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The King–Crane Commission, officially called the 1919 Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey, was an official investigation by the United States government concerning the disposition of non-Turkish areas within the former Ottoman Empire.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The King-Crane Commission Report, August 28, 1919 )〕 It was conducted to inform American policy about the region's people and their desired future in regard to the previously decided partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the League of Nations Mandate System. The Commission visited areas of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Anatolia, surveyed local public opinion, and assessed its view on the best course of action for the region. The Commission was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson and comprised Henry Churchill King and Charles R. Crane. It began work in June 1919 and produced its report on 28 August 1919, though the report was not published until 1922. The Commission's work was undercut from the beginning by continuing and competing colonialist designs on the part of the United Kingdom and France, as indicated by their previous secret deals, their lack of a similar belief in public opinion,〔David Fromkin, ''A Peace to End All Peace'', 1989, pp 396-97 The proposal was viewed as childish by the French and British career officials, who did not believe that public opinion, in the European and American sense, existed in the Middle East. Nonetheless the British Prime Minister tried to make the best of it by attempting to get the commission to focus exclusively on the claims of France--and the resistance to those claims by the Arabs whom France sought to rule.... The British, like the French, had staked out an enormous claim in the Middle East, but Lloyd George successfully kept the British claims from being scrutinized. When President Wilson's Commission of Inquiry went out to ascertain the wishes of the Middle Eastern peoples, it did not go to Mesopotamia, where British India had instituted direct rule.〕 as well as the commission's late start, and encountered delays; the 1919 Paris Peace Conference had largely concluded the area's future by the time the report was finished. The King-Crane commission was "the first-ever survey of Arab public opinion" and the fact its results went largely unheeded was bemoaned by pollster James Zogby.〔James Zogby, (Opinions Matter: A Lesson From History ), ''Huffington Post'', July 11, 2008〕 == History == The Commission was originally proposed by the United States as an international effort to determine if the region was ready for self-determination and to see what nations, if any, the locals wanted to act as mandatory powers. The plan received little support from the other nations, with many claimed delays. The Americans gradually realized that the British and French had already come to their own backroom deals about the future of the region, and new information could only muddy the waters. So, the United States alone sponsored the commission. President Wilson picked Henry Churchill King, a theologian and fellow college president (of Oberlin College), and Charles R. Crane, a prominent Democratic party contributor.〔Gelvin, p. 13–14.〕 The Commission's effectiveness was hampered by the fact that it was the British army that actually protected them and controlled the translators, giving a skewed view of opinion where it was considerably easier to decry the French than the British. In spite of this, based on interviews with local elites, the commission concluded that, while independence was preferred, the Americans were considered the second-best choice for a colonial power, the British the third-best, and the French easily the worst choice.〔Gelvin, p. 16–17.〕 Based on these interviews, King concluded that while the Middle East was "not ready" for independence, a colonial government would not serve the people well either. He recommended instead that the ''Americans'' move in to occupy the region, because only the United States could be trusted to guide the people to self-sufficiency and independence rather than become an imperialist occupier. From King's personal writings, it seems that his overriding concern was the ''morally'' correct course of action, not necessarily tempered by politics or pragmatism. The Republicans had regained control of the United States Senate in 1918, and as isolationists, the probability of a huge military adventure and occupation overseas, even given British and French approval, was practically nil. The British Foreign Office was willing to allow either the United States or Great Britain to administer the proposed Palestine mandate, but not the French or the Italian governments.〔''The Palestine Papers, 1917-1922'', Doreen Ingrams, George Brazziler Edition, 1973, pages 51 and the ''Minutes of the Eastern Committee'', UK Archives, PRO CAB 27/24.〕 The point ended up being moot in any case, as Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau, heads of governments of Great Britain and France, prevailed in drafting the provisions of the San Remo conference and the Treaty of Sèvres. Lloyd George commented that "the friendship of France is worth ten Syrias."〔 France received Syria while Britain would get Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Palestine, contrary to the expressed wishes of both the interviewees and the Commission itself.〔 In the United States, the report floundered with Wilson's sickness and later death. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「King–Crane Commission」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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