Don’t forget empires arming and funding them to cause problems for people on the other side since…
*scrolling down long piece of paper past Russia and China
*it just keeps getting longer past the world wars era
*jfc the byzantines aren’t even halfway there
*I can’t read ancient pheonician…
*this list contains another partial copy of the epic of gilgamesh…
They’ve been fighting for literally millenia. You can blame the current situation on whatever you want, but even if no one ever interacted with them, they’d still be fighting.
But if it wasn’t for the oil, nobody would care.
The Sykes-Picot agreement back in 1916 was absolutely intended to cause war. There were literally no set borders in the Arabian peninsula before it.
Divide and conquer was the game plan of western powers from the start
“A Line in the Sand” by James Barr is a good book on the topic, it goes into how the rivalry between Britain and France wound up with them attempting to carvr up the middle east between them after the fall of the ottoman empire.
War and destabilisation of the Arabian population was the outcome, but I think it is highly reductive to say it was the intent, for one that would imply some level of cooperation beteen the colonial powers against the native populations when they regarded each other as bitter enemies and didn’t really regard the people of the middle east at all.
Every step taken by Britain and France was with the aim increase or secure their territory while undermining the other. A lot of these steps were training arming and funding of local military/gorillas/terrorists opposed to the other country, but usually these were inflaming and exploiting existing religious/ethnic/tribal tensions rather than manufacturing them from nothing or drafting into an officially military force, which has the unpleasant property that even after the colonial powers have departed, the trainings traditions and blood feuds continue.
You’re right about the war statement not being clear. What I should have said is that they regarded us as a “tool of war” that can be used to meet their end goal.
And you’re definitely right about their dividing of the people through focusing on differences, but some additional differences did stem solely from these border divisions.
As an example, many Lebanese & North African Arabic colloquial words for something are just the French word for it. I’m not saying that those are the kind of differences that could rip a nation apart, but that the differences instilled by British & French colonialism still remain to this day
Many historians attribute the downfall of middle eastern empires to 18th century technological stagnation compared to both western and eastern adversaries, just under two centuries prior to the sykes-picot agreement.
The east has had just as much with destroying the middle east as the west, and arguably far more during the time of the USSR.
Fair point, the influence of the USSR middle eastern politics is something that isn’t given as much credit as it should.
Also you’re unfortunately absolutely 100% right on the technological stagnation. We had some geniuses here back in the day compared to where we are now! The word “algorithm” straight up has it’s etymology going back to the name of a mathematician named “al-khawarizmi”. The word ALGEBRA STRAIGHT UP GOES BACK TO THE NAME OF ONE OF HIS WORKS “Al Jabr”.
Which means we are unfortunately also to blame as the root cause of the current garbage state of AI Large Language Models. Apologies.
I truly believe that education is the most important thing if you want to keep progress from stagnating. People here got lazy after the knowledge gap set in place by the divide of the Ottoman Empire, and then even lasier after the wealth gap caused by the discovery of oil & gas
I blame Alexander the “Great”
I blame the separation into Sunni, Shia and the other one that kinda fizzled out.
Nah. It’s clearly Hammurabi and his invention of state power and heirarchy.
Inaccuracies
Hammurabi did not invent these things himself, obviously
I put the blame on the TRUE culprit.
So why do internet pundits think the US president can fix it with a wave of his hand?
Because the positions of internet pundits tend to be either:
“America is Jesus 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏and infinitely powerful”
or
“America is Satan 👿👿👿👿👿and infinitely powerful”
It may also be related to the fact that additional tension in the middle east was CAUSED by America’s “war on terror”
I mean, yes, but causing something and fixing it are two entirely different powers, neither of which are entirely in the hands of the executive alone.
It’s easy to destroy a building; hard to build the same.
That’s true, but if you destroy someone’s house and then just leave the scene without offering any form of aid in at least attempting to repair it then you shouldn’t be surprised when that person sees you as an enemy for life.
We can’t expect them to differentiate between the branches of government and say “oh I hate the US army, but I don’t hate USAID since they at least try to help”.
If the US government can’t tell which one deserves the funding, don’t expect a homeless orphan being offered what they see as “an opportunity for revenge” to see the difference.
I don’t necessarily disagree, my point is only that in political discussion, treating the issue as solely the purview of the presidency is unhelpful and incorrect.
Lol, Americans throwing shade at France in 2025.
Good effort pal.
Thanks, the Ancient Traditions™ keep me going despite the chaos and despair
To be fair, you’re not wrong.
It’s an international treaty that says if things are going to shit we should comment on the french.
In case of emergency,
invade polandshit-talk the FrenchOk, this needs to be a T-shirt
