That's pretty much what you get when colonist powers(France and Britain at the time) divide up the area between themselves without any regard for local sectaria

That's pretty much what you get when colonist powers(France and Britain at the time) divide up the area between themselves without any regard for local sectarian differences[1]. The same pattern also played out in Africa. In Lebanon as in Syria(I'm Lebanese but have lived in Syria for an extended period of time in the past) the population is extremely heterogenous with racist feelings and ideology being a very common thing. To arbitrarily divide up the area while disregarding this is either an extremely foolish thing to do, or likelier a ploy by the then colonialist powers to retain long-term control of the area by keeping its population ever-divided. It doesn't exactly help, that into this already explosive mix was implanted the nation-state of Israel which as been in a state of perpetual war with its neighbours ever since. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes–Picot_Agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes–Picot_Agreement