From: "Gary Wiltshire" 

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 11:16:21 -0500, Frank Haber  wrote:

> Kiwis, CA-types, etc. - you people from the places where they actually
> teach history, and have two hundred years to be embarrassed about
> instead of just 35.....
>
> Anyone feel like discussing *why* the borders of the Middle East
> countries so much in the news are particularly sacrosanct?  I'm thinking
> mostly about Iraq and (Trans-) Jordan, wholly creatures of a WWI
> backroom deal.  But then you have West Pakistan vs. the Afghans, and the
> Chinese vs. the Afghans, and the Yemeni mess, and the arbitrary
> divisions of the former Trucial States, and all that land the Waha^H^H
> Saudis control now.  And come to think of it, although the Soviet Union
> carefully preserved the "national" boundaries important to
its policies,
> boundaries seemingly now set in cement, are the xxStans really real?
> And then we have the fractious Kurds (as opposed to those ungovernable
> Afghans) and various Turkmens and Armenians sprawling in stateless
> profusion across several borders.
>
> Would there be a more sensible map?  Has anyone blue-skyed about this?
>
>
> Would we actually need a caliphate?  A moghul empire?  Fade up the
> janissary music again?
>

Much of the worlds worst problems still seem to have French and British
fingerprints all over them -- like the conflicting promises made the Arabs
and Jews in Palestine (Balfour, etc.)

--
Gary Wiltshire

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