Speaking on the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement last week, President of the Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, declared that the old Middle East created by European imperialism was dead – and that an independent Kurdish state must be part of the emerging new order. Referring to the secret arrangement by the Allied Powers in World War I to divide the Middle East into “spheres of influence”, Barzani blasted the Sykes-Picot Agreement, saying that it denied the rights of the inhabitants and carved up populations with arbitrary lines. The agreement served as the basis for the establishment of the modern...