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I came across a fascinating item in this week's New York Times Magazine. In an article about Syrian strong-man Bashiar al-Assad the founding of modern Syria was broached.
You could blame bad intelligence for it all [the founding of Syria]. In 1915, a member of the Damascus secret society opposed to the rule of the dying Ottoman Empire made his way to British intelligence headquarters in Cairo. As recounted in David Fromkin's, "A Peace to End All Peace," claims made by this young man persuaded the British officers that Arabs would rise in revolt against Turks in exchange for commitments about the post-war Middle East. Not much of a revolt materialized, but the commitments and the borders that they led the Western powers to demarcate helped create the crisis of legitimacy that Middle Eastern regimes are still facing.
Wow, this sounds exactly like the way Ahmad Chalabi duped the Neo-cons into believing Iraqis would throw roses when American troops arrived. And just like the Middle East in 1915, we are fighting for the legitimacy of the borders and governments we seek to create. History has, indeed, repeated itself.
5 Comments:
Read The March of Folly by the late Barbara Tuchman. We truely dont learn from the stupid mistakes of our political ancestors.
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