
The Middle East Friendship Chart - kumarski
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/07/17/the_middle_east_friendship_chart.html
======
piggyback
This chart is at the very least incomplete and inaccurate if not blatantly
false. To accuse Iran of cooperating with Al Qaeda while claiming that Saudi
Arabia does not is audacious. Saudi Arabia spreads the most violent branch of
Islam (Wahhabism/Salafism) through indoctrination as well as direct funding
for terrorism. Just look at the perpetrators of 9/11, all of whom were Sunni
Arabs, most of them from Saudi Arabia. The same goes for Qatar, which is
missing in the chart. Hamas and Iran broke up because the former (Sunni)
joined the fight against the Syria government, which is supported by Iran.
Iran is neither Sunni nor Arab, groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS would love to
commit genocide against Iranians. They don't have any real allies and have
propped up a few Shia proxies in Iraq and the Levant. Others are missing, like
the Kurds, so is the the link to Central/South Asia as well, i.e. AfPak.
Without Pakistan Al Qaeda and the Taliban could have not existed. It should be
noted that the Pakistani government and military are bought and paid for by
the Arab states in the Persian Gulf, where Pakistani mercenaries protect the
Monarchs from their civilian population, Bahrain being a notable example: the
majority of Bahrainis are Shia and they are naturally friendly with Iran/Iraq.
Their government, however, is run by the same kind of Sunnis that control
countries like Kuwait and the UAE.

~~~
nl
I think this chart reflects the position of county's government. The Saudi
government doesn't support Al Qaeda and has a careful relationship with
Wahhabism (as they see both as potential threats to their powerbase).

Al Qaeda (the core part anyway) has never really had an anti-Shia bent (or,
interestingly, anti-Israel) and Iran _did_ tolerate some movement of Al Qaeda
and Taliban through their territories.

Iran did have a real ally: the Syrian government of Assad. Even that was a
difficult relationship prior to the fall of Hussein in Iraq because Assad was
a Ba'athist (which is a secular ideology opposed to Iran's theocracy) and
Hussein was also Ba'athist (Iraq and Iran were enemies since the Iranian
revolution for those who missed that bit).

Ba'athism is pretty much irrelevant today, but until the 1990s it was one of
the factors that shaped the Middle Wast we see now.

Edit: I assume the downvotes mean I'm factually incorrect about something. I'd
appreciate enlightenment.

~~~
sam88
Your "The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda" sounds like a joke in bad
taste, I mean come on? the CIA confirmed the majority of ISIS are Saudis, 9/11
had many Saudi terrorists, Bin Laden was Saudi, ISIS is being funded by Saudi
and Qatar, to mention Saddam in the current situation sounds like an
intentional misleading propaganda to say the least.

~~~
BugBrother
You write as if it doesn't matter that ISIS have been kicked out of AlQ?

(The last I read, ISIS was fighting with all the other rebel groups in Syria?
I thought that included AlQ? Also, is that really Saudi policy?! [Saudi A do
send weapons to other rebels!] )

(sam88 is a three hours old account.)

~~~
waps
ISIS seems mostly to be western "idealist" muslims, recruited by extermist
imams where those can operate (ie. in the west, mostly Europe, in Saudi
Arabia, and not very many other places). The locals found them, well, what
everyone finds them : cruel, extremist morons.

(Imams are tightly controlled in places like Iran, Turkey or Egypt. Why ? Well
let's put it this way : "mosque" does not mean house of prayer. It means
fortress (house of prayer is masjid. Keep in mind that that arabic is weird.
Masjid by itself means house of prayer, but combined with other words it means
different things, sort of like latin). The states there, well, it's not like
there's anyone in them that doesn't know this. So recruitment of locals there
cannot easily happen, except by the "state" (which may be a lot more local
state than a map would have you believe))

The problem is what western agencies are pointing out, but nobody's listening.
Currently Syria and Iraq are the targets. Mostly because they're in the middle
east, and allow "other" religions (Shi'a islam is "other" to these guys, as is
Druze religion, Alwite, hell, they're not all that fond of wahhabism (too many
compromises for the state and the oil, first and foremost of course, the
alliance with the United States, and "with Israel") ...). That won't last. We,
as in you and me, England and Sri Lanka, Japan and Alaska, are on their list.
They're just having some trouble with numbers one and two (Saudi Arabia and
Israel).

