What's the similarity between WWI and the War in Iraq?

Question

Does today's current events relate to what happened back in WWI?
..the conflict of the middle east now and the Ottoman empire back then..

Answer 1

Yes, your question makes sense. The events now have a lot to do with World War I, and in fact go further back than that. And - beautifully - they illuminate a rather interesting point.

Taking it backwards, when the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I by the Allies and the Saudis (the Arabs working with Lawrence of Arabia) a 'fate' was chosen for all of the various territories previously controlled by the Ottomans from their capital in Istanbul. Sitting in Paris, British and French officials drew long straight lines (national borders) on maps of the Middle East where no such lines had ever existed before. So IRAQ came into existence and was 'given' to the British to control (given by an agreement between the French and British).

Why one country rather than three, or at least two, reflecting the different ethnic/religious groups in IRAQ? Well the British weren't concerned about 'the natives' or any differences between them. They already ruled India which was one country containing hundreds of different ethnic groups and religions. The border was simply for the convenience of defining resources, or even just marked a half-way line between what the French wanted and the British wanted.

It might be argued that IRAQ was never as much a 'natural' country as Saudi Arabia, or Syria, or Lebanon or Jordan, and more resembled a 'left over' bit of the Ottoman Empire. What is did contain, however was a population of both Shia and Sunni Muslims, and it was placed between the largely Sunni southern states, and the largely Shia countries to the north.

Shias and Sunnis split back in the early days of Islam (8th and 9th Century) and disliked eachother with the same intensity as Catholics and Protestants have in the West (historically), even if they haven't gone to 'outright' war as often as we did. The split was over a question of who had the correct 'interpretation' of faith, and who should be in control of the faith. A very familiar story...

The interesting thing you have raised though, is that when the Ottoman Empire was broken up, this internal strife rose to the surface, but where had it been for the previous 500 years? Was IRAQ a peaceful country under the Ottomans? Was it the case - like Yugoslavia -, that a very strong central government kept an effective lid on ethnic and religious tension - and then you'd have to ask yourself how they did that. And that when the Ottomans were removed and the lid was taken off the pressure-cooker all manner of strife erupted. Then you might ask whether whatever solution was applied in the former Yugoslavia might work in IRAQ, and you realize that Yugoslavia is now a half a dozen different (much smaller) countries - so that's how they did it there.

Of course the difference between Yugoslavia and IRAQ is that in Yugoslavia, even while there was a central Government, the separate States 'existed' and maintained their identities, whereas in IRAQ the British (and later Sadam and his predecessors) never allowed separate 'States' to exist inside the country. But you'd note that he also didn't allow the Sunni's and Shia's to fight each other (inside IRAQ) or let the religious types have any role in Government. Sadam was condemmed by many in the Arab world (including Bin Laden) for being anti-religious, and for that reason he was for a while considered a 'friend' by the US amongst others.

But in reading this - and I'm not doing any particularly great job of laying it out for you - you will probably now know a lot more about IRAQ than most of the folk who made the decision to invade the place and bump off Sadam. Not to say that Sadam didn't trigger the whole mess, he was a certifiable fruit-loop and he did try to assasinate Laura Bush (while she was in Kuwait after the first Gulf War) which understandably did rub young GW up the wrong way.

Answer 2

Neither war made/makes any sense, WWI didn't come to a satisfactory conclusion and neither will the War in Iraq. Both wars started with an attack on a country by a small group which later led to international conflict among governments. However, beyond those, there are really few similarities. You cannot compare the Ottoman Empire to the conflict in the Middle east now because hte Ottoman Empire was organized and ruled a specific area. The problem with the current conflicts in the Middle east is that there isn't one bad, all evil government that we must attack, we are fighting agaisnt an ideal, not a government. Plus, there were so many parts of WWI, that you could never compare it to the War in Iraq.

Answer 3

yes...people are getting killed for no reason...same as back then....gggrrrrrrrrr