How does 20th century history of the Middle East play into our current conflicts?

Question

Radicalism began in the 20th Century. What caused it?

Iran is a theocratic, militant Islamic state and Syria is a secular nationalist state. They both sponsor terrorism.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!

Recent History of the Middle East Parts 1 and 2 expllain this. It's a brief history of the 20th Century focused on the events which led up to current day Iraq and our challenges there:

War on Terror Blog http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-DfkctJU7dK5B7LcNROoyVQ--?cq=1

No politics. Just the groundtruth from one that has been to both fronts in the War on Terror.

I'll be around to tomorrow to respond to your answers before choosing.

Answer 1

Not to long ago, Wars were fought with honnor, there is no honnor on this "War on Terror". Our enemy usses cowardous tactics. We know not Who the ennemy is most of the time until its too late.This War won't End, until God destroys the Earth.

Answer 2

Big question.  Here goes:

It started after WWI when England and the allies carved up the Middle East disregarding ancient tribal boundaries creating whole new countries where there were none.  Example: They disolved Kurdistan into Turkey and  what became Iraq.   This created chaos and fighting as the disposessed fought to regain annonimity.  It also created authoritarian leaders armed by the allies to hold these fledgling nations together.

Another big event happend during WWII.  After displacing HItler form the Middle East, Franklin Roosevelt formed a pact with the ruler of Saudi Arabia - We gauranteed protection of his family as rulres in perpituity in return for oil deals.

The next big event was the creation of Israel in Palistine.  After WWII the allies decided that the Jews should have a home of their own.  At first it was agreed that a country would be carved out of Africa, but the radical Zionists demanded the old site of Israel be their home.  Arabs and Jews had lived in Palistine for ages more or less peacefully but  when the new site of a home was underway, the radical eliment of Zionists began a campaign of terror on the British who eventually gave way and the Zionists took unofficial control of the area and began displacing Palistinians.   The Arab nations tried to file grievences with the United Nations which passed resolutions but none were enforced. The new state of Israel claimed more and more land as their own creating war with Egypt, Syria, Jordan and  others.  With USA and European aid, Israel beat the ill equiped armies.  Several more wars broke out with Israel winning eacxh time and claiming more land as its own displacing thousands of Palistinians.  

The USA supported Israel for two reasons:  

one: To have an active base of operations in the Middle East focused on destabilizing oil producing nations and Two: imagined guilt   f rom WWII which Israeli's exploited.

In 1951, a nationalist politician, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh rose to prominence in Iran and was elected Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Mossadegh became enormously popular in Iran by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later British Petroleum, BP) which controlled the country's oil reserves. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil and began plotting to depose Mossadegh. Members of the British Intelligence Service invited the United States to join them, convincing U.S. President Eisenhower that Mossadegh was reliant on the Tudeh (Communist) Party to stay in power. In 1953, President Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax, and the CIA took the lead in overthrowing Mossadegh and supporting a U.S.-friendly monarch; and for which the U.S. Government apologized in 2000.   The USA got their man in as the new Shah of Iran.  But he was a despot who caused the Iranian revolution by the more militant followers of Iatola Kohamani.

Next came a myrky period where theUSA was supporting Iraq and Russia was supporting Iran in war against each other for the control of each other's oil.  the war ended in a stalemate.

Russia tried to take over Afghanistan and we supported and trained the Taliban and Al Qaida in their fight to rid the Middle East of Russia's presence as a military force.  Russia nearly went broke and had to leave thus beginning the down fall of the Soviet Empire.  (Note Osama says he will bankrupt us also by continuing the fighting)  

Meanwhile we were supplying Saddam Hussien with poison gas which he was using to surpress revolts in Iraq.  Saddam Hussien wanted to conquer Kuwait which had been part of what was now Iraq before the British carved it up.  Kuwait is another oil rich nation that had been a vocal enemy of ours in the UN.  The Iraqi government , which was supported by us, asked us about their plan to which we told them "The United States doesn't intere with other nation's doings."  Iraq invaded Kuwait.  Then in one of the trickier manuevers, we declared to the world the Saddam Hussien was a despot who must be stopped from attcking the poor little Kuwaiti's.  We bombed Iraq, destroyed its military and infastructure but Saddam would not give in to our demands for iIraqi oil and we instituted an embargo on Iraq hoping they would eventually capitualte to our demands.

Meanwhile Israel was takng  more and more Palistinian land.  Bulldozing Palistinan homes and farms and turning them into armed, fortified Israeli outposts in Palistine.

these events spawned radical opposition to Israel and the United States.  When we invaded Afghanistan to capture Osama Ben Laden there was little outcry and much relief from ousting the Taliban from power.  But it soon became clear that we were not interested in Osama Ben Laden but an oil pipeline through Afghanistan and then we invaded Iraq on the perposterous pretense it was a threat to the USA  (We Americans were in such shock after 9/11 we believed anything)

Now the various militant factions in the Middle East, many trained by us, are fighting us as they had fought the Russians.

We are hanging onto the Iranian government because they will give our oil cartels rights to Iraqi oil - which various factions in Iraq do not want and are fighting against us and the US supported Iraqi government.  We allow this to happen because the Bush administration has successfully framed the fight (after several failed attempts) as a fight against terrrorists.  But it has nothing to do with terrorists.  They're in Saudi Arabia and along the Pakistand/Afghanistan border.  It's all about our continued attmepts to secure Middle Eastern oil for our oil cartels which has been our motivation since WWI when the Western Industrilized nations realized that oil was the gold of the 20th century.

Answer 3

Militant Islam is just the latest example of of the violent nature of the "religion" as a whole. When one looks at the history of Islam one finds that the spread of Islam before the 20th Century was "by the sword." Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey were all Christian nations before being conquered by Islamic armies.

Answer 4

It comes from the tribes,in the Bible.They scattered & will never get along.Good Luck.