“Sykes-Picot is breaking; putting it back together, even in a different shape, will be a long and bloody affair.”

So wrote Tim Marshall back in 2016 in his book Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know about Global Politics—essentially a eulogy for European and British border redrawing, particularly in the Middle East (West Asia) region.

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Syria withstood decades of clandestine operations by MI6 and the CIA to reshape history in a sovereign nation that represented this blurring of the Sykes-Picot lines drawn in 1916. It was a secret agreement that divided the Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres of influence. Lines were drawn with no respect for the ethnic, tribal, and religious boundaries in the region, which would lead to orchestrated instability and conflict for a century after.

Arab academic and journalist Myriam Charabaty had this to say about the end of Sykes-Picot:

The fall of Syria took 14 long and bloody years to achieve. An estimated one million Syrians perished in the long years of war against the terrorist proxy forces unleashed by the U.S., UK, EU, Turkey, Arab Gulf States, and Israel. The majority of those Syrians were soldiers in the Syrian Arab Army who gave their lives to defend their country from the Takfiri project hatched by the UK and U.S. post 9/11 [2001], in defense of Israel.

The regime-change war against Syria can be traced back to globalist British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush. It can also be attributed to the Clean Break Doctrine, a CIA strategy paper, for Israel, written in 1996, that outlined:

As special consultant to U.S. Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, Pat Buchanan put it:

“In the Perle-Feith-Wurmser strategy, Israel’s enemy remains Syria, but the road to Damascus runs through Baghdad.”

In 2017, Dr. Piers Robinson wrote a paper entitled “Learning from the Chilcot Report: Propaganda, Deception and the ‘War on Terror.’” In it, he wrote:

Robinson also alludes to the Bush-Blair communications, post-9/11, that point to the destabilization of Syria as a last resort, if all efforts to bring the country on board and to separate it from the Resistance Axis were to fail.

Fast-forward to December 2024 and we witness the final fall of the Syrian capital, Damascus, after a rapid advance by the forces of terror under the control of Turkey and Israel, with the hidden hands of the UK and U.S. controlling events behind the scenes. The fabricated “War on Terror,” given life by the tragic and U.S. deep-state-orchestrated events of 9/11, culminated in the take-over of Syria by Terror. Al Qaeda now rules in Syria, leading ethnic-cleansing pogroms against all minorities and Sunni Muslim communities who reject the dark-age policies of the Takfiri settler-alliance.

The secular, inclusive Syria that resisted neocolonialism for its entire existence since its independence from the French Mandate in 1946 has now, temporarily at least, been thrown to the ravages of Empire—Turkish, Russian, Israel, U.S., UK, and the Arab Gulf States that are intrinsically linked with the U.S. and Israel.

Facing the irredeemable loss of Sykes-Picot, France and “Global Britain” are scrambling to restore colonial order. The borders that were challenged by the rise of the Resistance Axis even prior to October 7, 2023 must be restored or redefined for these two waning colonial powers to sustain influence in the region.

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An approximation overlay of Sykes-Picot agreement on current country borders. (CC/Selfstudier)

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French military is present in Syria; the Kurdish Contras have suggested that French troops could act as a buffer between the Erdoğan neo-Ottoman expansion and the U.S./Israel-backed Kurdish autonomous region project.

At the same time, the Al Qaeda General Authority for Land and Sea Ports in Syria have very recently signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with the French company CMA CGM to establish and operate “dry ports” in the Syrian-Jordanian free zone and the industrial zone of Adra, north-west of Damascus. CMA CGM also renewed their contract to modernize and expand the Syrian port of Latakia for the next 30 years.

France also has its former-mandate roots in the coastal region of “New Syria” from Sykes-Picot days and almost certainly sees potential in restoring an independent state for the three million Alawites in Syria under French control. The Jolani (Ahmed Al Sharaa) ethnic cleansing and slaughter of the Alawites since the coup in December 2024 serves this purpose.

The British, however, have taken a far more direct line to protect their interests in Syria post the international coup that installed Al Qaeda in the Presidential Palace.

Global Britain Seizes the Opportunity to Restore Sykes-Picot Borders

On 12 May, former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford gave a talk to the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs: “Syrian Rebels Win—Now What?” During the talk, he explains how, in 2023, he was invited by a “British Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) which specializes in conflict resolution” to “help them bring this guy [Jolani] out of the terrorist world and into regular politics.”

According to Ford, he made two trips with the British NGO in March and September 2023 and then, in January 2025, post-coup, he accompanied a British NGO to Damascus and met, again, with Jolani. This from Independent Arabia:

Ford was coy about naming the British NGO, perhaps with good reason. A number of regional media outlets picked up the story and identified the organization.

Inter-Mediate (IM) was founded in 2011 by Jonathan Powell, who previously served as Chief of Staff to the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who is recognized as the architect of the regime-change war against Syria alongside George W. Bush. The role that Powell played in supporting Blair and the Weapons of Mass Destruction narratives that took Britain to war against Iraq is a well-documented one.

The Spectator recently published an article in which it is stated:

This was, as Blair named it, “liberal interventionism,” which called for the West to “get actively involved in other people’s conflicts.”

In November 2024, less than a month before the Al Qaeda coup in Syria, Keir Starmer invited Powell to serve as his National Security Advisor. Six days before Damascus fell, Powell left IM to take up his National Security Post under Starmer. Reports of Blair’s influence over Starmer have been rife since his election, so this decision could arguably have been presided over by Blair, following through on his Syria road-map.

Co-founder and senior advisor of IM is none other than Martin Griffiths. In 2023, it was reported that IM benefits from a tight-knit connection with the MI6 (UK Military Intelligence) and the Foreign Office.

Not only did IM receive funding from the UK Foreign Office, an estimated £4 million from 2011-2020; there is hard evidence that Powell communicated the organization’s MI6 links to Hillary Clinton in 2012 just after the start of the U.S./UK-led regime-change operations against Syria.

Powell informed a senior Clinton aide in 2012 that IM “work[s] closely with FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office], NSC [National Security Council] and SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] in London.” Powell informed Clinton that IM organizes “secret channels between insurgents and governments.” He added that work had just begun in Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Burma. Powell convened with Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Jake Sullivan. Sullivan famously sent the email to Clinton in 2012: “Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria.”

Not only did IM, an alleged NGO, receive funding from the British and other Governments, it is an organization stocked with former MI6 operatives and military special forces.

Therefore, it is clear that Powell’s role began with Tony Blair and extended throughout the British neocolonial war against Syria, ending with Starmer, who presided, rather ignominiously, over the final implementation of the Jolani-Al Qaeda take-over and the toppling of Assad. Powell’s role is to normalize the Al Qaeda Junta in public perception, to carry forward British colonial policies, and to secure Britain’s influence in the region for decades to follow. As Charabaty stated:

In February 2025, The National reported on Powell’s below-radar meeting with the “New Syria” administration led by former ISIS and Al Qaeda agent Jolani. It can be assumed that this was the trip that Ford mentions that took place in January. The report details the influence that the UK wields in Syria, post-Assad, through a complex of political connections, so-called charity operations, and a “well-networked” returning diaspora. It is nothing new to those who have followed the in destabilizing Syria since 2011.

Powell’s brother, Lord Charles Powell, is a trustee of the Said Foundation, set up by British-Syrian businessman and philanthropist Wafic Said. According to The National, Mr. Said met Jolani in Damascus during the January convergence of regime-change/war protagonists to the Syrian capital.

In 2018, I co-wrote a series of articles with author and journalist Whitney Webb that explored the “charity” complex weaponized by the British against the Syrian Government. We covered the alliance between Ayman Asfari, a shadowy Syrian-British businessman with insider connections to the British regime and King Charles, and the Said Foundation:

The National points out that Powell’s connection to the Said Foundation afforded him extensive knowledge of Syria through the Foundation’s intelligence gathering. It is confirmed that Powell had established back channel contacts with Al Qaeda, rebranded as HTS, before it came to power. Those contacts were managed, conveniently, through IM. It is claimed that Powell met Jolani as far back as 2021, two years before Ford was invited to help groom the former ISIS terrorist. This is the same year that PBS Frontline ran their documentary The Jihadist. It was one of the first attempts to define Jolani as a political challenger rather than a sectarian terrorist proxy.

Another suspected MI6 operative, in Damascus immediately after the coup, was Hamish de Bretton-Gordon. He visited the new Health Ministry and promoted the role of the CIA/MI6-incubated White Helmets in running the emergency services country-wide. This was despite the unaddressed accusations levied against the organization of participating in the Al Qaeda-led crimes against the Syrian people. The crimes included organ trafficking and child abduction, the staging of chemical weapon attacks, theft, and murder. Instead, de Bretton-Gordon announced that “Britain is uniquely placed through the British-Syrian diaspora to make a real difference, and opening the British Embassy in Damascus cannot happen soon enough [emphasis added].”

French author and journalist Georges Malbrunot wrote an article for Le Figaro covering the IM involvement in the Jolani grooming campaign and the more recent attention given to “reformed” Al Qaeda members of the New Syria Junta, including the caretaker Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, a founder of Al Qaeda in Syria. According to Malbrunot, “In Damascus, an Inter Mediate employee speaking Arabic and Farsi, Lucy Stuart, is advising Mr. Chibani, according to a Syrian official who showed her business card.”

