Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
Fortunately we are talking about the political ills that did largely come from colonialism, like forcing disparate and often historically conflicting ethnicities into poorly drawn borders by their colonial masters and then undermining those within the colonial borders with destabilization, power plays and outright coups.
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Given the impossibility of the Ottoman Empire enduring after WW1, the region was going to collapse into disorder one way or another. What are the 'natural' states in that part of the world, that has been part of either the Ottoman Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate, or Byzantine Empire for over two thousand years? Draw me a timeline untainted by Western interference that leads to a secure and prosperous Syria or Iraq today?
If 10-20 small states had sprung up in the region in the wake of the Ottoman collapse, I find it hard to imagine there would have been less war and conflict. And the 'blame colonialism' narrative overlooks the fact that the most vicious and enduring conflict in the region is the Sunni vs Shia schism. Even the most ardent Chomskyite can't lay that fanatical bloodletting at the feet of the West.