I have to refer back to these long traditional rivals when I read people waxing poetic about the prospect of erasing international borders and becoming a brotherhood of man and then at the same time rejecting homogenization of culture. You can’t eat your cake and have it.
These are two historic rivals. Maybe with the right governments they can work out deals like we work out with Canada and Mexico with regard to shared resources —but I’m not holding my breath on this given the Kurds are kind of the out group within the Iraqi family and probably won’t get full support from the central govt.
It strikes me as an example of Sigmund Freud's "Narcissism of Small Differences"[1]: "The thesis that communities with adjoining territories and close relationships are especially likely to engage in feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to details of differentiation."
And by sheer coincidence, I very recently learnt on a HN linked article on big-endian and little-endianness that these terms come from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift [0], where Lilliput and Blefuscu wage war over which end should be cracked first when eating a hard-boiled egg:
> The novel further describes an intra-Lilliputian quarrel over the practice of breaking eggs. Traditionally, Lilliputians broke boiled eggs on the larger end; a few generations ago, an Emperor of Lilliput, the Present Emperor's great-grandfather, had decreed that all eggs be broken on the smaller end after his son cut himself breaking the egg on the larger end. The differences between Big-Endians (those who broke their eggs at the larger end) and Little-Endians had given rise to "six rebellions ... wherein one Emperor lost his life, and another his crown". The Lilliputian religion says an egg should be broken on the convenient end, which is now interpreted by the Lilliputians as the smaller end. The Big-Endians gained favour in Blefuscu.
This seems like a perfect fictional example of the Narcissism of Small Differences, published more than a century before the birth of Sigmund Freud!
PS: It's also a great opportunity for us to start a feud as to who should be credited with the idea, whether Freud or Swift. I declare myself Swiftian! :-D
Iraq and Iran are actually pretty distinct historically. Iran is the center of the old assyrian empire, a tradiional stronghold of Shiite islam. Iraq is the traditional center of sunni islam.
They pretty much form the front line of the roman / persian forever war, so they're probably some of the most constant antagonists in recorded history. Then there's this whole fault line in islam that runs between them. Then in modern history they had a really bloody war, that left a huge number of people seriously ill and disabled because of us-supplied Iraqi chemical weapon use.
I've been trying to think of a european equivalent and I've come up short because I simply can't think of any two polities that have been so consistently at odds, or so consistently under distinct and radically opposed rulerships. There's definitely more similarity between Japan and China, for example, or the USA and Russia.
What is now Iraq was largely almost always under Sassanid/Persian rule. The old Persian capital of Ctesiphon was basically next door to modern Baghdad. The old fault line was really in eastern Anatolia.
Rome held Mesopotamia for a very brief period of time and didn't have much impact other than the occasional army passing through until the Muslim conquest.
You're right. I kind of assumed geographical continuity because there seems so much cultural continuity between shia islam and zoroastrianism, especially the socialist bent.
I thought Iraq was basically three ethnic/cultural groups. The Kurds in the North, the central region was mainly Sunni Arabs, and the South and East were mainly Shiite's who may also be of Persian descent?
Sure. Not sure how old this situation is: there's an enormous amount of migration in the ME in the last century or so.
For the modern history, part of the problem was that the Baath party, and the Iraqi state in general, was kinda a sunni-only thing. Afaik the british arranged it that way with King Faisal (II? I?).
Sweden and Denmark, or Sweden and Russia (or, occasionally, all three) comes to mind, but they've kept things civil between them for the last couple of hundred years.
I recall an American military officer describing his trying to understand the local human conflicts and alliances while serving in Iraq. Region to region and even village to village (often right next to each other) he struggled to understand / balance it all.
People have their reasons, but ultimately they have to feel safe / want to work together too.
That's not a justification of any given military action but more about the complexities in some regions. We think in terms of nations, some places there are so many other layers... sometimes it's not even just nation vs nation politics playing out.
> Westerners fail to understand tribalism, or any clannish attitudes.
We do, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the same behaviours. Watching various western elections over the last few years has been a demonstration of tribalism rather than any particularly logical process.
It still exists in the form of different “street gangs” and “the mob” families. They just don’t happen to run regions outlined by political boundaries. These are people who otherwise are very much alike but will inflict violence upon the other as necessary.
