The borders were created with little thought of the ethnic and religious distinctions of the region and has certainly contributed towards the religious and ethnic distinctions of the region. The most obvious example is Kurdistan, and the Kurdish militant movements in Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
It would be impossible to divide the region along ethnic and religious lines in Syria, Iraq, or Lebanon. All of these countries are full of multi-ethnic cities and provinces. To blame the British and French for the lack of an independent Kurdistan seems a little hypocritical since Kurdistan never had an independent nation during the whole period of Islamic rule prior to Western Imperialism (and neither did Yezidis or Assyrians). Most of Kurdistan lies in Turkey and Iran, of which France and the UK had no say over who should rule it, if they tried to demand that the Turks and Persians give that land to Kurds, then that really would be “Imperialism”.
These people of different ethnicities have lived together in the same provinces and cities, and under the same governments, since long before Western Imperialism, it is up to them alone to work out how to live with each other in peace, without blaming their inability to do so on Britain and France, who already gave them the right to look after their own affairs.
In response to your earlier question Tony, it is entirely plausible that a lot of the problems we see in the third world are as a result of imperialism. USA and Britain like to portray themselves as the freedom and democracy loving moral compass of the world, but the truth is that they would never go to war with another country except to protect their imperial (economic) interests.
During the Cold War, the Reagan administration did ally with some very right-wing governments. And that was absolutely despicable. But it is still not “Imperialism”, certainly not in the case of the Saudis. It is actually the exact opposite of Imperialism, it is allying with the existing local power structure that was already in place. The Saudis came to power long before any alliance with the US. And the US never dictated what the Saudis did in terms of their domestic policy, it was the Saudis that chose that entirely. There is no reason to believe that without US weapon sales, Saudi Arabia would be some democratic or socialist utopia today. In fact there is a chance that if the Saudis had been overthrown, an even more radical Islamist group would have come to power. The Juhayman militants were the biggest threat to the Saudis, and that was before their alliance with the Reagan administration. And as for your reference to the overthrow of democratically elected governments in Latin America, in the case of Nicaragua, the arrangement was that the Saudis funded the Contras, because the US Congress would never approve such a thing. So was this Wahhabi Arab Imperialism in Latin America?
What happened after the Cold War is not imperialism either, Iraq and Afghanistan now elect their own leaders and sell their oil and resources to anyone they want, for any price that they can on the global market. Did a lot of innocent civilians get killed as a result of these wars? Of course. Has the US benefited themselves from these interventions? I don’t know, certainly getting Iraqi oil back on the global market has helped the entire world, but the US spent a lot of money and lost some lives to make that happen. China benefits from Iraqi oil without spending a dime or losing a single life.
Well I have heard all kinds of conspiracy theories on Facebook. Some people have even claimed that one of the guys in that photo is Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi himself. But even if those guys really have joined ISIS, you do not actually believe that the US intentionally funded ISIS do you?
The intention with Libya and Syria, however naive it was, was to try a different approach than Afghanistan and Iraq where the US directly intervened. And one of the reasons for this was directly because of people crying about “Western Imperialism”. Instead of going in directly, the West would help local groups that were fighting dictators. Was that policy naïve and a failure? I think yes it was. But was it “Imperialism”? No, it is trusting that the local groups have good intentions, and given the right weapons, they can overthrow brutal dictators and establish something better. I think it is a little unfair to cry about Western “Imperialism” and then cry when they try a different approach. Would those countries be better off today if the US had not helped local rebel groups? It is hard to say, maybe Gadhaffi would still be bombing people or maybe he would have been overthrown anyway, or maybe he would have crushed the rebels and no progress would have been made…
I would suspect that their reasons range from a desire to save Muslims from oppressors.....
And now they dedicate their lives to blowing up Kurds and Shias. If that is the honest reason they went out there then they were pathetically naive about world affairs. I blame all these leftists who keep telling us that Islamic terrorists are freedom fighters.
Topic: Is Islamic State Islamic?