Interesting points - what about the sub-Saharan Africa part?
I don't see a 'carve up' of the Middle East as logical. For a start much of it is ruled by the Ottoman Empire and the preservation of the power of the empire is vitally important to preventing the spread of Russia.
If I understand you correctly, the only thing that made the carve-up of the Middle East logical was the Ottomans choosing to join Germany in WWI. I would agree as this applies to Ottoman control of the Straits and in southwest Asia. The Europeans didn't mind picking off Egypt, North Africa and Cyprus however, and didn't see that as crippling to Ottoman resistance to Russia.
In addition, despite what misreadings of WW1 may seem to say, the Arab population was not dissatisfied with Ottoman rule - it was THE empire and they were part of it, not conquered subjects.
Sure, fancy that - Ottoman subjects preferring their own rulers over invaders.
Its different with the Sherif of Mecca but that was a political clash within the empire, that only became a move to independence because of world war, whereupon all bets are off. Even Ibn Saud, nominally a vassal of the Ottomans, could well have been brought to heel if the empire had been free to focus on him.
I agree, Arab nationalism would have taken alot of time and Ottoman provocation to succceed indigenously.
Moving around the peripheries of the empire, you have British presence already developing - in Aden, in Muscat, over the Trucial States and Kuwait. And Persia is a meeting point for the rival ambitions of the various empires as well.
To an extent the carve-up has already happened - the sultanate of Oman relocated to Zanzibar, lost its African coastal possessions to Britain and Germany, and then lost its final independence also.
Interesting, but could technology, like the lack of quinine, be the key to stopping or delaying the carve-up