Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a British liaison officer who helped the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. He was a leading advocate for Arab independence under British neocolonial control. Photo by Lowell Thomas, 1919.

This map shows how the Sykes-Picot Agreement proposed to divide up the Middle East between the French (area A) and the British (area B). The agreement was signed in secret in 1916 without any concern for local peoples. This map is signed by Sykes and Picot. Map from the National Archives, MPK 1/426, 1916.

British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement with France. The agreement split territory between imperialist powers and helped cause decades of turmoil in the Middle East. Lithograph by Leopold Pilichowski, 1918.

French diplomat François Georges-Picot signed the Skyes-Picot Agreement in 1916. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, 1918.

Sultan Pasha al-Atrash led the 1925–1927 nationalist revolt against French occupation of Syria. That revolt helps inspire today's rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad. Photo by American Colony (Jerusalem) Photo Department, 1926. From Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-M32-3398-A [P&P].

Unless otherwise specified, all images in the photo insert are by Reese Erlich.

Bashar al-Assad, who began his rule with much-needed reforms, proved to be a brutal dictator when he repressed the 2011 uprising.

This revolutionary poster shows an image of Mohammad Bouazizi in his hometown of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia.

This sculpture commemorates street vendor Mohammad Bouazizi in Tunisia, whose death sparked the Arab Spring.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians rally against the Mubarak dictatorship and the Egyptian military, Tahrir Rally, Cairo.

Shia Muslims pray at the holy Rukaya shrine in Damascus. Shia youth wave flags during a holiday celebration; outside, Hezbollah stands guard along with Syrian troops.

Muslims pray at the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus. While proclaiming support for religious freedom, the Syrian regime laid siege to Sunni neighborhoods suspected of supporting the rebels.

Sheik Abdul Salaam al-Harash, a progovernment cleric, echoes the widely held view that Muslims must “protect” Christians. Christians say that's a condescending view.

Minister of Justice Najm al-Ahmad denies that the Syrian government ever used chemical weapons, claiming they were used only by the rebels.

Dr. Wafaa Dieb stands in front of a statue of Hafez al-Assad in Tartus. At the beginning of the uprising, the mainly Alawite residents of Tartus rallied in favor of the government and against tearing down Hafez al-Assad's statue.

A Mukhabarat (secret police) member worried that photographing this breadline in western Syria would show the regime in a negative light. The government provided subsidized bread, and sometimes the lines got long.

Rana Isa, owner of a public-relations company in Damascus, says big-business men strongly supported the government because Bashar al-Assad had adopted probusiness policies since the early 2000s.

During a 2011 visit to Damascus's famous souk, or marketplace, business had dried up.

In the Damascus souk, this shopkeeper displays his inlaid boxes but says foreign customers, his usual clients, have stopped coming.

Bishop Armash Nalbandian of the Armenian Orthodox Church says protestors originally had legitimate democratic demands but extremist rebels have taken over. He supports the Assad government.

Clerics attend the funeral of Armenian children killed by a rebel mortar that hit a Christian school in Damascus.

Iranians gather for Friday prayers in Tehran. Iran strongly supports Assad because of his opposition to the United States and Israel.

A young girl in Moqebleh, a Kurdish refugee camp in northern Iraq. Kurds have long opposed the Assad regime but are also wary of the Islamist opposition.

Author Reese Erlich interviews Syrian Kurdish refugee Barkhodan Balo in the Moqebleh camp in northern Iraq. Balo and most Kurds want greater rights for Kurds within the Syrian state.

A watchtower overlooks the Golan. Arabs living in the occupied Golan overwhelmingly support its return to Syria, although the civil war has put any future settlement on the back burner.

Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian political leader, says the Israel lobby had a significant defeat in 2013 when it couldn't pressure Congress to support bombing Syria.