From: George Sherwood 

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

> 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.

Very interesting that you posted this since I was having some of the same
thoughts after reading this blog post about the Kurds.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001060.html

If Middle Easterners had drawn the borders themselves, Iraq wouldn't even
exist. Blame the British for shackling Kurds and Arabs together when they
created the new post-imperial and post-Ottoman map. The Kurds do. They call
the W.C. (the "water closet," i.e. the toilet) "Winston
Churchill." Several times when my translator needed a bathroom break
he said "I need to use the Winston Churchill."


Not that I have any answers.

George

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