The Dangers of Interfering in the Middle East

It is an axiom of business that messing up is four times as costly as doing things right in the first place. To fix something that goes wrong will take four times as long as doing the right thing in the first place.

Western nations have been interfering in the Middle East for a century since the Ottoman Empire was defeated in the First World War. Britain and France took over the Middle East to gain access to its riches. The trouble is the British and the French did not understand the culture of the people that lived in the region and made no effort to meet their need for nation states that fitted in with the culture and regional politics. Britain and France divided up nations on the basis of lines in the sand.

It is no wonder that the people of the Levant and the Middle East resented the presence of colonial rule and continue to do so. Britain and France messed it up by creating "unnatural" nation states and supporting dictators. It will take a long time to make reparations. Even though Britain and France have almost withdrawn to the sidelines completely, except in the case of Libya, the USA has stepped into the arena. The USA is, however, continuing with the same failed policies.

The USA is messing up not just in Iraq but in Syria as well. Libya is now in chaos. Britain, France and the USA have set the backdrop for so called "Islamic Terrorism" to thrive. We have supported Saddam Hussein and other dictators only for them to become our enemies. We have supported so called freedom fighters who have turned the weapons that we have supplied them back on us.

Perhaps we should leave the Middle East and the Levant alone and let the nations there re-organise themselves. There is no reason why we cannot give peaceful and neutral help to this process via the United Nations.

I have long admired France, The US and my own nation but I fear that our foreign policy regarding the Middle East and The Levant is compounding the problems rather than solving them.