------
zokier
I suspect there could be some more insightful ordering of the entities to make
the situation slightly less clusterfuck-like.

edit: [http://i.imgur.com/PgXt8Md.png](http://i.imgur.com/PgXt8Md.png) is bit
better, there arises two kinda clear clusters of friends.

~~~
waps
Your chart could be summarized as Sunni versus Shi'a, and muslims versus the
world, with the religious cleansing in Sunni-Shi'a warfare taking priority.

Which is kind of accurate.

~~~
scaramanga
Or more accurately. US foreign policy objectives and military aid versus
independence.

------
ulfw
Frankly it's not really accurate. And with most things in the Middle East, you
could make this chart a ton easier by just labeling every relationship as
Yellow/It's complicated

~~~
robzyb
Props to them, though, for adding comments to each cell.

------
joosters
The chart highlights one big problem - how on earth do you label each faction?
On the one hand, it includes whole countries, yet many have powerful factions
within them that have vastly different views. On the other hand, some
countries are ignored entirely (where is Lebanon? There are more factions
there than just the included Hezbollah).

Since they added the US, it might be helpful to stick Russia (and perhaps
China) in there too.

~~~
jqm
Especially Russia. They are not a minor player in the area as evidenced by the
Syria conflict.

------
m0skit0
From an arab: overly simplified but a good start for most people who just have
no idea and talk nonsense (which are a lot).

------
sam88
The chart is over simplification and lacks any depth for such relationships,
for example, Jordan and Saudi, both friendly with Israel and have been funding
ISIS, yet there is no mention of Jordan, Qatar too, too tiny yet playing a
very big role in this mess, not there at all. The main player in all
relationship in the middle east is the US and Israel, the rest is not much.

~~~
sam88
I think the best thing that has been written on the Middle East is Walid
Khalidi, ed., From Haven to Conquest. But as a rule of thumb,"When governments
are loyal to the US (Israel, Ukraine, etc), the US calls for disarming of all
militias and groups that are opposed to those governments. But in the cases of
governments that are opposed to the US (Syria, Iran, Cuba, etc) the US funds
and arms militias against those governments."

------
PeterisP
Countries don't have friends or enemies, they have interests - which (at the
moment) may happen to align or cross each other.

~~~
emilsedgh
When the conflict of interests is too fundumental, they consider themselves
enemies :)

And of course there are countries which are enemies due to ideology.

~~~
rolux
Either way, congratulations to Slate for reducing politics in the Middle East
to three types of smileys. Their readers must love that kind of stuff.

~~~
tormeh
Simplification is a good thing. And the middle east desperately needs some.
Sure, the foreign ministries of the world shouldn't use this chart, but that's
not really the audience here.

~~~
rolux
I disagree. After more than a decade of "good vs. evil" and "either with us or
with the enemy" propaganda, what the audience needs is the precise opposite of
this type of chart.

------
EGreg
It would be interesting to find the "basis vectors" of issues, if you will,
underpinning this matrix.

They seem to be: Israel-Palestinians, Syria's Civil War, Egypt's Overthrow,
and the new Iraqi state.

So, if the issues would be resolved in the most peaceful way, namely:

Egypt's current government continuing to exist

Israel and Palestinian Authority defeating Hamas and working towards a peace
deal

Iraq getting stable borders (with Kurds using political struggle only)

Syria - probably the overthrow would maximize peace at this point, esp given
the resolution above ousting Hamas

    
    
      The big winners would be:
      USA
      Israel
      Palestinian Authority
      Egypt
      Rebels in Syria
      Iran (even though Assad lost)
    
      And the big losers would be:
      Hamas
      ISIS
      Hezbollah
    

Meanwhile:

Al Qaeda and USA will keep fighting

Turkey has recently had its own set of protests against Erdogan, and it's
unclear where its future lies

With ISIS gone, Saudi Arabia and Qatar will continue to have stable states
favoring Sunni Wahhabism

Iraq will probably become one of the fastest growing economies in the middle
east

Iran will go from being polarized to roughly moderate in its connections, esp
if a peace agreement is reached with Israel, the Assad regime is ousted, and
Iraq is a stable and friendly state

Jordan would enjoy further peace and the Palestinian Authority's new
confidence since the ouster of Hamas etc. may prove a strong factor for
Jordan's relations with its Palestinian majority, which would take away focus
from Israel-Palestinian conflict

The new Syrian government would aspire to join the Arab League but may
consider giving Palestinian refugees citizenship, which will play a factor in
Israel-PA deals