The ability to delegate decisions up and down through layers of the government and mostly ... not involve all the infighting that COULD come from it is pretty amazing IMO.
Once in a while some folks in my area get all worked up about how some regional transportation authority made some decision but man ... we do not need each city and layer of gov making their own call / fighting about it. And that's without any kinda 'serious' tribal factors at play.
This is just completely wrong. Western society also had periods of clans and tribes in its history. It's more that it moved on from it. The British Empire used inter-tribal rivalries as a tool to further its influence and spread. Scots still wear kilts whose colours are clan-specific.
I interpret them as saying “we think that because tribalism is a minor issue in the west and normally doesn’t surface, then we must generalize that it’s also a non-issue elsewhere” it is however, far from being the case.
> These are two historic rivals. Maybe with the right governments they can work out deals like we work out with Canada and Mexico with regard to shared resources —but I’m not holding my breath on this given the Kurds are kind of the out group within the Iraqi family and probably won’t get full support from the central govt.
I've been thinking a lot about this problem generically, and I'm wondering if there's more formally published elsewhere. How well do multicultural polities work compared to more homogeneous polities (polities that crudely map to an ethnic group)? I'm not strongly for or against any particular position, but it seems like there are efficiencies to more homogeneous entities and I believe one of the criticisms of the colonization of the Middle East (and the purported explanation for why there is so much conflict in the Middle East) was that the European powers drew borders (deliberately, IIRC) that were multicultural rather than ethnic. If this is true, it seems like it would contradict the multicultural thesis, but it seems to be espoused most frequently by multiculturalists.
Does anyone know of anyone who has written about this more comprehensively?
I'd have expected them to be somewhat natural allies. They are the two largest majority Shiite countries in the world by a large margin. Worldwide only around 10% of Muslims are Shiite. Around 90% are Sunni.
My understanding is that Shiite vs Sunni is a big deal in Islam, akin to the Protestant vs Catholic split in Christianity. But not the Protestant vs Catholic split as it is now, but more like it was shortly after it happened when it was taken a lot more seriously.
There is no such thing as a natural ally based on faith. We have examples of the same thing in Europe as powers attempted to control resources (arable land in agrarian times). They may ally against a common enemy or due to pacts which were broken from time to time. Germany and Japan allied and really had little in common beside a desire to control geography for the sake of resource extraction.
Water rights are a zero-sum game. I'm not sure that humans can be 'natural allies,' but the deck is stacked to make natural enemies when resources get slim...
Cost makes it still essentially zero sum, unless we get actual cheap fusion off the ground anyway. Very few countries can afford to use water from desalination at any scale, and even for them the cost of it is an order of magnitude or more than using existing runoff - when the runoff exists.
"...but I’m not holding my breath on this given the Kurds are kind of the out group within the Iraqi family and probably won’t get full support from the central govt."
Are Kurds treated better within Iran? My understanding is that they're a pariah everywhere in the Middle East
They’re treated poorly in all three major countries there, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. The brits should have carved out a country for them, for they are different enough to deserve their own self determination. If we didn’t have Turkey in NATO and hadn’t messed with Iraq we could have helped the formation of Kurdistan, but there’s no guarantee these three wouldn’t have steamrolled them to prevent potential fragmentation from other internal out groups.
Unfortunately in the 1800s as other geographies fought wars to rid differences to achieve unification, things were too tribal to achieve that there. I guess the idea of Mesopotamia was too distant to serve as a glue for all the different interests.
The Brits intentionally created unstable countries so that none could rival them in power in a region. All those countries were too busy dealing with internal strife to become regional competitors to England.
At the time these countries were created none of them were powerful enough to be a regional competitor to Britain. The brits were keen for individual countries to be stable so that they were easier to govern. Remember also that the British empire wasn’t created following a top-down strategic plan and that operationally it was a mass of country-specific special cases
At the time of World War I, the British already had pretty much the rest of non-Ottoman Arabia under various forms of protectorates, and Persia too for that matter--Persia being by far the most powerful country in the region, at least outside of the soon-to-be-carved-up Ottomans.
