Middle East draws its own borders

There not be any reasons why Entente would let Middle East alone after WW1. It was strategically important area and Brits had already troops there.
 
What if the Colonial powers did not interfere with the structure of the Middle East after WWI?

This is a very good question, but it's not as easy an answer as I suspect you're hoping for.

The Middle East (for whatever values of "Middle East" you're using - I suspect you mean here what is today Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories) in 1920 is an interesting place. There's a Sunni Arab plurality, in general, but with all kinds of fun crunchy subgroups scattered around (aside from Shiite Arabs, they're mostly ethnoreligious groups). And while these groups have concentrations, with few exceptions there's a lot of territorial intermixing. There's a lot of tribalism, especially outside of a handful of large cities (and even there, it's still residual). Aside from those zany Zionists, nationalism is a very new concept, mostly discussed over coffee rather than used to rally the people or anything.

That said, Prince Faisal wants his goddamn Syria and if OTL anything to go by, the elites in Damascus are happy enough to have him. Honestly, it's not entirely unlikely for him to leverage this into a single monarchy over the entire region...or he might end up ruling over 2 days' ride from Damascus.

Some of the more likely nations/autonomous regions:
-The Maronites in Mount Lebanon are fairly concentrated and feel differentish from their neighbors
-The Zionists, of course
-The Druze almost certainly won't want a country, they've historically avoided that (probably because they have some pretty scattered populations and fear persecution or expulsion if they did)
-The Turks will probably annex Alexandretta like OTL
-There will quite possibly be some sort of Kurdistan in Syria and Iraq. It won't include Iranian or Turkish Kurdistan, but should encompass the northern bits of the Mashriq (unless those bits remain part of Turkey, maybe?)
-The Alawites...it's hard for me to say, actually. They're well concentrated, and have historically liked being left alone, but OTL joined Syria pretty smoothly.
-There won't be a modern equivalent of Jordan, which exists due to a combination of weird externally imposed conditions involved promised thrones and the British inability to follow a definitive course of action with regards to Zionism

Other than that, there's a large spread. There's a lot of Christians in Syria and Palestine and northern Iraq. Shiites in southern Iraq and the mountains of Lebanon, Jews in major cities, Druze in mountains everywhere, some Circassians, the Samaritans, the Baha'i trying not to get killed...

Damascus and Baghdad are almost certainly going to be the center of something. Aleppo and Mosul will be too if they aren't subsumed into their respective larger neighbor's states. Aside from the Zionists and the Maronites, most of modern Israel, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, and Lebanon will likely be part of the Damascus state.

A single state including both Damascus and Baghdad seems unlikely to survive in the long term. If Damascus builds good infrastructure, they might be able to steal away a lot of northern Iraq, which is historically closely linking with Syria as part of the Mashriq (while the south has ties to the Gulf...not that this is cut and dried...)

Basra might become a British protectorate, it might become an Iranian protectorate, it might be part of Baghdad's state...

It's also very possible that any of these states will simply collapse into tribalism or warlordism.

So, while people really like to make fun of Sykes-Picot, it's not like there's really an easy answer. Just like in Europe at the dawn of its national identity, where it took over a century of horrible conflict and ethnic cleansing to get well defined nation-states.
 
The above seems fairly accurare an assessment, the Middle East s we know it is a veritable melting pot of different religions, traditions, ethnic groups and tribes all intermixing and overlapping one another. Drawing defined national borders that would keep all parties happy is incredibly difficult and would involve a lot of movement and strife. Like most of history the strongest and most numerous of groups would be calling the shots and it is likely that that conflict would be common.
 
The question is that why is it that (South)east Asian borders were also colonially-drawn, but these borders have been more accepted and definite for the peoples there with respect to nationalism, unlike the Middle East?
 
Likely a bunch of wars as no one would agree on borders. Eventually the life loss would become too bad on all sides that a peace of exhaustion would happen.
 
It is difficult to see how the colonial powers could not interfere after WWI, since the war itself was sorta a huge way to do precisely that.
I mean, they'd just torn down the Ottoman Empire... Some sort of unitary Arab state, probably Hashimite, seems the way to go. But, aside that this state would in itself the by product of British "interference" during the war, there are probably some bits that might go their own way and would love external support (Maronite mount Lebanon comes to mind).
A the Arab state itself won't necessarily be stable. Michandre has a good point about regional centers such as Damascus, Baghdad and Aleppo.
 
