The Original Mess O'Potamia

[Nicholas]

One of the greatest difficulties facing us in the 21st century is the problem of achieving peace in the Middle East. Most of the modern problems in the Middle East can be traced back to the partition of the Middle East following the collapse of the Ottomon Empire after the First World War.

Here are some maps showing how it was partititioned:
Source 1: http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/graphics/sykespicot.jpg
Source 2: http://history.binghamton.edu/hist275/Map_Sykes-Picot_C.htm
Source 3: http://history.binghamton.edu/hist275/Map_Mandates_C.htm

Now, I'm going to get into a bit of an Alternate History type discussion here with this question: Do you think that the Middle East could have been partitioned in a better way than it originally was, and if instead the borders had been drawn while taking into account the ethnic and religious divisions in that region, what affect would that have had on the world we live in today?

[CatholicSage]

Looking at the large, historical picture, I would say no. When empires fall, they fragment and fall into war or an uneasy peace for some time. This is simply a rule of history, IMO.

[nomad]

i'm not sure. IIRC, the religious differences WERE taken into account, thus you have israel (the jewish part of the mandate), lebanon (the christian part of the mandate), and the rest (the muslim part of the mandate). but this wasn't a guarantee of anything... lebanon is a good example. lebanon was primarily christian at first (a supermajority, maybe 92%?) in the years after the mandate, but over time many muslims immigrated and shifted the religious landscape of the country. lebanon still has a large number of christians, the largest of any middle eastern country AFAIK, but they are no longer a majority.

and israel, well, i am not really sure of all that is going on there. obviously some parts of israel such as jerusalem are considered holy sites for both muslimss and jews (and christians!) and so are a point of conflict, regardless of what else you assume. beyond that, there seems to be a lot of anti-jewish sentiment in the arab countries as well, though i have gotten conflicting reports over whether this was historically true. many accounts say that jews often got better treatment during the middle ages under their muslim overlords than they did under christians in western europe. and it can't be 'anti-semitism' since both jews and arabs are semites.