~~~
dannypgh
Hamas won free and fair elections. Peace must come from negotiations with
Hamas; it can't be predicated on their destruction.

~~~
EGreg
Ummm how about the part where after these fair and free elections they
eliminated the rest of the government through killing them or running them out
of town?

Would you mind addressing what part of legitimate democracy that is?

~~~
dannypgh
I didn't say that there was a legitimate democracy in the OPT- I said they won
elections.

By the 4th Geneva Conventions the security of Palestinian civilians rests with
the occupying power. Gaza is similar to Area A - the PA has policing powers
but the Israeli military retains ultimate control, as evidenced by control of
borders, airspace, and shipping routes. By international law Gaza is still
occupied, so the occupying power has at least as much responsibility for
protection of civilians as any other entity.

The PA has little if any practical influence over areas B and none over area
C. So in very real terms the OPT is occupied, and I wouldn't call any occupied
state a free democracy, because occupying militaries aren't elected by their
subjects.

I mention the elections because they do represent a poll if not a census of
popular opinion in the OPT. If you want to maintain legitimacy and support for
any accord, it makes sense to include them. Otherwise you're just gearing up
for an agreement between the occupying power and their puppets, which is
pretty meaningless.

~~~
EGreg
Hamas was elected in 2006 because they had better social programs than Fatah.
This was a more major factor than their position regarding the elimination of
a Jewish state.

Almost immediately upon coming into power they destroyed the rest of the
government, killed people, ran Fatah out of town and proceeded to impose
growing Talibanization efforts in Gaza, restricting freedom of women, gays,
etc. They also trained kids to become fighters, etc. It is against the Geneva
conventions to fire rockets from civilian areas, and against many
international laws to use civilians as human shields. So no, Hamas is not a
legitimate government, and they commit international war crimes. I am not sure
how you support the idea that "Peace can't be predicated on their
destruction".

That said, if the international community cares as much about Gaza as it now
seems from the rhetoric, I say they should form a coalition to go into Gaza
and help them build a real, independent sovereign state there. When the UN
inspectors can confirm that the smuggling tunnels have been closed and there
are no more Qassam rockets, scud missiles, or whatever else they've got lying
around, then Israel and Egypt can lift the blockade and Gaza can have freer
trade. Note that all this can be done without Israel's involvement.

But the international community would have to find willing partners in Gaza,
and I doubt the semi-theocratic, ideological Hamas regime would make for good
partners. But after Israel takes out Hamas, maybe the international community
can form a plan to step in there. Here's hoping. But then again, let's face
the sad truth: no states really care enough to help the Gaza people. The Arab
League states deny Palestinian refugees citizenship -- even the ones fleeing
Syria. And the same NATO countries that went into Iraq to nation-build are not
likely to do it in Gaza, even though it's much more readily possible to build
something there. There's no oil or other stuff to support "American
interests".

Other people that international coalition didn't really try to help get their
own state or avoid genocide: Kurds, Tutsis, Black Sudanese in Darfur. So how
do we get them to actually stop talking and start helping provide security and
nation build?

~~~
dannypgh
I didn't say they were a government. They are a resistance movement in an
occupied territory. I suppose you could consider then a stateless government,
but they most certainly aren't running a state. They're running something
closer to a semi-autonomous reservation. Yes, they've violated international
law, repeatedly, and so has Israel.

Negotiations take place between two or more parties and they result in changes
to what they're all both doing. If you predicate negotiations on capitulation,
you aren't negotiating - you're demanding. Israel refusing to talk to Hamas
until Hamas has managed to stop all the rocket fire (I'll point out one of the
early targets in this round of Gaza shelling was the Gaza police chief, so the
idea that the political wing of Hamas even _could_ stop the rockets requires
quite a bit of faith in their wartime occupation political integrity!) would
be just as boneheaded as Hamas refusing to talk to Israel until Israel agrees
that refugees can return and not live as second class citizens in the land of
their ancestors.

