(April 2, 2016 at 1:49 am)JuliaL Wrote: The US gets blamed for backing despots, or for trying to remove them.
I don't think the violence of the middle east requires America as the chief inciting cause. We're just convenient to blame.
There seems to be enough collective hatred to keep things going without our help.
The Shia vs the Sunni.
The Arabs vs the Persians.
The modernists vs the traditionalists.
The oil-rich vs the impoverished within or between nation states.
Everybody vs the Israelis.
I'm in favor of establishing US energy independence through increasing efficiency & fast breeders and for growing oil producing crops to provide carbon backbones & polymers. Then go about our business of living well by satisfying our customers. I don't want the Saudi or Iranian oil and certainly don't want to deal with their medieval minds.
Cut off the oil money and with some luck, the region will realize that joining modern society is more pleasant than living in tents in the desert no matter what great granddad bedouin did.
The U.S is not alone in this. Britain, France, Russia, all these are involved and there are more. 3 of these name have been involved in destabilizing the region since the fall of the Ottoman empire.
Sykes-Picot, Julia. That treaty was an act of destablization; one that would affect the region for a whole century yet to come. Blame wise, the Middle East does have the essence of hate between many parties, but when did Europe become safe again? world war 2 ended 70 years ago only. Before Sykes-Picot, the Ottomans had a relativly safe empire -compared to today's middle east-.
I'm not defending Sunna or Shia regimes, the Middle East fell like this because many in it chose to trust wrong people -like T.E Lawrence-.