During World War I, the British freaked out about the potential unrest that the Ottoman sultan (as caliph) could provoke in their Muslim lands, and as a result made multiple incompatible agreements with whatever forces would be willing to help fight against the Ottomans in the Middle East. In particular, everyone was promised Palestine if they would help in the fight. When it came time to do the actual carving, the British, in fine imperial tradition, honored none of these agreements.
In the actual agreement, the British and the French carved up the Arab regions somewhat (but not entirely) in the vein of the Sykes-Picot agreement, with the French choosing for themselves a majority Christian domain in Lebanon and a majority Muslim domain in Syria. The British kept Palestine for itself, granted Hejaz independence along its original Ottoman provincial boundaries, and created independent states of Transjordan and Iraq, each to be ruled by the sons of the new Hejai king (the upgraded Sharif of Mecca).
Maybe deliberate is too strong a word, but certainly the map ignored all tribal, geographical and cultural boundaries. Nothing other than instability should have been expected.
It's possible the maps were drawn largely into shapes that made sense to people in London based on how they'd choose to govern them if they were permanent fixtures in the empire. Those people may have never even set foot in the region.
Even that article notes that the current borders within Europe itself have changed through war and negotiation over decades and centuries. That another region could have the same difficulties is probably to be expected.
> Nothing other than instability should have been expected.
Genuine, general question: we in the west are very keen on multiculturalism and many of the most ardent multiculturalists blame European powers (as you do) for carving up the Middle East into culturally heterogeneous regions which "inevitably lean toward instability". To me, these things feel in conflict; am I wrong for feeling that way? If you're a multiculturalist, how do you reconcile these things?
To be clear, I'm not sure whether or not I'm a multiculturalist. On the one hand I like being around culturally diverse people; on the other, it seems hard to work out a society in which we may not be able to agree on the basic ground rules.
Multiculturalism is kind of the holy grail, but it requires that all participating culture value multiculturalism above all.
It is similar to democracy, you must accept and yield to the fact that everyone should have an equal say, and deserve basic rights, irregardless of your own beliefs and judgements.
You have to value live and let live above all else. You have to value having someone else do as they please as long as it doesn't prevent you from doing as you please above all else, even above your belief of heaven and hell, of how God wants men and women to act, of what you think is decent or not, good or bad, fun or boring, smart or dumb, etc.
I think this is often abridged as valuing Freedom and Liberty above all else. Where freedom is the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do; and liberty is the absence of arbitrary restraints, taking into account the rights of all involved. That means your top most value is maximizing Freedom while respecting the Liberty of others.
And traditionally, a Liberal is someone who has this as their top most value.
And this is the paradox, because values are often a big part of one's culture, but for multiculturalism to work, all must share this one value, and so you could say that makes it they must share culture to some extent, as they must all share this one value and have it as the most valuable value of all, that means multiculturalism only works if everyone is a Liberal.
I just described the underpinning of multiculturalism. It only works if everyone shares this one value, which means it doesn't work to just put a bunch of people together that don't share this value. That makes multiculturalism its own culture.
In practice, it will make for a very diverse place, but in terms of value, everyone will value this diversity above all else.
Edit: Most of the time it also helps to value fraternity, which is that you value mutual support within society. So you'd want to maximize freedom while respecting other's liberty, and provide support to others when in need. I think this has to be the commonality between all members for multiculturalism to work well.
This seems like a sensible, agreeable answer. What do you think about the folks who advocate for restricting freedoms (e.g., speech) in the name of multiculturalism? Are they false multiculturalists? Or does multiculturalism require that we censure people who don't share our (often very narrowly-defined) multiculturalist views? And if so, is it a worthy enterprise?
Freedom is restricted in the name of Liberty and Fraternity. That's why I didn't just say your top most value is Freedom. Your top most value must be to maximize Freedom while respecting others' liberties and supporting others in need.
So if the speech doesn't respect other's liberties, then it is a problem to a multicultural society yes, because it wouldn't be in-line with the key top value that is critical to the success of a society that embraces diversity to get along with each other and prosper.
Think about it, I'm saying that the requirement to a successful democratic multi-cultural society is that everyone shares this as their top value. Therefore any attack to this core value or attempt to subvert this core value is an attack on that society's core.
