The Historical Emergence of the Main Forms of Actors

in the Middle East and North Africa region

This paper will focused on the historical antecedents of actors involved in creating and

developing Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and what are the differences

amongst them. The timeline will begin in the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire that

materialized into the advent of the European colonizations and birth of nation-states.

Revolutions spark all over the Fertile Crescent, when the Arabs knew that the twilight of the

Ottomans are now commencing. According to Aroian and Mitchell (1984, p. 164), from the

1919 Syrian resistance that was affirmed by their French protectors through the provisions

laid down in the League of Nations has led to the Iraqi revolt of 1920, which was resembled

by British India and Egypt in the days of Lord Cromer because they were inspired by the

Syrian revolution. In generalization prism, all of the Arabian Peninsula is interconnected to

each other with regards to their struggle for freedom and independence.

In Halpern (1963, p. 256) contends that the San Remo Conference, in addition to confirming

allied plans for Iraq and Syria, granted Britain a mandate that combined Palestine and

Transjordan (the area across or east of the Jordan River). Prior to the partition, Palestine had

been part of greater Syria, while present-day Jordan was viewed as part of both Syria and

Arabia. Ottoman administrative divisions had not included the terms Palestine and Jordan.

When Britain obtained the mandate for Palestine at San Remo, the intention was that a

national home for Jews should be set up in Palestine, but it was stated explicitly hat not all

conditions of the mandate would necessarily apply to the entire area.

In the end, the British decided that circumstance in the barren area east of the Jordan did not

warrant further military activity because on March 1921, as allowed by policymakers led by

Winston Churchill, to offer to Abd Allah the Transjordan in exchange for giving up his claim

to the Iraqi throne and his fight against the French. Transjordan would still become part of the

Palestine mandate approved by the League of Nations in 1923, but its territories were

specifically excluded from provisions relating to a Jewish national home. Although the

Zionist Executive accepted this stipulation in 1922, Zionists claimed later that this action

partitioned territory promised to the Jewish state, even though Jews had been promised

neither a state nor all of Palestine.

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As a realization from Gerner (1991, p. 42) of the near destruction of the Jewish people of

Europe spread, the Zionist movement in the U.S., the country that now contained the largest

Jewish community in the world, gained a tremendous support. It was inconceivable to most

U.S. citizens regardless of their religious beliefs, that they could fail to support Jewish

aspirations for a safe place where Jews could never again be senselessly slaughtered. In the

process, the reality of Palestine and its indigenous people was ignored.

Though Howley (1975, p. 3) contested that the events that caused the exodus of the Palestine

Arabs did not begin in 1948 or for that matter with the Balfour Declaration in 1917. They

began much earlier in the history of the conflict between the Christian West and the Muslim

East. This is "a struggle that cannot be fully understood or appreciated unless one grasps the

problem as it originated in the Ottoman Empire." By British declaration of intent to create a

"Jewish National Home in Palestine," David Ben-Gurion reads out the proclamation of the

State of Israel on May 14, 1948. In Ostle (1991, p. 24) literature, he said that a guy by the

named of Leonard Stein, authoritative historian of Zionism, argued that the real purpose of the

Zionist movement was to detach Palestine from its people and form a very effective guard for

the Suez Canal thus turning it into a Jewish State.

While the Arabs in the Middle East are busy for their nationalistic activities, According to

Hurewitz (1975, p. 19), the Egyptians, which is under the British Wartime Policy, have

ascended to demand the restoration of their independence. When the war in Europe ended,

Sa′d Zaghlul, whom Lord Cromer had praised as an industrious, intelligent, and capable

leader in 1906, gave British high commissioner a statement tantamount to a demand for

independence. Within a few days, Egypt was in revolt against British. The national nature of

the reaction illustrated the fact that Egyptians, for many different reasons, wanted

independence and respect from the British. Contrary to British assertions, what seemed

dearest to most British officials despite exceptions like Wingate was the honor of the British

Empire. Although the British rapidly squelched the uprising, its magnitude and nature was not

entirely lost on officials in Cairo and London. British commission realized that the Egyptians

who had suffered from wartime inflation, family separation, hardship, indenture, and death

had not received due award. With the acknowledgement of Zaghlul as the man with whom the

British would have to negotiate Egypt′s future, he was brought into talks with other freedom

fighters.

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In the end, Egypt won a nominal independence not by negotiation but by a unilateral

declaration of the British high commissioner on 28 February 1922. The terms of

independence drew upon the treaty about which Zaghlul had equivocated. Britain reserved to

its own government four points: the defense of Egypt, protection of communications,

protection of foreign and minority interests, and the administration of the Sudan. But Egypt

remained under the thumb of the British for over thirty years.

In the great Persia which is a different story according to the written accounts of Imamuddin

(1968). After the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907 divided Iran into rival spheres of

influence and a neutral zone, the Qajar boy-shah Ahmad (1909-24) fell under the domination

of Bakhtiari chiefs. He began to repress nationalists whose leadership soon fled the country or

were executed. Berkoff (1994, p. 36) said that there is a foreign intrigue, mainly among

Germans, Russians, and the British, resulted in a secret treaty between Germany and the Qajar

government. The Germans promised support for Persian independence if the Persians would

assist Germany in the war. More accommodating Persian leaders succumbed to british

pressure and signed a treaty on 9 August 1919. This gave Britain rights similar to those

enjoyed in Egypt and Iraq ­ rights objectionable to populations in all places. In the treaty

Britain gained control over the administration, economy, communications, and defense of

Iran. However, the decision left Iran still facing a soviet threat. Although the Bolshevik

government had denounced all Russian-Persian treaties as imperialist, it used abrogation as an

excuse to pursue into Iran the opposition forces of General Denikin during the Russian Civil

War. It was in this context that the Bolsheviks tried to affirm the independence of a Soviet

republic set up in northern Persia. After the League of Nations (which Iran joined) failed to

take action, the Persians opened negotiations with the Soviet Union On 29 February 1921, the

Bolsheviks renounced former czarist treaties and policies, except those relating to fisheries in

the Caspian Sea. Iran′s debts were cancelled, but to send troops in case of a threat to Iranian

independence. Iran agreed to retain concessions given up by the Russians, thereby assuring

the Soviet government that Iran intended to remain sovereign.

Ironically Long and Reich (1980, p. 124-126), stated that as the Persian negotiators were

concluding these negotiations in Moscow, a Russian-trained Persian Cossack, Reza Khan,

carried out a successful coup d′etat intended to abolish the Qajar monarchy and replace it with

a republic. Reza Khan appointed the influential Sayyid Ziya al-Din Tabataba′i his prime

minister, but eventually he himself took this position. At that point in 1923, he sent the Qajar

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