Arab nationalists are still mad about this one.
Not so much Bush invading Iraq or whatever the Hell Obama has done. All Obama has done is support bipartisan US foreign policy consensus that the Republicans themselves support, with the only variation being that Republicans want to double down on Barack’s machination. But all of this was just accelerating the inevitable.
Interesting how the British double-crossed the Emir of Arabia by promising support for an independent Arabia in the former Ottoman lands in 1915 and then going back on it later after they defeated Turkey. They backstabbed the Emir in typical British fashion. Recall US imperialism is very much like British imperialism as Americans are first and foremost a British people in genes and culture. After the war, they dissolved the Ottoman lands and instead of giving the Arabs freedom as they promised, they simply stole their lands from the Ottomans. The British, out of sheer coincidence, happened to donate to themselves exactly those lands where oil had just been found (Mesopotamia) and the Emir got a worthless (at that time) hunk of desert in the middle of the Arabian peninsula.
Syria and Lebanon were donated to the French for no particular reason, while the British stole Palestine (including Transjordan) and then promptly donated it to Lord Rothschild’s Jews who had demanded it as a bribe for financial support to help the British win the war.
The Kurds were screwed worst of all. There were many proposals to give them a state, but they were all ignored. The Kurds were chopped up into four countries – Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, with a bit in Armenia (cool map at the link). They have been stateless ever since – the Kurds, who have existed as a nation in one form or another for possibly 3,000 years. Now, at long last, the West seems to be keen on giving the Kurds a new nation in northern Iraq, something they have been deathly opposed to for a century. Why the sudden change of heart? Color me suspicious! Imperialism never does anything decent out of the goodness of its heart. Never, ever.
