Coming out of the Ottoman experience, the Arabs aspired to national independence. Promises of a new order of international relations, set out by American President Wilson in his Fourteen Points, generated expectations of national self-determination. Instead, the Arabs found themselves denied any say in the disposition of their lands and under British or French colonial rule. Within the parameters of these new states, again, shaped without the consent of those governed, Arab politics were primarily focused on gaining independence from colonial rule. The new Arab states had little or no exposure to the international order so long as their colonial masters oversaw their foreign affairs. This extended to inter-Arab affairs, often divided between those states under British versus those under French rule. Thus divided, domestic interests prevailed over broader Arab interests in a way that allowed the colonial powers, and later even the young state of Israel, to play the Arab states against each other.