The question is that why is it that (South)east Asian borders were also colonially-drawn, but these borders have been more accepted and definite for the peoples there with respect to nationalism, unlike the Middle East?
Burma, Siam, and Annam already existed as nations before the Europeans came. Elsewhere, the borders were not always respected: Sukarno refused to accept the existence of Malaysia. Indonesia itself had/has plenty of rebellions. Singapore was expelled from Malaysia over racial tensions.
 
Burma, Siam, and Annam already existed as nations before the Europeans came. Elsewhere, the borders were not always respected: Sukarno refused to accept the existence of Malaysia. Indonesia itself had/has plenty of rebellions. Singapore was expelled from Malaysia over racial tensions.

There's still conflicts in the region, just more...low key. Aceh in Indonesia is still simmering. Burma/Myanmar ethnic minorities are sill treated like shit even as the world celebrates its path to democracy. Philippines technically does not acknowledge Malaysia's claim on North Borneo, even as both countries try to cooperate against insurgents (Sulu Sultanate hate both Philippines and Malaysia...or something like that). The border of Thailand/Malaysia has similar problems. Etc etc.

The world just pays more attention to Middle East because the atrocities are of larger scale and of course, the oil ;)
 
Nothing on the scale of cartoonishly evil zealots openly seeking to abolish the nation-state itself, though. Indonesia came rather close to Balkanizing just 15 years ago, so my point stands.
 
Actually, Arab political figures played a key role in determining the boundaries of Iraq and Syria.

The Iraq-Syria border was rather mobile from the end of the war in 1918 to Iraq’s formal independence in 1932, but the concept of Iraq and Syria as separate states was widely accepted. It is often forgotten that the San Remo conference, which was held in late April 1920, was in part a hastily convened response by the colonial powers to the Arab conference in Damascus in early March, which had proclaimed the independence of Syria and of Iraq as constitutional monarchies under two different sons of Sharif Husayn, Faysal and Abdallah, respectively. The Iraq declaration was issued by the Iraqi branch of al-Ahd, often referred to as the “Arab nationalist” party. Formed in late 1918 when the original group split into two, al-Ahd al-Iraqi was led by Iraqi ex-Ottoman military officers based in Syria; by 1919 it also had an active branch in Mosul and a less active one in Baghdad. Its official platform called for “the complete independence of Iraq” within “its natural borders,” which it defined as extending from the Persian Gulf to the bank of the Euphrates north of Dayr al-Zur in present-day Syria and to the Tigris near Diyarbakir in present-day Turkey—that is, rather more territory than included in the Ottoman provinces of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul. The group also pledged to work within a loosely defined “framework of Arab unity”; this part of its platform is better understood as Arabist than Arab nationalist, as it did not involve any specific territorial or state-oriented imaginary.

By 1919, then, the two branches of al-Ahd were calling for two independent territorial states—Syria, with its capital in Damascus, and Iraq, with its capital in Baghdad. Throughout the 1920 Iraqi Revolt against the British Mandate—which started in May and June, partly in response to San Remo, and involved large areas of northwestern, central, and southern Iraq—this was also the official platform of the other major Iraqi nationalist party, Haras al-Istiqlal (the Guardians of Independence), based in Baghdad and with significant support in the southern Shi`i shrine cities.[ii] What the two parties diverged on was not the demand for an independent Iraqi state stretching from the Persian Gulf to somewhere north of Mosul, distinct from Syria, and with its capital in Baghdad—all of that they agreed on—but rather the question of what kind of foreign assistance the future Iraqi state would rely on. Al-Ahd al-Iraqi’s platform specified that it would rely solely on British assistance, while the platform of Haras stated that independent Iraq could request the assistance of any foreign power it pleased.

...

In terms of establishing the actual whereabouts of the Iraq-Syria border, the main question (leaving aside Mosul for the moment, since that was primarily an Iraq-Turkey, not an Iraq-Syria, dispute) was over the Ottoman province of Dayr al-Zur. In Sykes-Picot, Dayr al-Zur had been placed on the French side of the line between the A and B territories, but the fact that it ended up in Syria was almost a historical fluke.[iv] In November 1918, conflicts between residents of Dayr al-Zur and the officers of the Arab army in Syria led local notables to appeal directly to Britain to annex the region to the occupied territory of Iraq. British troops duly arrived and did so. But soon the residents became resentful of the British occupation as well, and in 1919, petitioned Damascus for re-incorporation into Syria.