So if your speech attacks this, it is natural to see a defense against it.
Of course, practically speaking, balancing how to maximize freedoms while respecting each other's liberties and supporting those in needs is a tricky act. There's no unambiguous infallible bullet point that always tells you exactly how best to do so. Like any optimization problems, finding the global optimum is a very hard problem (I believe it is NP hard, if not harder). And in the case of human dwelling, N is massive, and the number of variables in the equation are as well.
So what we have to do is our best, and as long as we have the right intentions, which is we come to the table with that same Liberal core value, then I think we can work it out.
Tensions will be created when anyone at the table will start to no longer believe the others value liberalism. So I think that be a good start is for everyone to be clear that they still value this core value, and then discuss where within that they feel like either there is a way to bring even more freedom while being respectful of liberties and supporting those in needs, or that they themselves feel a conflict between their liberty and the one of others which they want addressed.
I think this makes sense, but "tricky act" and "paradox" indeed.
Free speech absolutists often argue that free speech is the only viable way to be multiculturalist (they'll cite the counter-productivity of censorship, free speech is necessary to even debate what is/isn't multiculturalism, speech codes that prohibit anti-multiculturalist speech are easily abused, etc) while many others (predominately left-wing folks, I think) argue that multiculturalism demands that advocating for any kind of multiculturalism besides their own narrow strain is anti-multiculturalist (e.g., this was the basic charge against James Damore, David Shor, Lee Fang, etc). [^1]
If we say that anti-multiculturalist speech is intolerable, then "multiculturalism" becomes a hollow word that we can use to bludgeon each other. It can even work against its own purported goals in that you can have a powerful, narrow ideological segment that censures the rest of society arbitrarily by invoking "multiculturalism" however tenuously (consider again the folks who advocate for racially segregating society in the name of multiculturalism).
Maybe this is a problem with any core value, but we just see abuses of multiculturalism more frequently because of some particularity of the present moment?
[^1]: I'm not arguing that right-wing folks are more likely to be speech absolutists than left-wing folks (although at present this may well be true due to momentary political power dynamics); rather, that right-wing folks are unlikely to argue that free-speech is the best way to achieve a multiculturalist society because (as I understand it) multiculturalism isn't a right-wing value.
There's two issues here, and I think we have to dissociate them to better understand each one.
Issue 1:
Could restrictions on free speech actually backfire and hurt the liberal core value?
I think some free speech absolutists argue that allowing some form of anti-liberal speech is necessary so that pro-liberal speech itself is forever guaranteed a place in the cultural debate.
Those believe that facts and reason will prevail, and that everyone will eventually converge on believing in liberalism if its ideas are freely debated against others. And that if you start to censor some speech, you risk having it backfire and either preventing the debate which would have convinced non-liberals into becoming liberals, or you open liberal speech up for being censored and repressed as well.
This type of decision is hard, no one has an absolutely accurate prediction power. To predict which of the two options will in the end be best at promoting and safekeeping liberalism isn't easy to guess, and that's where a lot of debate is happening. That's healthy debate in my opinion, we need to test our prediction models against many brains to hope to make the sensible choice.
The important bit here is that all parties strongly believe in liberalism and really just want to protect it, but they diverge in their prediction of which approach best protects it.
I think for this debate, you have liberals on both sides: Democrats and Republicans, and they share the same core value, but have different ideas of how to best deliver it.
Issue 2:
Some people simply don't share the liberal core value I've been talking about.
Some free speech absolutists aren't really defending liberalism by arguing for free speech, in fact, they wouldn't care if the speech being censored was the liberal one.
What they care about is actually imposing their non-liberal values upon others, they want to break down the liberal democracy and put in place something that better aligns with their values, often religious, or racist, or classist, or nationalist, or selfish, etc.
In any case, they value something above the liberties of others, maximizing Freedom of all, and helping those in need. And they'd want to see society change so the top value is no longer this liberal core value, but their own top value instead.
Now that's a direct attack on the core value, and this one is stirring a lot of controversy I think. It's a reality few are prepared to face in the west, I think most people assumed everyone shares the liberal value, and to see that a very large number of people don't is a surprise, and puts the society they love and cherish at a much bigger risk of collapse then they thought.
