It seems everywhere there is trouble, we find the wreckage of British imperial politics. The Arab Israeli conflict is a case of the Brits promising the same piece of land to 2 different groups. It promised the Sharif of Mecca(Hashimites) an independent kingdom of all the Arab nations in order to gain their support against the Turks in WW I. It promised to create a national home for the Jews in order to gain access to Jewish monies to fight their war. They renigged on both parties and left Palestine to battle it out. They created Iraq out of three separate ethnoreligious areas to forge a state destined never to get along. They partitioned India in 1947 between Muslims and Hindus causing permanent unrest in those peoples.
During the 19th century,Britain and Russia engaged in The Great Game, attempting to peddle their influence in Afghanistan. Of course the Afghanis would have none of it and three British Afghan wars were fought over that land. in 1893 the Brits and Russians drew the lines of the Afghani borders. In doing so they cut off a huge chunk of Pathan tribal land and annexed it to India, later to become Pakistan. It is these Pathan territories that make up the northwestern part of Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden and the Taliban are hiding. if Britain had left well enough alone, the Taliban would not have had an area of ethnic support to flee to and hide.
We are still suffering from British mistakes in diplomacy over a hundred years later. Of course, America lets their cousins off the hook and takes on the responsibilty of screwing up the Middle East and South Asia. Doesn't anyone read history?
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