A hundred years ago, at the height of WWI, Britain and France signed a secret deal carving up the Middle East. The agreement ignored the aspirations of Arabs and created the Middle East we are still living with today.
The agreement was named after the two men who crafted it—Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot. Sykes was a British Conservative MP, and assistant to the secretary of state for war, Lord Kitchener.
Georges-Picot had ambitions to become a lawyer, but in 1898 joined the French foreign office, the Quai d'Orsay, as a junior diplomat.
Guests:
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University in America.
James Barr, Visiting Fellow Kings College London
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-sykes-picot-agreement/7371600