Did Stuart, coached by Powell and British Intelligence services, arrange the rather uncomfortable interview of Shibani by Tony Blair at Davos? Blair glosses over the surge in ethnic cleansing and slaughter of Alawites, Christians and anti-Takfiri factions in Syria at the hands of HTS and their foreign mercenary affiliates. Is Blair marking his territory in Syria as the Machiavellian orchestrator of events that facilitated the rise of Al Qaeda to power? It certainly seems so.

Charabaty also commented on the potential in “New Syria,” for the bolstering of Jordan, a long-term British/U.S. vassal state in the region. A UK stronghold in Damascus could also stabilize or replace a collapsing Jordan, moving up Britain’s Arab command post to the heart of the Arab world and formerly a French colony turned Resistance strong-hold for decades.

This comment is reinforced by Powell’s May 14 visit to Jordan and audience with King Abdullah and the Crown Prince Hussein. During the meeting, the King emphasized the “deep-rooted ties” between the two countries that might lead to enhanced cooperation particularly in the defense sector.

Britain was congratulated for maintaining stability in the region, but the complete opposite is true. Britain employed Orientalism to shape Western perception of the Middle East as backward and irrational, and to justify British colonialist ravages across all countries in which it secured influence. Britain’s legacy in the region is the birth of the Zionist project, which led to decades of bloodshed and instability.

Jordan also expressed fears over the possible displacement of Palestinians, presumably in the hope that the UK would be able to prevent the exodus of Palestinian refugees into Jordan, an idea floated by President Trump and the Zionist genocidaires.

It is worth noting that, in one regional media outlet, Jolani contended that Ford’s statements regarding his meetings with Jolani in 2023 onwards were “not true.” Quite why Jolani might deny the reports is not clear. Ford is known to be a longtime ally of the Syrian “death squads” and promoter of regime change in Syria. Ford fled Syria in 2011 after he was mobbed on a number of occasions by ordinary people who saw how he was inciting the “peaceful” protests across the country.

It may be that Jolani is trying to conceal the obvious MI6 involvement in his rebranding and elevation to the unelected leadership of the country aligning with Israel and the collective West. The Syrian Presidency further indicated that the retired diplomat was part of a delegation from a British research and advisory organization [rather than IM].

Whatever the reason, the hands behind Jolani are now exposed in all their nefarious glory, and there is no doubt that Britain has led the intelligence operations against Syria since the beginning.

The British Military Capture of ‘New Syria’

I recently reported on the emergence of at least one British private military contractor in Syria immediately after the fall of Damascus. Emerald Solutions slotted very neatly into supporting Jolani’s regime without once calling attention to the multiple crimes committed by Jolani and the terrorist factions under his command both post- and prior-Assad’s flight to Russia. This aligns with the Blair-Bush project to normalize relations with the Jolani terrorist leadership and military.

This is to the point where, on May 19 Britain welcomed the alleged formation of transitional justice and missing persons’ commissions in Syria. Relying on HTS to investigate their own crimes against the Syrian people since December 2024, and for the 14 years prior, is the same as relying on the Zionist regime to investigate the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied Territories since 1948. It is meaningless. In fact, since the British have renewed their interest and involvement in New Syria, the crimes of Jolani’s militias have steadily increased.

Last week, on UK Column News, we looked into the visit of the British military attaché, Lt. Col. Charles Smith (posted to British Embassy Beirut), to Damascus. According to reports on the visit, Britain is looking to secure defense and military cooperation with Al Qaeda. A cooperation that will be in favor of Israel and a way to prevent any Takfiri threat to Israeli national security in the future. It also gives Britain the opportunity to re-embed itself in the region, to redraw the Sykes-Picot lines to serve the foreign policy agendas of Greater Israel and the U.S./UK/Gulf State alliance in the region, to isolate Iran, and potentially to prevent Russian consolidation in the coastal region where the Levantine gas reserves lie.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Turkish-backed terrorist factions launched serious attacks on the Russian Hmeimim base shortly after the visit of Smith to Damascus. Britain’s historical animosity towards Russia has always been a driving factor for the destabilization campaign against Syria, far more than the U.S.

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Our thanks to CRG Research Associate Mark Taliano for bringing this article to our attention.

Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, and photographer, who has been a well-known expert in Southwest Asia affairs for many years. This article was originally published in UK Column on May 27, 2025, and is being republished here with the permission of the author.

Featured image: President George W. Bush (right) chats with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at Practica di Mare Air Force base near Rome, Italy on May 28, 2002. (White House photo by Paul Morse)

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