The Islamist Entanglement and Israel

Scott Powell's most recent Islamist Entanglement lecture, his ninth, focused on Israel. I have to admit that as far as the historical details Scott mentioned I didn't expect to be particularly surprised and I wasn't. This is no fault of Scott's but simply due to the fact that I happened to have a reasonably good knowledge of Israeli history, particularly early Zionist history before the founding of the state. I was, for example, already aware of the mixed role that Britain played in this history, first promising everyone everything, and second, and necessarily, reneging on the promises, particularly with regard to Jewish immigration to Palestine before and during World War II. Nevertheless, even I benefitted from this lecture since it now puts the Arab-Israeli conflict in the its proper context, namely, the several century old Islamist Entanglement of the West with the Islamic Middle East. As Scott points out at the beginning of the lecture, once one understands the full context and thus the basic reason for the conflict, the absurdity of the constant attempts at an isolated resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict via land-for-peace schemes becomes quite evident. With the next lecture, the tenth, Scott will conclude the Islamist Entanglement series and, I expect, tie everything together.

Iraq: In Search of Unity

I finally got a chance to listen to Scott Powell's latest Islamist Entanglement lecture which focused on Iraq. The key to understanding Iraq seems to be that for most of history there was no such thing. Unlike Egypt or Iran, Iraq does not have a unifying history, race, or even religion. For much of its recent history the area now occupied by the state of Iraq was made up of three separate provinces within the Ottoman Empire. No modern Iraqis identify with the ancient empires that used to occupy parts of what used to be called Mesopotamia. The Iraqi population is made up of Arabs in the center and south of Iraq and Kurds in the north. Like Iran, the Shiites represent a majority of the Iraqi population; however, unlike Iran there is substantial minority of Sunnis. Thus, the only basis for the existence of an Iraqi political entity are the imperial machinations of the Western powers after World War I, in particular Great Britain. For a while, Iraqis were able to unite somewhat around enmity toward the West. However, after independence, such unity was only possible to be maintained with the brute force of dictatorships. The Iraqi history and background does not lead to optimism with respect to the present attempt to create a united, democratic Iraq by the United States, particularly after the departure of US troops.

Preview of new Islamist Entaglement Lecture

Scott Powell has posted a preview of Wednesday night's lecture in his Islamist Entaglement series.
The lecture will focus on the history of the United States as it relates to the Middle East and comes on the heels of his previous lecture, the first in the series, on Great Britain which I blogged about here. I am very much looking forward to his upcoming lecture. I will blog on the new lecture shortly after I hear it (which likely won't be until the weekend). Feel free to sign up as lectures are recorded digititally and are available after the fact and be sure to mention that you heard about it here.