Hamas has put forward proposals for medium to long-term cease fires and/or
peace agreements before, and has agreed in principle to focusing on the
creation of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. Meanwhile, Israel
proclaimed East Jerusalem as annexed and routinely states that Jerusalem will
remain an undivided and eternal capital of their state, all while expanding
settlement construction in the West Bank.

"We have no-one to talk to because the other side is doing bad things" is a
position both sides could take on reasonable moral grounds, but practically,
it's stupid to think that any sort of peace could come from a refusal to talk.

Talking isn't the last step, it's the first, and Israel certainly has no less
blame for the absence of talks than Hamas.

Also, re: use of human shields, despicable behavior, and not unique to a side.
[http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/israeli-
sol...](http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/israeli-soldiers-
speak-out-on-abuse-of-palestinians-1.1837193)

~~~
EGreg
While I agree with the sentiment, I think for whatever your proposals are
worth Hamas has in fact been the party that refused to participate in an
egyptian brokered ceasefire and talk to Israel:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/egypt-no-
negoti...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/egypt-no-negotiations-
gaza-ceasefire-israel-hamas)

It seems like they'd rather have their last stand "to the last human shield",
because they are "hard liners".

During this time Israel had enforced a ceasefire and invited Hamas to do the
same while they talk, but nothing changed on the other side.

Are you seriously advocating that Israel live under hundreds of rockets being
fired into their cities because they now have enough bomb shelters and anti
missile defenses (where each anti missile is like $50k) that its population
can endlessly run to shelters and pray no one gets hurt? And just wait until
Hamas happens to feel like talking?

For any real peace agreement to occur, both sides should be able to enforce
it. For a couple years Hamas was able to restrain the other groups from firing
rockets. I personally think this is not good enough. When you have terror
groups right on your country's border able to fire in at any time, who try to
dig tunnels for the sole reason to attack you, and when your country is 25
miles wide around that area, wouldnt you have an obligation to protect your
people?

By the way the critics of Israel did far worse intheir day. USA committed
genocide against native americans who are lucky to live reservations after
their brethren have been exterminated. That great new critic Erdogan denies
the Kurds an independent state TODAY, besides having to live down the
massacres of Armenians, Greeks and others by the Turks. These are real
genocides and massacres. What we have at this point is as you said a
"reservation" which COULD become an independent state if they only renounced
violent methods, recognized its neighbor as a state, and focused on using
their money to help build up their own people with international help. They
knew exactly what would happen when they fired into Israel.

I agree with Bill Clinton's statements on this:
[http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Bill-
Clinton-...](http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Bill-Clinton-says-
Netanyahu-could-and-should-clinch-peace-deal-363168)

For what it's worh I also agree with Clinton's remarks to Israel regarding
letting the west bank be its own state:
[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/18/so-what-did-
bill-...](http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/18/so-what-did-bill-clinton-
say-in-his-500000-speech-in-israel/)

But when it comes to Gaza literally ALL THEIR LEADERS HAVE TO DO IS CARE ABOUT
THE PEOPLE OF GAZA more than their ideology. You mentioned refusing to talk -
yes, they have been doing that for years.

Hamas didnt agree to this ceasefire because it was brokered with the
Palestinian Authority but also refuses to participate in talks during the
ceasefire!

Four years ago during the settlement freeE in the west bank Hamas and
Hezbollah actively undermined the peace process by threatening to unleash
violence if any agreement was reached!

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_negotiations_between_I...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_negotiations_between_Israel_and_the_Palestinians_\(2010%E2%80%9311\)#2010-2011_Israel-
Palestinian_peace_talks)

 _During the direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Hamas
and Hezbollah reaffirmed to threat peace talks if both sides were matriculated
towards any possible agreement. A Hamas-led coalition of 13 Palestinian
militant groups initiated a violent campaign to disrupt peace talks between
Israel and the Palestinian Authority. A series of attacks killed and wounded
eight Israelis, including two pregnant women, between August and September
2010. Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces responded with raids
that resulted in the deaths and arrests of militants involved in the attacks.
Rocket and mortar attacks from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip also increased in
September._

Reas what you wrote and tell me how it applies to Hamas.

Hamas doesnt recognize Israel and wouldnt talk to it. They engage in
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_diplomacy](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_diplomacy)
but their previous partners hate them also (Egypt). Egypt participates in the
blockade of Gaza!

Hamas are hardliners who still think along the lines of
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum_Resolution](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum_Resolution)

2008: They refused to recognize Israel as a state and honor any previous
agreements and said they could generously offer a 10-year truce if Israel goes
back to pre 1967 borders. Although they refuse to stop calling for the
elimination of the Jewish state:
[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24235665/ns/world_news-
mideast_n_a...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24235665/ns/world_news-
mideast_n_africa/t/hamas-offers-truce-return-borders/)

2012: Hamas says it will recognize and talk with Israel if Israel withdraws
completely to pre 1967 borders with no swaps and gives a full right of return
to ALL Palestinians. Asked whether this will lead Hamas to have peace with
Israel, they refused to state.
[http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2008/04/20086150983...](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2008/04/2008615098393788.html)

In short: [http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3471/hamas-
moderation](http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3471/hamas-moderation)

I am not even sure how anyone can seriously argue in favor of a Hamas regime
without also being in favor of the elimination of a Jewish state because
that's pretty much what they are after. Just because it sounds crazy doesnt
mean they arent.

------
higherpurpose
Relevant (and funny):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vZLWbqpDyQ&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vZLWbqpDyQ&feature=youtu.be&t=2m25s)

------
dodyg
1\. Egypt is not "enemy" with Syria. Morsi last year did call for a Jihad
against Bashar al-Assad but this is one of the few reason he got overthrown.
Egypt's policy toward Syria is non interference. 2\. Egypt is not "enemy" with
Turkey. The relationship is definitely strained but marking the relationship
as "enemy" is wrong.

