LogFAQs > #932774263

Nelson_Mandela posted...

There are certainly still territorial disputes within empires. I'd argue that there have been tribal/sectarian conflicts in that region since the Persian empire fell.

And you could also say that there was conflict and territorial disputes in Europe since the fall of the Roman empire all the way up through the 20th century. Overly vague descriptions really aren't that helpful. (In fact Europe's borders were a lot less stable from 1520-1914 than the Ottoman Empire's. Yeah, that's right, in pre-world war 1 history arguably the middle east was "more peaceful" than Europe).

Either way, the modern situation with the Kurds was pretty explicitly caused by the SykesPicot Agreement at the end of World War I (less than a hundred years ago).

This isn't to say that Empires are idyllic--the purpose of an empire is to conquer more territory so you can tax it and make the seat of the empire richer. Being a taxed province in an empire tends to be somewhat shitty, and is the kind of thing that led to the American revolution against the British Empire. Obviously there was discontent in the Ottoman Empire (which is how Lawrence of Arabia got the Arabs to revolt against the Empire).

But after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the borders that were drawn up by the SykesPicot Agreement sucked really bad, because they were not drawn for the people living there. The Sykes-Picot Agreement is the cause of most of the problems in the middle east today. It's the cause of instability in Syria and Iraq. The Sykes-Picot Agreement pretty directly led to the rise of Saudi Arabia as it established a very weak Arabia state which the Saudis promptly conquered. (As I understand it the borders of Saudi Arabia aren't too much of an issue, but they were and are religious extremists and started spreading a more radical version of Islam).

Admittedly, the Sykes-Picot Agreement did not create Iran. That's literally just Persia. They changed their name in World War 2 to remind Hitler that they are white (Iranian and Aryan are words with a common origin).

---

Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision