ISIS's Context: Pan-Arabism and Ba'thism

Submitted by Ludvikus (United States), Jun 30, 2014 at 09:37

Dear Daniel Pipes,

I think you need to remind your readers of the context in which an apparently new Arab country has or is emerging.

As a consequence of World War One, with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, Arabs conceived of a united Arab country under the concept of Pan-Arabism that entered our language in 1920 - while the Ottoman Empire's Turkey was still 3 years away from its establishment under Ataturk.

But Britains neo-imperialist hold on the former Arab dependencies of the Ottoman Sultain continued, ans it was in 1943, in the midst of the Second World War, against the anti-British facists, especially Germany and Italy, that the Baa'thist Party was born, first in Syria, and subsequently in Iraq.

In this context I think it would be Strategically foolish for the United States to oppose the formation of a united Arab state that disregards the Syria-Iraq border, even if the agent of this ISIS land-grab is a self-proclaimed Caliph by the name of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; let Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf Arab states deal with this Sunni phenomena; but the United States shouldn't fall into the Strategic trap of opposing the dream of Arab unity.

Pan–Ar·ab·ism

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pan-arabism

Baʿth Party

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/55912/Bath-Party

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