~~~
emilsedgh
I think the word 'Hostile' would've made much more sense in many cases.

------
politician
Is a matrix plot the best way of visualizing this when all of the
relationships are reciprocated in kind?

~~~
wslh
I added a graph using graphviz here
[https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByAekPg2AgZoQUFGdl8yd1h3SWs](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByAekPg2AgZoQUFGdl8yd1h3SWs)

------
scaramanga
It's pretty simple. Any country which is receiving massive US aid is friends
with other countries receiving massive US aid. In some cases the frienship is
a sort of "secret" (eg. Saudi Arabia and Israel) or "complicated" because
officially, for appearances sake, they should align on religion or something.

Iran used to be part of the USA club when it had the brutal murderous
dictator. But now it's enemy to the USA club as soon as they overthrew the
dictator.

------
the_watcher
Basic takeaway - the relationships between players in the Middle East is much
more complicated than state-state relations, and stated positions of the
players are not necessarily comprehensive in summing up the relations. Also -
this chart seems like it could change incredibly frequently (Iran's friendship
with Iraq is relatively recent, 6 months ago ISIS would have far more friends,
etc.)

------
parham
Since when did Iran and Turkey become enemies?

~~~
waps
Different religions. Turkey is "sunni"/secular. Iran is Shi'a/secular. (but
the other way round, Turkey's population is "moderately" sunni muslim, the
state is aggresively secular. Iran, the population, I think is fair to say, is
secular, the state is aggresively Shi'a muslim). The sunnis are the ones that
are organising things like ISIS, and the religious cleansings ISIS is doing.

Problem is that one of the values of islam is to militarily dominate, so aside
from Lebanon (and formerly Iraq), there is no example of a state with powre
sharing. Even in Lebanon there is only power sharing between Christians and
muslims, not between different sects of muslims. (the difference being that
Christians don't see the need to exterminate muslims (just convert them,
eventually), nor do muslims want to exterminate Christians, just dominate them
(talking about the values of the religions here). Sunni's do want to
exterminate Shi'as and vice-versa. To put it bluntly: sharia is pretty clear
on the need to kill any muslim who is not the same sect as you are. But
Christians/Jews can get the choice dhimma or death. So Lebanon will not blow
up as easily as Iraq will)

~~~
nl
Turkey is probably about as strong an opponent of ISIS as there is in the
middle east.

Edit: the parent comment was edited while I was writing that. There is a lot I
disagree with now, bit the biggest factual problem is the idea that Lebanon
"won't blow up like Iraq" seems to ignore 2 decades of civil war in Lebanon.

