Churchill convened a meeting in Cairo of some 40 advisers (including 36 British experts on the Arab world, one of whom was Gertrude Bell; and two Arabs, Jaafer Askari and Sasun Pasha, both of them aides to Faisal bin Husain, the third son of Husain bin Ali, the Shareef of Makkah.)
The meeting reached the following conclusions which were generally in line with the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Syria and Lebanon were assigned to the French sphere of influence. Mesopotamia was to be redesignated Iraq and Faisal bin Husain was to be made its King. An area between Syria, Iraq and Palestine was to be defined and named Transjordan; Abdullah bin Husain, Faisal's brother, was to be made its King. Husain bin Ali, the father of Faisal and Abdullah, himself the Shareef of Makkah, was to be accorded the title of King of the Hijaz.
The composition of the group of advisers ensured that the political realities of the Arabian Peninsula were effectively ignored, an error of judgement which was to become more and more apparent as the years passed.