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Since when has one side been totally to blame for a fight? What was was ever caused by just one issue?
Yes, lots of the current problems in the Middle East can be traced back to end of colonialism, but lets also remember that most of the Middle East was colonized relatively late in whole era. Personally, I think that we're still paying for mistakes made by Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and the Byzantines. Most residents of the area that is now Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan vividly remember the Crusades and other incursions by Europe into Middle Eastern affairs. The easiest way to counteract Ottoman expansion into Southeastern Europe was to whip up anti-Muslim frenzies around Europe, which eventually resulted in the Inquisition in Spain and is one of the reasons that Spain has always been super-Catholic and was so militant about imposing their brand of Catholizism on the New World.
The West by no means ever had a monopoly on shell games, and the Arabs (as opposed to the Ottomans) have very successfully played both ends against the middle during WWI and the Crimean War. All sides (not "both" since there are mulitple players here including the Chinese and the Indians, just to pick the most obvious) need to move closer together before any real peace can happen. That's not going to happen in my lifetime. There is no compelling reason for any cooperation among nations now, and there never has been.
Conflict in the Middle East is eternal since that's where the 4 most powerful cultures physically collide - Western (US and Europe [you can't separate the two at this point in history since our interests are too close together - sorry, ratbastid]), Islamic, Indian and Chinese.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
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