of Syria and expands into northern Iraq, and is gaining a permanent presence in Libya, and the Eastern Mediterranean is a Turkish lake in which its fleet sails. and its companies undertake explorations for oil and natural gas ignoring the borders of the economic zone of the eastern Mediterranean countries, and there is Iran, which occupies three islands of the United Arab Emirates, and prefers indirect control through Iranian security and economic agents and institutions in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and from outside the Middle East Russia has fixed bases in Syria that are fully subject to its sovereignty and American forces are located near oil fields in the north of Syria.
The second of these milestones is the reshaping of the political map of the Arab world, which also opens the door to control of its territory or threatening neighbors, just as Turkey does in Libya right now and also in Qatar, and just as it does. Iran through its previously mentioned allies, and just as Israel can get through its relations. Growing with the Arab states of the Gulf.
The third of these characteristics is that the countries involved in designing the new Sykes-Picot were not part of the first Sykes-Picot. Rather, they may see their expansion into the Arab world as retaliation for what happened to them as a result of the First Division and, in the wake of World War I, this is the case with Turkey, which the Arabs rebelled. During that war, and its president claims that its expansion into the western Mediterranean is a restoration of the properties of the Ottoman state, which some Turkish historians consider the first Arab revolution to be a betrayal, and the strange thing is that the second of these parties is Russia, whose Bolshevik extraneousness laid bare what happened between British and French diplomats and with Tsarist participation.In the year 1916, Russia could avenge its deprivation of the Istanbul region, some Armenian regions and of large areas inhabited by Kurds in northeastern Turkey at the time, which was what these two diplomats had promised with the direct presence on the coast of the warm seas in Lattakia in Syria.
And the third part is the United States of America, which has not yet transformed itself into an important pole in the international system with strategic interests in all parts of the world, and Israel is in a middle ground between the countries that have drawn the map of the Middle East after the First World War and the countries that did not participate in these secret talks, Although the Zionist movement was not directly present in the Sykes-Picot talks, the establishment of Israel was an indirect result of the division of the East between France and Britain, as well as the strong ties between Chaim Weizmann, who later became president of the World Zionist Organization (1921-1931) and the first president of Israel. Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Minister who made the ominous promise Indeed, the two countries that set the benchmark for the first division have become marginal in shaping the fate of the Middle East at the moment. Britain appears as a follower of the United States if its parliament allows it to have a military presence in the region, and is currently busy with its internal conditions and leaving the European Union, and has avoided dreaming of an empire, and France is struggling with diplomatic means to resist the extension of Turkish and Iranian influence in the eastern and western Mediterranean to no avail. Greater.
It is the fourth characteristic of this new division of the Arab world and, unlike the first division, it takes place with effective Arab participation. The first division was a betrayal of the promises made by the representatives of the British Empire at the time, including diplomats and spies, in which they broke their promise to support the establishment of a single Arab kingdom in the Arab Mashreq, and the opposite side was a a mixture of the traditional leadership of Sharif Hussein and his sons, and Arab intellectuals and military officers of the Ottoman army. Time, including Aziz Al-Masry and others, was subsequently made available to hold high ministerial posts in some Arab countries, and the behavior of the British colonial government was shocking to them, even though Sharif Hussein was able to rule and his three sons. Arab countries, Hijaz, Iraq and Jordan, as compensation for betraying the Pact before Abdulaziz was ousted. Ibn Saud in Hejaz state, ending the existence of the marginal family there, but the dream of a single Arab state continued to live in the hearts of many in all those countries. As for the new division, it enjoys the support or neglect of the Arab weighty parties. We have not heard an Arab voice firmly reject, albeit verbally, Israel’s attempt to annex large areas in the Jordan Valley, with the exception of King Abdullah of Jordan, who refused to meet Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. , according to what Israeli newspapers have revealed, obviously without neglecting the mention of an Arab League statement on the matter. Nobody evaluates it by weight. Arab parties such as the government of Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt and Tunisia and armed organizations that raise the flag of Islam participate in the efforts of Turkish forces to extend influence in Syria, Iraq and Libya and are allies with Iran, the Syrian government, armed organizations and political forces in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
Can national security be achieved in light of the new division?
Of course, this situation can be assessed from an Arab national perspective. This is possible and clear, but this perspective has lost its credibility with the numerous Arab defeats since 1967 and most Arab governments have abandoned any serious commitment to Arab solidarity, but these situations can be seen from the point of view of pure Qatar’s interest and the answer is clear. There is no single Arab country that does not face a real and immediate threat to Qatar’s security. I start with the main Arab countries, whose common position in 1973 was the last bright moment for Arab solidarity, namely Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Egypt, according to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, faces threats to its security from the east, west and south, and also with the Turkish maritime presence in the eastern Mediterranean from the north as well, as well as the continuation of terrorist attacks from time to time in Sinai. The missiles launched by Ansar Allah Houthi on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fall from Yemen, in which the Kingdom is fighting with the help of the United Arab Emirates a war that has not been able to resolve it for five years, and there are armed forces of at least five countries and dozens of armed organizations at war on the territory of Syria. This article will not be sufficient to mention Qatar’s internal and external security threats to all Arab countries.
It is worth noting that these threats are current and existing despite the alliances that Arab countries have formed with regional and international parties. The implicit and blatant alliance with Israel and the United States has failed to protect the Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia from what it sees as a direct or disguised Iranian threat behind the Ansar Allah organization in Yemen, and if the countries of the NATO doubt the seriousness of the US commitment to protect its security, then it will be the US commitment The security of the Gulf States is stronger than their commitment to the Western European countries with which they have ties cultural, political, economic and historical, and do they definitely need it in their competition with China and Russia? Will the alliance with Iran, Turkey or Russia be more solid in the face of internal changes in these countries or in the Arab countries allied to them?
Long-term purely national interest requires Arab intellectual elites ahead of their governments to reconsider the new Sykes-Picot dangers to their security, and perhaps their governments will listen to them before it’s too late.