~~~
waps
Not really. Let's say that Erdogan and ISIS agree on goals, absolutely not on
means, and Erdogan stands to lose a LOT if ISIS doesn't back down. They are
not enemies, even if you have a point that they're absolutely not friends
either.

You're right of course that Lebanon hasn't been very stable.

~~~
nl
You think Erdogan wants an Wahhabist caliphate centered in Bagdad that claims
parts of Turkey? Not likely!

I'm trying to imagine what goals they share?

I guess Turkey probably doesn't want an Iranian-dominated Iraq (and nor does
ISIS of course!), but Turkey can probably accept that to some degree provided
Iraqi Kurdistan remains autonomous and provides a buffer zone. Beyond that I
can't see anything they really have in common.

~~~
waps
Of course not. I think he wants the ottoman empire back. He wants a non-
wahhabist (but still quite strict) caliphate centered in constantinople. Most
of all he wants the basic property of the caliphate : a theocracy.

He has, after, said exactly that. Cost him votes, but not enough.

As I said, he's quite sympathetic with what they're doing, he's doing the
same. He's just behaving like any Ottoman vasal did a mere 100 years ago. He
agrees with the need for a caliphate, probably even with the method. He just
disagrees on the caliph and the capital. Like any ottoman vasal, tough, he
sees them as competition as well as potential allies.

------
3rd3
Could someone explain the first couple of principal components of this
conflict to a historically illiterate like me?

~~~
joosters
It all comes down to 'Whose land is it anyway?'

~~~
shortsightedsid
Some of the issues go back thousands of years. In a sense, it also shows the
genius of Prophet Mohammad. From a historical point of view, one of his
greatest achievements was to unite the Arabs. That's something that was never
done before or since. So, simplifying it as just a land dispute isn't right.

------
lobotryas
Huh, where's Afghanistan? Or do they kind of not matter any more in this
scheme of things?

~~~
SuperChihuahua
According to Wikipedia, Afghanistan is not a part of the Middle East

~~~
ulfw
According to Wikipedia, the United States is not a part of the Middle East
either. Odd...

------
ilaksh
This chart is deceptive because it focuses on details of micro relationships
while ignoring alignment of factions with global powers vying for control over
resources and political influence, which has been stirring this pot on and off
for thousands of years.

The western media portrays these battles as isolated internal disputes, and
while there are very serious regional disputes, they are influenced by
external powers like the US and Russia. Similar to the way in previous epochs
groups like Muslim or Roman empires affected outcomes or took advantage of
regional conflicts.

It is a crucible. I believe that the biggest driver is still fossil fuels.
Yes, solar and other systems are rapidly replacing a portion of the energy
demand, but still, the critical need for oil cannot be understated. See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consum...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consumption).
You can see that this is quite an unequal distribution. The need to maintain
that is what puts pressure on that region and causes regional animosities to
be taken advantage of in order to move power over to groups siding with
dominant forces.

Even though solar and other energy sources are gaining ground, the industrial
reliance on fossil fuels is a much tougher nut to crack, and I actually
believe that creating viable industrial production processes based on bio-
fuels or significantly different chemistry is the key to 'peace in the Middle
East'. Obviously, bad blood between groups going back thousands of years does
not go away just because someone invented a non-fossil-fuel-based industrial
precursor, but the motivation for stirring up those conflicts in order to
further political power of one group gets reduced.

There are other aspects to this aside from fossil fuels. The fire for the
crucible is fueled generally by the global power struggle which has other
aspects like currency domination. See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_hegemony](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_hegemony)
or
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Great_Game](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Great_Game).

For some people, for example, those who read western media which is full of
talk of local "evil dictators" and "terrorists", framing things this way will
be very controversial. My next paragraph will probably be even more
controversial for everyone.

