For history minded fellow Freepers, the history of this area was seriously disrupted by the Sykes-Picot Treaty between France and Great Britain after WWI. The carving up of the Ottoman Empire created Jordan, Iraq, Syria and parts of Iran. Minimal attention was paid to historical boundaries, religious differences, tribal politics. As a result, the area has been in turmoil ever since and will probably never know an enduring peace.
We never should have gone in there and I celebrate that the President has the fortitude to get us out. If Russia wants to go in fine, it will be Afghanistan all over again for them.
“For history minded fellow Freepers, the history of this area was seriously disrupted by the Sykes-Picot Treaty between France and Great Britain after WWI. “
We look back and the shape of things to come is clear to us. But to Britain and France the lands they carved up were wild lands populated by tribes of people who stoned women and sold slaves. It wasn’t worth the time of the people who led empires to figure out the Byzantian intricacies of powerless people when all they had to do was Christianize them and bring them civilization. (Churchill’s world view.)