European colonial powers never actually managed most of the Middle East directly

Evidence

The further assumption implied in Said’s third definition poses more problems. European cultures, of which America becomes an extension by default, are said to have both managed and produced the Orient. With no specification of what qualifies as either managing or producing, we are left only with the obvious historical fact that Britain and France managed to gain a colonial foothold in parts of the region. From a strict political view it would be nonsensical to speak of the actual history over the past few centuries as well managed. Up until the end of the Ottoman empire, it can hardly be said that this region was controlled on puppet strings by European powers. British and French encroachments [were] at the margins, as [befits] empires built on naval supremacy. Both imperial powers were adept at negotiating with indigenous leaders in order to further the economic interests of empire without always having to suffer the bruises of direct colonial control.… Here was virtually no on-the-ground management of most people in the Middle East, China, Japan, or large chunks of India. Islam, far from being replaced or even dented by Christianity, … spread dramatically in Asia and Africa during this same period of European colonial expansion. The fact that all these colonies were dismantled after World War II is a sign of the ultimate failure of imperialist Orientalist discourse in empire-molding. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 213

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom’s law merchant work and to broader debates on how much real control imperial institutions exercised — challenges the standard ‘colonial domination’ framing.
• QUESTION: Hallaq’s counterargument here — that colonies were dismantled because Orientalist discourse failed — is a strong empirical claim worth testing against India (millions governed directly).