The Modern Middle East came into existence following World War I when the victorious British and French detached the Arab provinces from the little piece of Ottoman authority remaining in Anatolia (Turkey). Decades later, esteemed journalist and scholar Elizabeth Monroe described this partitioning of the Middle East as a “dreadful story of broken promises and friends abandoned” (See Britain’s Moment in the Middle East, 1914-1971). To gain a better understanding of current political, ethnic, and religious conflicts in the region, we must be aware of the history to which Monroe refers.

What were the three, primary conflicting plans for the post-World War I Middle East, and which plan or plans ultimately shaped the division of the former domains of the Ottoman Empire into the modern Middle Eastern countries?