Colonial Powers Did Not Set Mideast Ablaze

To emphasise Sykes-Picot in the Middle East’s current predicament, is to miss the region’s real problem: the tragic failure of successive postcolonial governments to build inclusive states that would reinforce a national identity. It is the tyranny of Syria’s ruling Assad clan, the dictatorship of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and the ineptitude of Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, that have driven the Middle East to catastrophe, rather than century-old lines drawn in the sand.