From: "Frank Haber" 

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?

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5