Ironically, it was the Iraqi nationalist officers of al-Ahd al-Iraqi who were ultimately responsible for the inclusion of Dayr al-Zur within Syria. They hoped to use the region as a base for launching attacks from Syria on British occupation forces in Iraq—and that is what they did, thereby helping to spark the 1920 revolt.[v] In 1923, Baghdad-based Iraqi nationalist Muhammad Mahdi al-Basir explained the Dayr al-Zur decision: “Iraqis [in Syria] were working for the liberation of Iraq, even if that required annexing much of its land for the Syrian government.”[vi] Leading British officials, including Acting Civil Commissioner in Iraq at the time, A.T. Wilson, later asserted that Britain’s acquiescence at Dayr al-Zur—i.e., the evacuation of its troops and relinquishing of the province to the Arab army in Syria—helped precipitate the entire 1920 revolt, not only by providing the Iraqi nationalist officers in Syria a base for cross-border military operations but also by giving other opponents of the British Mandate within Iraq a sense of Britain’s vulnerability.[vii]

Link.


As for the question of why these boundaries aren't accepted, you'll find they generally are. Iraqis and Syrians of whatever political persuasion largely reject partitioning their countries. Very few of the political conflicts roiling the Middle East are about changing the boundaries. The key exceptions are the Kurds (who would, especially in Iraq, like to carve out a separate state) and ISIS, which seeks of course to eliminate all boundaries and create a new Caliphate.

Otherwise, Syrian rebel factions, Iraqi oppositionists, etc., all seek to maintain Iraq and Syria as distinct entities within existing boundaries.
 
Is it possible to get a unified Hashemite Arab kingdom encompassing Syria, Iraq and Transjordan in the aftermath of WW1, with the British getting the Mandate of Palestine and the French getting the Mandate of Lebanon?
 
Nothing on the scale of cartoonishly evil zealots openly seeking to abolish the nation-state itself, though. Indonesia came rather close to Balkanizing just 15 years ago, so my point stands.

As I said, our conflicts here in the ASEAN region are more low key, but the consequences can be just as bad. Look at the Rohingya problem (and the tragic-comedy of so-called Muslim nations like Malaysia and Indonesia rejecting refugees, to my eternal shame), it's just as bad as the refugee problems of the Middle east IMO, just lower numbers comparitively. And as I said, the world media rarely gives us attention compared to the Middle East.

As for abolishing the nation-state, give us a few years, I'm already seeing branches of Hizbut Tahrir (sp?) sprouting all over Malaysia and Indonesia, calling for the establishment of a caliphate that unites the two countries (as a start), rid democracy, rule by Sharia etc. All fueled by oil money.
 
There's still conflicts in the region, just more...low key. Aceh in Indonesia is still simmering. Burma/Myanmar ethnic minorities are sill treated like shit even as the world celebrates its path to democracy. Philippines technically does not acknowledge Malaysia's claim on North Borneo, even as both countries try to cooperate against insurgents (Sulu Sultanate hate both Philippines and Malaysia...or something like that). The border of Thailand/Malaysia has similar problems. Etc etc.

The world just pays more attention to Middle East because the atrocities are of larger scale and of course, the oil ;)

Basically this, religious and ethnic violence still occurs in South East Asia, but nothing really on the scale of the Middle East... Also as you correctly said, oil. The West has a lot of interests in the Middle East both militarily and resource wise and of course with the ongoing conflict, it's subject to more media attention.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
The loss of the Sultanate and the Caliphate was profoundly crucial to many of the local elites of what we consider the Middle East.

My guess is that a Hashemite Kingdom that encompasses far more than Jordan will form, and Ibn Saud will be a local warlord at best. Someone will reform the Caliphate, likely whoever has the best claim, and pair it to the Hashemite leadership just as the Caliphate was linked to the Ottoman Empire.

Basically, ethnic differences be damned, you will have a large, decentralized kingdom if this is allowed to happen.

How you keep such a landmass free of British Imperial encroachment is beyond me, however.

You MIGHT see an Alawite/Christian/Druze majority state form along the coast of modern day Syria as well as most of Lebanon, and somehow have the Hashemites not object in the post WW1 chaos. Without British control, there won't be a Zionist state, but because the territory of Palestine is in this new Hashemite mega state, Zionist immigration will not be impeded, and there will be no Palestinian identity to lash back against this immigration.
 
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