Middle East Quandary

The Middle East as we know it today is the result of artificial boundaries drawn up by the victorious powers in the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles at the end of World War One.  The boundaries drawn totally ignored the ethnic, religious, and tribal factions of the area.  What was the objective?  The objective was to carve out of the desert sections of land for each of the Western nations involved to exploit.  The rich oil reserves of the region had just been discovered. The victorious allies of the war were eager to plunder these resources and they have done so for nearly a century in one way or another. After World War One, the former Ottoman territories of the Levant came under British and French control.  The League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to rule Palestine.  In the aftermath of World War Two, Palestine was turned into a Jewish National Home which in 1948 became Israel.  Arabs (Palestinians) had for centuries claimed this land as their own, but were apparently ignored in the decision-making of the time.  (I realize that this is simplified summary.  The full story  is much more complicated. 

When we talk of terrorism, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Yemen, or any other place in the Middle East we must be fully aware of this history.  Wherever our “talk” leads us, I think we will find the roots of all the current issues in those arbitrary decisions made a century ago and the exploitation that has taken place ever since.  It is a long and confusing history—and one which most Americans have paid little attention, except when the price of oil is sky-rocketing.

Mr. Trump, who knows more than the generals, all former presidents, and apparently knows more than at least five other world powers, and certainly, I hope, knows more than I do about the situation, has pulled the United States out of the international nuclear deal with Iran.  His decision was lauded by Israel and Saudi Arabia.  Did you know that Saudi Arabia is Sunni Muslim?  Did you know that Iran is the world’s dominant Shiite Muslim power?  Tribal and religious feuds still exist in spite of the arbitrary lines drawn in the sand over a century ago by nations which sought their own well-being, rather than that of the people of the region.

It is all very confusing to me, even though I try my best to understand and grapple with the various arguments for and against the Iran deal, the Syrian debacle, the Yemen situation, etc.  Who is right?  What is right?  Can we make anything “right” after a hundred years of “using and abusing?”  

Egypt--2010