ABSTRACT
Diplomatic historians have usually cited the King-Crane Commission as either an example of United States naivete in the face of European realpolitik or as a representation of the principles that differentiate the "new diplomacy" from the old. In reality, the legacy of the commission is far more complex. Whereas the French and British attitude toward both self-determination for the inhabitants of the region and the King-Crane Commission was thus clear, United States support for both was surprisingly ambiguous. The members of the King-Crane Commission shared Woodrow Wilson's understanding about the nature of public opinion. The commission recommended imposing a mandate on Syria but optimistically predicted that the period during which a mandatory power would have to oversee Syrian affairs might be brief. Gulled by the promise implicit in the commission's tour of Syria, the mutanawwirun constructed structures that expedited the mobilization of the population.
