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So far this is good. There's a lot of depth. One nit: " Much as the United States Army and white settlers did with Indian tribes in the conquest of the Americ

So far this is good. There's a lot of depth. One nit: " Much as the United States Army and white settlers did with Indian tribes in the conquest of the American West, so the British and French and Italians proved adept at pitting these groups against one another, bestowing favors — weapons or food or sinecures — to one faction in return for fighting another. The great difference, of course, is that in the American West, the settlers stayed and the tribal system was essentially destroyed." I think it's a mistake to only back up to the end up WWI and start running the tape there. The Arab world has a rich and nuanced history full of the exact kinds of tribal tensions we see now going back hundreds of years. There's a reason the Ottomans were the way they were -- and it has nothing to do with Colonialism. There are also great parallels between what's happening with the Arab spring and what happened when other great powers consolidated their hold over the Arabs and then left. Just citing one example seems like a tremendous disservice to the history. Also the meme of "It was the Sykes–Picot Agreement" has some truth but is extremely easy to lean too much on. With this amount of verbiage being produced, I'm expecting some alternative lines of reasoning to be explored. Looking forward to more of the series! (Apologies -- looks like the entire thing is here? Wow! I've heard of long-format writing before, but this is kindle material. Tremendous amount of work here.)

jcranmer 10y ago
The problem with blaming Sykes-Picot for everything is that almost none of the modern borders are due to that agreement (well, the Jordan-Syria border does seem to match up, but that's it). More likely a better explanation lies in the importation of the Western idea of a nation-state (that a country should be coterminus with cultural boundaries), which tends to strongly reject the idea that countries can have multiple countries, combined with the failure of the Ottoman Empire to synthesize a durable Ottoman culture. The latter failure is arguably due in large part to, you guessed it, European meddling: the Ottoman state had largely functioned, and kept peace among fractious religious sects, by keeping its Islamic nature as a core of its identity (basically being a dual Turkish-Arab state). One aspect of this was the basis that most obligations of civic duty (particularly military duty) was borne solely by Muslims, with the non-Muslims (predominantly Christians) paying an extra tax, an arrangement generally accepted by both groups. European powers considered this intolerant [1], and forced a series of capitulations on the Ottomans in part to guarantee the security of Christians (which basically leads to the Armenian Genocide). With the idea of a state centered on Islamic identity increasingly a failure, the Young Turks instead focused on a narrow, Turkish-based state, which alienated pretty much all minorities (including the Arabs) save the Kurds (their bid for nationalism started mostly post-WWI). After the Armenian Genocide, many Arabs suspected that similar treatment awaited them, but they largely kept to showing support for the regime during the exigencies of WWI. The Iraqis in occupied Mesopotamia didn't cooperate with the British (not that it saved them from retribution), for example. The Bedouin did offer support to both sides, but they were not reliable allies to either side. Only the Hashemites (who controlled Mecca and Medina) revolted, successful only due to the aid of the British, who gave them Jordan and Iraq as victory spoils (their original Kingdom of the Hejaz was conquered by the Saudis, another British ally, in the interwar period). [1] Side note: the Ottomans generally forbade the Muslims from proselytizing to the Christian groups, whereas the capitulations generally forced the Ottomans to accept Christian missionaries attempting to convert Muslims.
- DanielBMarkham 10y ago
  Thank you. Much-needed context. This rabbit hole goes down deep. Too much for HN. There's a lot of ground to cover: gates of Vienna, and the fall of Constantinople, the Second Crusade, and so on. As one can imagine, depending on where you choose to focus, you can fall back on western meddling or not. Sadly, this is the case for most arguments in the Mideast. Some things never change. Suffice it to say that we could continue. For some time. It's a mixed bag, and nobody is either entirely innocent or entirely culpable. Simplifications -- even those in comment threads like ours -- invariably give the wrong impression.

jcranmer 10y ago

The problem with blaming Sykes-Picot for everything is that almost none of the modern borders are due to that agreement (well, the Jordan-Syria border does seem to match up, but that's it). More likely a better explanation lies in the importation of the Western idea of a nation-state (that a country should be coterminus with cultural boundaries), which tends to strongly reject the idea that countries can have multiple countries, combined with the failure of the Ottoman Empire to synthesize a durable Ottoman culture. The latter failure is arguably due in large part to, you guessed it, European meddling: the Ottoman state had largely functioned, and kept peace among fractious religious sects, by keeping its Islamic nature as a core of its identity (basically being a dual Turkish-Arab state). One aspect of this was the basis that most obligations of civic duty (particularly military duty) was borne solely by Muslims, with the non-Muslims (predominantly Christians) paying an extra tax, an arrangement generally accepted by both groups. European powers considered this intolerant [1], and forced a series of capitulations on the Ottomans in part to guarantee the security of Christians (which basically leads to the Armenian Genocide). With the idea of a state centered on Islamic identity increasingly a failure, the Young Turks instead focused on a narrow, Turkish-based state, which alienated pretty much all minorities (including the Arabs) save the Kurds (their bid for nationalism started mostly post-WWI). After the Armenian Genocide, many Arabs suspected that similar treatment awaited them, but they largely kept to showing support for the regime during the exigencies of WWI. The Iraqis in occupied Mesopotamia didn't cooperate with the British (not that it saved them from retribution), for example. The Bedouin did offer support to both sides, but they were not reliable allies to either side. Only the Hashemites (who controlled Mecca and Medina) revolted, successful only due to the aid of the British, who gave them Jordan and Iraq as victory spoils (their original Kingdom of the Hejaz was conquered by the Saudis, another British ally, in the interwar period). [1] Side note: the Ottomans generally forbade the Muslims from proselytizing to the Christian groups, whereas the capitulations generally forced the Ottomans to accept Christian missionaries attempting to convert Muslims.

DanielBMarkham 10y ago
Thank you. Much-needed context. This rabbit hole goes down deep. Too much for HN. There's a lot of ground to cover: gates of Vienna, and the fall of Constantinople, the Second Crusade, and so on. As one can imagine, depending on where you choose to focus, you can fall back on western meddling or not. Sadly, this is the case for most arguments in the Mideast. Some things never change. Suffice it to say that we could continue. For some time. It's a mixed bag, and nobody is either entirely innocent or entirely culpable. Simplifications -- even those in comment threads like ours -- invariably give the wrong impression.