Since 2013 journalist Patrick Cockburn has been relaying a message from the Middle East that – ‘It is the end of Sykes-Picot,’ I was told repeatedly in Iraq.’ This was a secret agreement between the French and Brits on 9 May 1916 during World War One which effectively carved up the old Turkish Ottoman Empire, then on the brink of collapse.
It also seems to be one of Al-Baghdadi’s rallying cries and the advance of ISIL across boundaries that were laid down around 1920 or shortly after is seen as an act of revenge against old Western Imperialism.
However there seems to be some dissent from a military historian. ‘The borders — which Isis seeks to erase, were the work of Faisal, King of Syria and later of Iraq, and the British High Commissioner in Baghdad. In the case of Iraq at least, they remained the same as under the Ottomans and are therefore no more artificial than when they had been settled nearly three centuries earlier and Western empire-building had yet to begin.’
In which case the other boundary problems are a result of a plethora of agreements between 1919 and 1922; and 1926 in the case of Palestine.
Whatever it is worth the chart for Sykes-Picot has been under tremendous pressure in the past two years with tr Pluto opposing the S-P Saturn in Cancer; and Solar Arc Sun conjunct Mars and opposition Uranus. There will be jolts and jangles on the S-P chart through 2016; and heavy pressure for change in 2017/18 with tr Pluto trine Sun.
The S-P chart does work with ISIL 2006 since there’s a paranoid composite Sun Saturn opposition Jupiter square Neptune; a bitterly hostile composite Mars Pluto conjunction; and a war-like, stressed Yod of Pluto setile Saturn inconjunct Uranus.
But none of this gets any closer to a light at the end of the tunnel. On the ISIL chart 2019/2020 looks very destructive from their point of view and destabilising with tr Pluto square their Sun Mars; and Solar Arc Uranus square Pluto.
However it is a hundred-headed hydra as we saw with Al Quaeda. Decapitate one and another emerges.