I believe that hegemony and centralized control (at least on a physical
regional level) could someday be supplanted by global cyber-states. In other
words, the borders are not dictated so much by the map or actual physical
areas, but by alignments with global systems of political power and
organization, connected by internets. There will likely be multiple internets
controlled by different global factions, since controlling these internets is
key to controlling the global organizations.

Technologies like advanced 3d printing (eventually moving into the area of
programmable matter), and free information flow may democratize force so that
power over life and death, and therefore ultimate political control, moves
from central authorities into the hands of individuals and more regional
groups. At the same time, this type of technology could enable the global
super-cyberstates as it would enable any group with sufficient control of a
net to nearly instantly muster military assets at any point around the world.

I can go so far as to frame all of this as a need for good tools and systems
for knowledge management and securing human needs, with the two interacting.

One of the core problems for knowledge management systems is how to promote an
efficient, integrated, holistic view of the system, while still providing a
strong capability for the evolution and maintenance of divergent branches or
systems which evolve in new and beneficial directions. Or just, divergent
branches which allow localized freedom in the knowledge graph, which may later
lead in beneficial directions.

An example of this is different standards or platforms competing for dominance
in technology. Based on a certain platform of solutions and set of common
assumptions, a set of new problems arises, and many different groups and
individuals solve those problems in relative isolation. In order to move on to
solving the next set of problems, or for the overall group to gain the
advantages of the new solutions in a way that integrates with previous
efforts, a certain solution set is selected.

The particular process by which solutions are selected and integrated into the
system, or multiple interacting systems, affects everyone working towards the
advancement or maintenance of the systems greatly.

Github is a concrete example of this.

There seems to be a tendency towards a very small number of systems which
exhibit high coupling and low cohesion. But maybe that view is too mechanistic
and low-level, and a higher level view which better incorporates abstraction
has a different problem.

Creating an abstraction prunes redundant solutions but also often discards
less generally relevant information that may however be important in certain
circumstances. Abstractions are powerful because their hierarchical structure
allows individual nodes to leverage aggregate powers of branches. This
hierarchical structure is also a disadvantage though in terms of the reliance
that leaves have on the integrity of each branch.

Compositional rather than hierarchical structures can provide the same power
of abstraction without the brittleness and central-point-of-failure that
hierarchies have.

It seems though that more compositional networked structures tend to converge
towards what are effectively hierarchies.

Anyway, I think that there must be some tools or processes or perspectives
that would provide for somehow more optimal evolutions of structures. Probably
some that are not discovered or in common use. In case anyone read all of this
and knows of some relevant links, please let me know.

------
ahamino
As a middleastern, I find this very incorrect and stereotypical.

------
amiune
Just execute Floyd–Warshall algorithm for transitive closure :)

------
hackerboos
Iraq: The most friendly country in the middle east.

~~~
keerthiko
Obviously the more friendly countries in the Middle East aren't mentioned
here: Oman, UAE, Qatar, because they aren't involved in any conflicts or
political standoffs.

~~~
waps
Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are only friendly because they have done
religious cleansing 30-50 years ago (all three used to have significant Shi'a
populations, Saudi Arabia still has some), and back then nobody was watching.
So not that much is really known about those events. Currently, yes, they are
mostly peaceful.

Bahrain and UAE are peaceful, but certainly have political standoffs that
could explode.

~~~
antocv
Bahrain smashed their Shia rebellions during arab spring with tanks, but that
was blessed by USA as opposed to the attempted smashing by Syria and Lybia of
their own rebellions.

~~~
waps
With Saudi Arabian provided mercenary tanks (because Bahrain's own army is at
least partly Shi'a), and this was definitely not "blessed" by the USA.
Tolerated, maybe, in the sense that the US was not going to create a shooting
war with Saudi Arabia to stop this, yes.

Don't oversimplify it. The USA is constantly pressuring Bahrain into allowing
the Shi'a a voice in government, and every 6 months or so, Bahrain expels yet
another American diplomat for mentioning the Shi'a.

------
viggity
TL;DR everyone pretty much hates everyone else.

