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Friday, June 27, 2014

The Ghosts of World War I Now Haunt the Middle East

The Middle East That France and Britain Drew Is Finally Unravelling.  And there's very little the U.S. can do to stop it (John Judis) from the New Republic
A big excerpt is in order here:
"... these various bad actors are bit players in a drama that goes back at least to World War I. What is happening is that the arrangements that the British and French created during and after World War I—which established the very existence of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan, and later
contributed to the creation of Israel—are unraveling. Some of these states will survive in their present form, but others will not. ... The British and French created the future states—not in order to ease their inhabitants’ transition to self-rule, as they were supposed to do under the mandate of the League of Nations, but in order to maintain their own rule over lands they believed had either great economic or strategic significance."

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