Oil and the Origins of Middle Eastern Sovereignty

This article discusses a specific event with far-reaching consequences of that colonial activity: the oil franchise regime in the Middle East and the connection between it and the boundaries and character of the nation states created in the region after the war. It shows that those borders (such as the ones created as part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement) were dictated first and foremost by the interests of the British, French and American oil corporations. This process left in its wake nation states bound to franchises that appropriated their control of their subterranean wealth: “hollow” states obsessively concerned with reinforcing their connection to the national territory that was defined by borders drawn for the benefit of the oil corporations.