"The Iraq War was illegal", they are apparently going to tell Chilcot this week. Well, until Friday, presumably. Then the Police can tell it to Blair as they arrest him on the steps.
As for Charlie Falconer's profound observation that Iraq is "still a live political issue" among us plebs: yes, My Lord, but who the hell are we supposed to vote for?
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM
ReplyDeleteIn 1920, under a League of Nations mandate, officials from France and Great Britain carved up vast tracts of warlord-dominated territories in Arabia into what they imagined would be nation states devoid of the complex historical, cultural, and tribal realities of the Mideast. Instead of establishing European-style nation states, the strongest warlords quickly entrenched themselves with the aid of standing armies and spy networks. In much of the Mideast, fealty is often accorded to tribal overlords and the Islamic sects they favor rather than to the territory and people within the boundaries of the nation state. Jonathan Rabin succinctly defines the reality, past and present, of the desert sheikdoms:
"The systems of government that have evolved in Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are paranoid family dictatorships with ancestral roots in a single city or village." (1)
You could say most or all of this about pretty much anywhere.
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