Syrian Researcher Abbas Sharifa: Without Sykes-Picot We Would Have Disintegrated into 50 States

Syrian researcher Abbas Sharifa said in a recent TV interview that in light of the current situation in Syria, in which "even the Kurds want a state, the Alawites want a state, the Druze want a state," the Sykes-Picot agreement has become "like a dream for us." Without Sykes-Picot, we would have disintegrated into 50 states, said Sharifa, speaking on the Turkish Qanat TV on February 4.

Abbas Sharifa: The Sykes-Picot agreement has become like a dream for us. The plan to divide Syria into a Kurdish state, an Alawite state...  It is like a dream now. We have an erroneous concept of the Sykes-Picot agreement, and on whether it was a plan of division or of unification. Imagined what would have happened if the colonialist countries had simply withdrawn from the Arab region, without dividing it into all those countries. I swear that we would have disintegrated into 50 states. Even the Kurds want a state, the Alawites want a state, the Druze want a state. Our notion of statehood is a tribal notion.

[…]