------
tdsamardzhiev
So, no love for ISIS in the Middle East?

~~~
stickydink
You might consider it a ... Danger Zone?

In fairness, I wasn't aware what the real ISIS was myself until a couple of
weeks ago.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_L...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant)

------
hiharryhere
Where's Jordan in all of this?

------
kumarski
wow. Didn't expect this much of a response.

------
oxama
lol! ISIS has no friends at all

~~~
jqm
Ya they do. Some very powerful ones. Or else they never would have been
allowed to get to the point they are at now.

If they get big enough they will get a haircut. They won't be allowed to
actually rule for long probably. But as long as they keep causing trouble for
the enemies of enemies they might be allowed to keep taking over caches of
weapons (whoop!..but hey, we aren't arming terrorists! they just stole them!).

------
WorldWideWayne
I don't know anything about this stuff, but I wonder - is it completely
improbable that "Al Qaida" could actually be a group of agent provocateurs
invented by some part of the military/industrial complex to scare up support
for their actions?

------
antocv
According to chart, Iran is "its complicated" with Al-Qaueda, haha.

Yeah sure. Iran is enemies with terrorist groups, except for hezbollah which
are somewhat less terrorists than hamas, but not in the same league as al-
qaueda, or various terrorists sponsored by USA in Syria.

And according to chart ISIS has no friends only enemies, which is not true, as
Saudi Arabia is at least complicated with them unless their friends.

Where is Qatar, Bahrain etc, and the various groups that were smashed with
tanks during arab spring?

~~~
waps
No ISIS is Sunni, Hezbollah is (mostly) Shi'a (and works mainly in a country
that has a long history of religious toleration). Hamas is sunni. Egypt is
also Sunni, but hamas and the muslim brotherhood are somewhere between allied
and the same thing, and the muslim brotherhood is the mortal enemy of the
current Egyptian state (they got control of the state, and used it to start to
kill some groups and loot, at which point the army saw the risk of food
supplies to the country getting interrupted, and started shooting the muslim
brotherhood - not that they were friends before)

So ISIS want to kill every last Iranian. Iran, by contrast, shares it's
religion (and half of it's government), with the dominant faction in the Iraqi
government. So Iran is naturally allied with the Iraqi government, and, for
the moment, with America (they have toned down the rhetoric at least. And keep
in mind they are allied with America for short-term strategic reasons - keep
Iraq from falling over. They very -very- much disagree with America's proposal
to share government power between factions in Iraq, they'd rather just
subjugate the sunni's like they've done in Iran, you know, force their kids to
go to Shi'a schools and the like (which isn't nice, but keep in mind those
sunnis would like to murder them)).

Keep in mind ISIS represents the majority sunni in Syria and the minority
sunni in Iraq, and wants to exterminate all other factions in both places.
That's what they're fighting for.

------
wslh
Uh, this is what happen when you practice data visualization abuse.

~~~
wslh
I translated it to the following graph. No nodes, bad relationship. You can
copy the source to: [http://graphviz-dev.appspot.com/](http://graphviz-
dev.appspot.com/)

Image at:
[https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByAekPg2AgZoQUFGdl8yd1h3SWs/...](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByAekPg2AgZoQUFGdl8yd1h3SWs/edit)

digraph g{

AlQaida -> Iran [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

AlQaida -> Hamas [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> Egypt [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Egypt -> Iraq [arrowhead="none"]

Egypt -> Israel [arrowhead="none"]

PalestinianAuthority -> Egypt [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

SaudiArabia -> Egypt [arrowhead="none"]

US -> Egypt [arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Hezbollah [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Iran [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Iraq [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> SaudiArabia [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Turkey [arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Iran [arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Iraq [arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Turkey [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Syria [arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> Iraq [arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> Syria [arrowhead="none"]

Iraq -> PalestinianAuthority [arrowhead="none"]

Iraq -> Syria [arrowhead="none"]

Iraq -> US [arrowhead="none"]

ISIS

Israel -> SaudiArabia [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Israel -> Turkey [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Israel -> US [arrowhead="none"]

SaudiArabia -> PalestinianAuthority [arrowhead="none"]

Turkey -> PalestinianAuthority [arrowhead="none"]

Syria -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

US -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Syria -> Turkey [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

US -> SaudiArabia [arrowhead="none"]

}