Personally, I think at the end of the day, people want what is best for themselves. Liberalism makes the claim that a liberal society is best for everyone, and so it is best for each individual and for all. Meaning it is best for you and for everyone else, what is there not to like?
And I mean, it has proven itself in that regard, the top liberal democracies are probably the most accomplished societies ever in terms of delivering what's best to its citizens.
But in recent years, there's been more and more challenges, poverty is accentuating, international conflicts are arising, pandemics, water shortages, climate changes, oil constraints, recessions, etc.
When that happens, some people think, maybe this isn't in my best interest anymore, especially the tight populous groups, like in the US that would be white Americans for example. As a white American, seeing that things are slowly getting worse for yourself, you might start to think maybe liberalism is no longer best for me? Maybe our forced dominant position of the past would be better for me, and maybe we should bring that back.
I'm using white Americans as one example, an easy one to make, but this is true of all groups. If people no longer believe liberalism is best for them, they will revert to the only other option: forced privilege. You'll band together with the people most like you, and try to strongarm your way into making a society that is best for you and those like you, even if that means it's taking advantage of others.
I like to believe we can work it out, and this is why I said multiculturalism is the holy grail. But maybe we can't, and I wouldn't judge us if we didn't, there is a practical reality to consider: Can we sustain freedom, liberty and fraternity for all? Even as population grows, resources wades, and challenges arise? If that can't be sustained, liberalism will never work, and then it becomes a case of: is it better to evenly split our food but still there isn't enough for anyone to be satiated, or should we let some starve so others can eat to their fullest?
I think for this debate, you also have Democrats and Republicans both no longer believing in the core liberal value, but the more radical left side would want to push for more forced economic oversight, as they see capitalism as the thing that failed to sustain liberalism. While I think on the more radical right side they want more forced social oversight, as they see the loss of the traditional social fabric as responsible for the failure to sustain liberalism. While similarly I think a lot of people on both side Dems and Reps, less radical, still believe that liberalism is sustainable and that force isn't the option, but simply more liberalism is, with minor corrections. If my position hadn't come through yet, I fall in that later category.
Sorry, I know I got a bit dark here, but fundamentally I think this explains the current discourse we are seeing in the US, and across the western countries, its the elephant in the room in my opinion.
Great point. A core cause of the endless wars in the middle east is people pushed into the truly evil British model of a minority in power over a weaker but larger other party. I get that there are lots of existing problems but doing this in countries on purpose is unforgivable.
My own country (the us) fucks things up too of course - Afghanistan being the latest example, but we have our own long list of shame (Iraq, many countries in south and central America...).
Lot of countries are created by ruling minorities, and then their rulers are overthrown. Just look at the history of almost every country in western world.
> I read people waxing poetic about the prospect of erasing international borders and becoming a brotherhood of man and then at the same time rejecting homogenization of culture.
Everyone who is against borders is openly in favour of homogenization. Specially when we talk about western countries. In the West, for some reason we need diversity.
In the rest of the world diversity isn't needed and preserving the homogenity of the natives is paramount.
I'm sure there aren't any hidden intentions behind it tho.
> I have to refer back to these long traditional rivals when I read people waxing poetic about the prospect of erasing international borders
This is exactly the kind of problems borders create. Dam conflicts like this are nearly always across borders, not within border free regions like a country.
In the past city states might have had conflicts like this, but that's why we created larger governing regions to regulate resources more fairly. Today our problems are again becoming too large for our borders and we need to expand them.
Borders are a symptom, not a cause. Yugoslavia was a unified country without internal borders. The lack of internal borders did not prevent ethnic warfare. The United Kingdom was a unified country without internal borders. The lack of internal borders did not prevent a century of violent conflict over the island of Ireland.
> I have to refer back to these long traditional rivals
Long traditional rivals? Iran and iraq are relatively new 20th century european colonial creations. Iran was carved out by the british/russians and Iraq was arbitrarily drawn out on a map by the british and french.
> when I read people waxing poetic about the prospect of erasing international borders and becoming a brotherhood of man and then at the same time rejecting homogenization of culture
Even with homogenous cultures, no guarantee of "brotherhood of man". Look at north and south korea. The elites will always find something to fight over.
> Maybe with the right governments they can work out deals like we work out with Canada and Mexico with regard to shared resources
It's not the "right" governments. It's called an insurmountable power differential. Canada and mexico simple have to do what they are told. We've fought wars against canada( british empire ) and mexico and taken significant amount of territory from both to ensure that these countries "share their resources" as told. The only way this power dynamic would change if an outside force with enough power helps either canada or mexico challenge the US. I don't see that happening anytime soon.
> but I’m not holding my breath on this given the Kurds are kind of the out group within the Iraqi family and probably won’t get full support from the central govt.
The kurds are the outgroup everywhere - turkey, iraq, iran, etc. The kurds have been used by the US/Europe as a separatist thorn in the side of many middle east nations to keep them unstable. Similar to what we are trying to do with the uyghurs in china, rohingya in myanmar, the balochs in pakistan, india, africa, etc. One of the benefits of having drawn out nations in africa is that the nations are full of different ethnic groups that can be pit against each other making these african nations easier to control. Not sure it was the original intent, but that's where we are right now.
> Long traditional rivals? Iran and iraq are relatively new 20th century european colonial creations. Iran was carved out by the british/russians and Iraq was arbitrarily drawn out on a map by the british and french.
This is completely false when you're talking about Iran. An Iranian state has existed in more or less continuous form as an independent polity since the breakup of the Timurid Empire in ~1500. The three-way contest between the Ottomans, Safavid Persia, and Russia is a staple of the region's politics for virtually the entirety of the Early Modern period.
> This is completely false when you're talking about Iran.
I wouldn't say completely false.
> An Iranian state has existed in more or less continuous form as an independent polity since the breakup of the Timurid Empire in ~1500.
More or less? Independent polity? You are independent or you are not independent. You can't be "more or less" independent than you can be "more or less" pregnant.
It certainly wasn't independent after it was invaded and conquered by the british and soviets? It certainly wasn't independent after the british and soviets installed their own puppet to rule over iran.
Iran, china, india, etc all love to claim thousand years whatever. Perhaps culturally, historically, etc they have a point but neither iran, china, india, etc are old states.
The "more or less" applied to "continuous", not "independent." But if you really want to argue that independence is a simple binary decision... you're just flat out wrong. No, seriously.
Let's take what should be a simple example: Canada. When did Canada become independent? Well... Wikipedia lists no fewer than three separate dates, and that's really understating the matter.
The Canadian Confederation was proclaimed on July 1, 1867 (and this is the date that Canada celebrates as its main independence day, FWIW). This created the basic structure of the Canadian government, but all changes to it required approval by Westminster, and Canada was not allowed autonomy in several areas of law, most notably foreign policy. This changed after the Canadian dissatisfaction with British negotiation of the US-Canada border dispute in the Alaska panhandle, and Canada started entering into international agreements and treaties in its own right in the early 1900s. The Statute of Westminster in 1931 dropped all legislative oversight over Canada, except for constitutional changes which came about in 1982.
So I ask you again, when did Canada become independent? Now, for bonus points, take the same criteria and ask if places such as Greenland, Bermuda, Taiwan, Palestine, Abu Dhabi, or Federated States of Micronesia are independent or not.
Even though the Queen is in many ways only a symbolic head of state, the Commonwealth countries in some important ways are not fully independent today. It varies country to country in which ways specifically. In Jamaica for example laws on the books still grant beaches to the Crown and public lands are still known as "Crown land".
> The "more or less" applied to "continuous", not "independent."
Does that make a difference? You are either continuously independent or not continuously independent.
> But if you really want to argue that independence is a simple binary decision... you're just flat out wrong. No, seriously.
No. You either are independent or not independent. It's basic logic.
> Let's take what should be a simple example: Canada. When did Canada become independent? Well... Wikipedia lists no fewer than three separate dates, and that's really understating the matter.
Should be a clue to you that canada isn't independent. No country that worships the queen of another country is. I never considered canada an independent country.
> Now, for bonus points, take the same criteria and ask if places such as Greenland, Bermuda, Taiwan, Palestine, Abu Dhabi, or Federated States of Micronesia are independent or not.
