Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The Sykes-Picot agreement was a diplomatic deal between France and Britain negotiated in the midst of World War I to divide up the territories of the Turkish Ottoman Empire between British, French, and Russian spheres of influence. This cynical 'divvying up' of Arab lands between European powers still provokes mistrust in the Middle East to this day. . . . The deal laid out that a swath of territory comprising today's Syria, Lebanon, southeast Turkey, and northern (Kurdish) Iraq should be within France's zone of influence, whereas Britain would be responsible for central and southern Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. The agreement, later ratified as the treaty of San Remo in 1922, also made provision to Russian access to the Persian Gulf. At first kept secret for fear of offending the Arabs, who had been induced by the British to rise in revolt against the Turks, the deal became public knowledge when it was publicized by Lenin after the Russian Revolution to embarrass the allies." [Furtado: 1001 Days]