To understand why I am calling for a division of Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurd areas with a weak central administration to distribute oil revenues, you must know something about how Iraq was formed.
Prior to World War I (WWI) the area was called the Ottoman Empire, administered by the Ottoman Turks in Constantinople / Istanbul. The empire encompassed most of the Middle East as well as part of Eastern Europe (Bulgaria and Albania).
The people living in the general Mesopotamian region were divided along ethnic and religious lines (Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds).
WWI was pretty complicated but suffices it to say the Ottomans chose to join Germany and Austria against Great Britain and France and we all know who won.
The Ottomans lost their empire to the Brits and the French. Where was the United States in all of this? Well, Woodrow Wilson was the president then and he really care about international politics but the U.S. people and the U.S. Congress did not (isolationism) and so Wilson was denied a voice in international affairs and so Britain and France divided the Ottoman empire as they saw fit.
The nation of Iraq was created by Winston Churchill and encompassed the three diverse groups we mentioned above under a single ruler the British picked. The British did not seem to understand the diverse nature of the groups they forced to live together in a phony country or, for that matter, did they really care.
The British were imperialists, had their own empire on which the sun never set and were really very full of themselves.
The Iraqi people became a nation and existed peacefully together but so did the Yugoslavians under Tito. But take the dictators out of the equations, Saddam out of Iraq and Tito dead in Yugoslavia and look what happened; neighbors slaughtering neighbors.
Why? I don’t have an answer but certain reasons are evident. The main and obvious reason is and was religion. The Kurds are Muslim but a different ethnic group all together. In Yugoslavia it was Christian against Muslim.
Knowing the history of the region, of the peoples and how they were thrown together (Yugoslavia by the Communists and Iraq by the British) will make it clearer why they should be separated once again.
Prior to World War I (WWI) the area was called the Ottoman Empire, administered by the Ottoman Turks in Constantinople / Istanbul. The empire encompassed most of the Middle East as well as part of Eastern Europe (Bulgaria and Albania).
The people living in the general Mesopotamian region were divided along ethnic and religious lines (Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds).
WWI was pretty complicated but suffices it to say the Ottomans chose to join Germany and Austria against Great Britain and France and we all know who won.
The Ottomans lost their empire to the Brits and the French. Where was the United States in all of this? Well, Woodrow Wilson was the president then and he really care about international politics but the U.S. people and the U.S. Congress did not (isolationism) and so Wilson was denied a voice in international affairs and so Britain and France divided the Ottoman empire as they saw fit.
The nation of Iraq was created by Winston Churchill and encompassed the three diverse groups we mentioned above under a single ruler the British picked. The British did not seem to understand the diverse nature of the groups they forced to live together in a phony country or, for that matter, did they really care.
The British were imperialists, had their own empire on which the sun never set and were really very full of themselves.
The Iraqi people became a nation and existed peacefully together but so did the Yugoslavians under Tito. But take the dictators out of the equations, Saddam out of Iraq and Tito dead in Yugoslavia and look what happened; neighbors slaughtering neighbors.
Why? I don’t have an answer but certain reasons are evident. The main and obvious reason is and was religion. The Kurds are Muslim but a different ethnic group all together. In Yugoslavia it was Christian against Muslim.
Knowing the history of the region, of the peoples and how they were thrown together (Yugoslavia by the Communists and Iraq by the British) will make it clearer why they should be separated once again.
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