None of these are independent countries. Not sure about abu dhabi as I don't know about about it.
Nice little distraction you took us on. Funny how you completely ignored the part about iran being invaded and conquered. Instead of accepting that you were wrong, you decided to double down and take us on a tangent. Nice. I can see where this is going.
That iran has not been "more or less" continuously independent nation isn't a matter of debate. It's a matter of historical and political and military fact.
How is the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran--that resulted in the removal of one monarch in favor of the next-in-line, the continuation of the territorial integrity of Iran, and did not result in any significant changes in the internal political structure of Iran--a complete break in the general continuity of Iran's political existence that renders Iran nothing more than a 20th century Russian/British creation, whereas the 1979 Iranian Revolution--which did many of those things (except for effecting the borders)--is not?
The historical fact is that an Iranian state composed predominantly of Iranian peoples and ruled by Iranians has existed for 2 and a half millennia. And honestly, rather like China, even when Iranians are being ruled by non-Iranians, Iranian culture is still a prestige culture, especially in the Abbasid caliphate. The Iranian nation-state cannot be a mere product of British/Russian influence when it predates the existence of either of those nations (not even countries, nations), and the British and the Russians played no part in effecting the creation of said nation-state, at best merely temporarily disestablishing it.
And this is why I said "more or less continuously." I'm not denying that there are disruptions to continuity--were I to do so, I would not need to modify "continuous." Instead, I'm denying that those disruptions actually matter for the political analysis.
You claimed that the iranian state existed independently since 1500s. I proved you wrong.
> the continuation of the territorial integrity of Iran
"The treaty confirmed the ceding and inclusion of what is now Dagestan, eastern Georgia, most of the Republic of Azerbaijan and parts of northern Armenia from Iran into the Russian Empire."
You can find the others. I won't bother with the sphere of influences carved out by russia and britain within iran itself where iran had to grant privileges to russia and britain over a few provinces. If you look at the map, almost 2/3rd of iran proper was under russian or british "influence".
If it is easier for you to see rather than read...
> The historical fact is that an Iranian state composed predominantly of Iranian peoples and ruled by Iranians has existed for 2 and a half millennia.
Other than when the arabs and the mongols took charge for a bit. Right? Pretty major events in iranian and world history you completely forgot about.
> The Iranian nation-state cannot be a mere product of British/Russian influence
Sure it can because iran lost a significant portion of its territory to russia/britain in the past few hundred years. Modern iran exists as it is today because of britain and russia. Iran was much bigger before the rise of the west. Nation-state is a modern european concept. Iran's landmass looks the way it does because of all the wars lost to britain and russia.
> I'm not denying that there are disruptions to continuity
Then why are you arguing with me?
> Instead, I'm denying that those disruptions actually matter for the political analysis.
What? That's as ridiculous as saying the opium wars and the european colonization of china doesn't matter for political analysis. That the colonization of india doesn't matter. The partitioning of india doesn't matter? Since the chinese, indians, turks, etc all rule their own countries, european colonization doesn't matter?
What you wrote is so absurd that it's the political/historical equivalent of saying the earth is flat. Modern iran looks the way it does, geographically and politically, because of western expansion/invasion. It's a nation-state and not a empire because of the west.
This will be my last response as I know you'll just find another topic to argue about. To claim that iran had political/state/government, territorial, etc continuity since the 1500s when iran lost tons of land to russia/britain, it collapsed from an empire to a western forced 'nation-state' and had huge swathes of territory cordoned off in sphere of influence is absurd.
> Since the chinese, indians, turks, etc all rule their own countries, european colonization doesn't matter?
That is absolutely not what I said. But I'm not going to elaborate any further since apparently you believe that trying to explain why your responses are somewhere between misreading my statements and an outright strawman argument is just "finding another topic to argue about." If you're ever willing to actually engage my arguments in good faith, then perhaps I might revisit that decision.
These are two historic rivals. Maybe with the right governments they can work out deals like we work out with Canada and Mexico with regard to shared resources —but I’m not holding my breath on this given the Kurds are kind of the out group within the Iraqi family and probably won’t get full support from the central govt.