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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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 Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 9:27 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
European empires didn't colonize the Middle East, the only bit that was colonized by Europeans were parts of the Levant and they were largely Europeans from Central and Eastern Europe.
Europeans merely administered parts of the region for a few decades.
If it weren't for European colonization the Turks would have no doubt reasserted their control over Kurdish parts of Iraq and Syria. Iran would have turned the southern part of Iraq into either a client state or a province.
The dream of Great Syria would have died pretty quickly and there would no doubt be decades of contiguous low intensity warfare throughout the Levant. |
Maybe it would have been better if they were left to sort it out themselves, way back. Might have left it more stable, or at least keep things internal, instead of targeting countries from outside the region. But then again, with the vast amounts of oil there, I guess outside powers would inevitably interfere in the region. |
It wasn't the Europeans that created the mass of different ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities in the Middle East.
Though I take your point that the current borders were drawn along economic and political lines rather than the natural divisions between communities. |
Perhaps you are letting the Europeans off too easy. If you watch the Vice video about ISIS, the people reference Sykes-Picot several times, and the border lines in the region seem custom designed for chaos. Also you have the Zionists and their outside supporters who, whatever you feel about Israel, increased the hate and disorder in the region.
As for radicalism, a lot of that stems from the Saud families deal with the clerics, and then combining with the political islam of the Egyptian muslim brotherhood. |
On the contrary, Iraq was created to prevent chaos by uniting Mesopotamia into a state capable of resisting Iran. Although the northern Kurdish parts were stuck on to deny the French any oil.
Jordan was left with possibly the best trained Arab military that has existed in modern times, Kuwait is a peaceful oil rich state, the Trucial states are doing a roaring trade and Saudi has survived thanks to first British and later US protection. Oman is another example of good British governance and has chosen to retain its close relationship with the UK.
Israel, Palestine (post split) and Yemen...fair enough.
The French deserve more of the blame as they split off Lebanon to give themselves a western orientated mandate. They also gave power to the minorities of Syria, most notably the Alawites and they have held the whip hand ever since. That is why the majority semi-rural Arab Sunni population has felt so hard done by historically.
The truth is though that war is the destiny of that region, Feisal's grand designs would have come to nothing even without European meddling.
The real danger now is that the strong European designed states of the MENA could fall to extremist forces and with the resources of these states could be used to vastly increase their power.
The region is such a mosaic of different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups that without the Europeans there would have either been small, weak and frequently warring states or the region would have been craved up by the big players like Egypt, Turkey and Iran.
The ISIS state is a perfect example of the sort of states that would have spwaned naturally without European intervention. Small and in a state of constant warfare on every border and within it's territory against minorities.
Also just as the Shia Iraqi rump state, Kurdistan and the Sunni Arab ISIS state show, they would all become nothing but proxies for larger regional powers, to be used as part of a grander regional competition.
The European drawn states are not the problem, rather it is the breakdown of these states that is at the root of the current chaos. |
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