What did Great Britain do with territory in the Middle East?

Answer 1

The Middle East is one of the world's busiest trading areas and seves as a link between Asia, Europe, and Africa. The British benefited from the money that the trade brought to the region, and in the 20th century used it for oil as well.

Answer 2

Question Wording
The way the question reads is rather odd. It reads as if British leaders looked at the Middle East and thought to themselves, "What should we do with these Middle Easterner? -- Oh! Let's use imperialism on them and be determined in so doing." It is far more accurate to say that Britain was creating an empire for the acquisition of resources and strategical places (and other less important reasons) and in so doing enacted these empire building policies worldwide, including the Middle East. This phenomenon of worldwide empire building is what we term "Imperialism".

Discussion of Reasons
There were several reasons that Europeans, including Britons, were interested in controlling the Middle East and these reasons have more to do with the political and social climate in Europe during the Imperialist Period than any local issues in the Middle East.

Resources: There were an incredible variety of resources produced around the world that fed into the European industrial machine. Most importantly for the British, the Persian Gulf is known for petroleum and provided a ready supply so that Britain would not be dependent on Russia for fuel. The European powers wanted to gain access to these resources to power their industrial rise.

Strategic Territory: Numerous colonies had specific strategic locations, such as Egypt with the current Suez Canal and Iran because of its proximity to British India and that country's massive spice production. Many colonies in the Middle East chosen specifically based on where they were and how effectively defense could be maintained by holding those positions.

Christian Evangelism: Many Europeans believed quite strongly at the time that their technological success was correlated with their belief in Christianity. In their view, non-Christians like the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. were hindered by the mentalities present in their religions from being technologically astute. In order to "help" these people to becomes more modern and more worldly, it was "necessary" to teach them the proper way to believe so that they too could succeed, Muslims in particular were seen as barbaric, backwards, and outmoded. They were seen to be ruling in unconscionable ways according to ridiculous principles. This "barbarity" needed to be set aright and fixed for the benefit of those people.

White Man's Burden: Europeans were fascinated with the philosophy of J.S. Mills Jr. and Rudyard Kipling who believed that there was really only one track to humanity and each person was on this track to ultimate advancement. As Europeans were further along this track, it was "incumbent" on them as act of generosity to help those who were not as technologically or "culturally" advanced. There were campaigns across Africa, Asia, and Australia to "Europeanize the Natives" so that they would be "able" to progress properly.

Labor and Military Augmentation: The colonies, especially in Asia, had very high populations relative to European countries. This allowed them to add large numbers to their labor force and to create new military divisions from this large population.

Appearance of Power: European Leaders ascribed power and dominance to those countries who were able to amass a large number of colonies, especially if they were in coveted or strategic locations.

Proximity: The Middle East and North Africa are the closest Non-European places to Europe and this proximity prompted interest in colonizing it. Britain was interested in the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Persian Gulf for these reasons. The Middle East had heavy interaction with Europe prior to colonization relative to Central Africa or Southeast Asia and therefore, more Europeans were aware of the societies and places there.

Zionism: Colonization did not really favor Zionism until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. At that point, Christian Zionists in the United Kingdom saw the creation of Jewish State in the former Land of Israel as a desirable outcome in its restoration of Biblical Prophecy. As a result, Palestine was created as a Class-A Mandate with the intent to set it free as the Jewish State. However, relatively soon, Britain reverted and decided that the creation of a Jewish State was against its better interests to avoid causing issues with Muslims and limited its support of Zionism by the later 1930s and 1940s.